Filmmaking / Directing : Etiquette for dp's wanting film clips by Anna Maganini

He shot it so he wants to have it for his reel or to play with in Davinci Resolve. Obviously you don't want him publishing anything before your launch and you'd want to make sure he just uses it for his reel and nothing else, but I'd let him have it.

Thank you.

I'm confused. Is he asking for footage from a past film or the current film. If he's the DP on your current film - then he's the guy who shot it and turned it over to the Editor. He better have (on my crew) a complete backup of every frame he shot. As a Producer, I want a complete copy, my DP must have a complete copy and my Editor needs every frame. That way, I have it backed up for safety sake - sometimes I even squirrel away an extra copy. Call backs can be budget busters.

First... absent specific transfer of ownership in your contract with the DP, he/she owns the copyright to it. That's the law, and a standard clause in DP (and writer) agreements that differ from most other contracts... (most people don't know that). If you don't have that, it's not your footage. Assuming you DO have that, second... it's professional courtesy to let the DP have such access - it is, after all their work and they need to show it to potential employers - I would not normally restrict what footage they have access to.

I'm going to differ a little bit from some of the opinions here with my own observations, whether they are reasonable or not is up to you to sort out. Copyright law in the US indicates that if the cinematographer was hired by contract as an independent or loan out creative, and not an actual employee under your payroll executing photography for a wage, he generally owns the footage copyright automatically although you the producer have an implied license to use it. Sounds crazy, but research it. To be clear, this is photographic copyright not rights to the performances or rights to the script or the story but the actual images. Failure to have this worked out ahead of time has shelved films or cost producers serious headaches. This is why contracts are extremely important and understanding copyright laws equally so. I am not an attorney; this comes from my experience and that of colleagues over decades. The mutual problem for you and DP is that footage access timing and scope of exploitation should have been spelled out specifically in a paragraph within the DP contract before any work was done. Many people utilize a simple deal memo to hire DPs. An experienced DP or their agent would not merely sign a deal memo or omit this agreement. Even in the case where the DP is in fact an employee and copyright is owned wholly by production at creation, most DPs have a side agreement in writing related to use and several other issues that simply cannot be guessed at or covered by a memo. Access to everything she or he shot is not unreasonable although you have the de facto upper hand at this point. It is never unreasonable to stipulate the demo reel footage may not be available to viewers until the film is released. Also, the issue mentioned on DPs wanting to color or manipulate the images in a manner other than the way producers have finished the film is very common today but personally I think it's wrong. What should be happening is that the DP has supervisorial control and approval over the color grade of the film so that there is no need for him to present his "own version" on his demo reel. He also needs to be paid for his time; it is one of many things that seperate a DP from a cam op. Far too many producers exclude the cinematographer from post-production and historically this is simply wrong.