The director's agreement: what producer and director record

A director’s agreement is the contract in which a film producer and a director record which film they are making together, what the director does for it, which rights the producer acquires and what remuneration stands in return. A film calls for many very different parties: a producer, financiers, technicians and the creative makers. The director is one of those makers and carries the final responsibility for the creative side of the film. The producer contracts the director and records the arrangements in a director’s agreement.

Roughly four elements deserve extra attention. The general starting points, the obligations of the director, the obligations of the producer and the remuneration. We go through them below.

Are you having a director’s agreement drawn up, or have you as a director been presented with one that you would like assessed before you sign? Feel free to get in contact with film law lawyer Roland Wigman or call 020 675 88 21.

What producer and director have to agree on

Producer and director must want to make the same film. There must therefore be agreement, in broad terms, on the end product. In practice producer and director choose one another precisely because of that vision of the film, which of course already gives an important start to that agreement.

Beyond that, the producer has to be able to exploit the film. Article 45d of the Dutch Copyright Act assumes that certain exploitation rights lie with the producer, even without any contractual arrangement. Even so, the producer will want to hold more rights than the Act names, in order to exploit the film to the full. The provisions on rights therefore deserve particular attention in the director’s agreement. They form part of the chain of title that distributors, broadcasters and insurers will ask about later.

Which obligations does the director take on?

In making the film the director has a number of obligations that follow in part from the final responsibility for the creative side. They are usually set out expressly in the director’s agreement.

The screenplay. The director makes the film according to the screenplay. That screenplay is, after all, the basis on which the financiers were willing to finance the film.

The budget. The director takes note of the budget and works within it. The budget is either in the agreement itself or attached as an annex. Often nobody knows the final budget at the moment producer and director sign. They then record that the director will take note of it at a later stage. The budgetary room works through into virtually every choice that follows: actors, locations, costumes, stunts, special effects.

The schedule. Following on from the budget, the director works to the schedule: the number of days for preparation, for shooting and for completing the film. That schedule belongs in the agreement as well.

Team and cast. The producer expects the director to make choices in consultation with the producer about the team that will realise the film and about the actors who will play the parts.

Third-party rights. The director makes sure that no protected work of third parties ends up in the film without prior permission: paintings, photographs, trade marks, image and sound fragments. The director usually gives the producer an indemnity for this. This bears directly on the clearing of rights and on the errors and omissions insurance that distributors and broadcasters almost always require.

And which obligations does the producer take on?

The producer’s most important obligation often remains implicit. The producer has to enable the director to do their work. Where there is agreement on the desired end product, the producer must also give the director the opportunity to realise that end product within the budgetary limits. Beyond that, the producer pays the director.

Remuneration for the work and for the rights

In principle there are two forms of remuneration. One for the work to be carried out and one for the rights to be granted. Usually the parties do not distinguish between those two components and agree a single amount. The level depends in part on the director’s experience and on their commercial and artistic success in the past.

If the film becomes a commercial success, the director can claim additional remuneration. That does not have to appear in the agreement. It follows from the law and from the requirement that the remuneration must be fair.

Are you in doubt whether the amount on the table is reasonable? Feel free to put the agreement to us.

Statutory claims always remain in place

A director’s agreement never detracts from the statutory claims to remuneration that a director has under the Dutch Copyright Act, such as private copying, lending right and the remuneration for broadcasting. Those claims stand apart from whatever producer and director agree between themselves.

Would you like to know how article 45d works out in practice? Read about the Supreme Court ruling on article 45d of the Copyright Act.

Transparency about costs and revenues

For some years now the law has obliged the producer to be transparent towards the director: about what the film has cost, what the film has brought in and who has earned from it. That allows the director to judge better whether their remuneration was, or still is, fair.

It is a statutory obligation, but it does no harm to record the precise transparency obligations in the director’s agreement itself as well.

Want a director’s agreement drawn up or reviewed?

A director’s agreement does not stand on its own. It is connected to the screenplay, to the co-production agreement, to the financing and to all the arrangements that together form the chain of title. We draw up those contracts and review them, for producers and for directors who are presented with an agreement. See also our page on film law for the full picture.

Do you have a director’s agreement in front of you, or are you about to enter into one? Get in contact with us, we are happy to think along with you.