Filmmaker Beware II: SAG's Low-Budget Agreements

Some of you know I have serious concerns about using the SAG ultra-low-budget agreement.  The low budget agreements are supposed to be for us low budget filmmakers and union actors who want to participate in indie films.  But to use SAG's low-budget agreements, you also need to sign the Basic Agreement.

Today, I called the SAG office and asked for a copy of the Basic Agreement to see what it looks like.  Turns out the Basic Agreement is 800 pages.

That's right.  EIGHT HUNDRED PAGES of requirements and fines.

Are the SAG administrators smoking CRACK? 

It might be arguable that Sony or Disney could handle an 800 page contract -- they have an army of lawyers and their budgets are in the hundreds of millions.  But to claim that this is okay for an indie filmmaker who scraped up a budget of $200k is mind-boggling.

My thoughts must have been in my voice because the SAG rep immediately said, "Oh, 5 or 6 of the tabs don't even apply to you if you're using the low budget agreement."

"Okay.  How many tabs are there?"

"Uh.  You really want me to count them ALL?"

...

Here's something I picked up from my conversation with the rep.  If you sell DVDs of your movie (or show it on TV or cable) without a theatrical distribution, then your SAG actors' pay rate retroactively jumps up to $759/day.  I bet you didn't plan for that in your budget.  This little gem of a clause is buried somewhere in 800 pages of legalese.  (Wonder what the other 799 pages talk about?)

So if your film is direct to DVD, then you will owe SAG a whole lot of money.  The rep said you can get around this clause by showing your film at a theatre, even for one night, so long as they charge market rates for tickets.  Great.  Film festivals charge market rates for tickets.  Oh, but film festival showings don't count.  And neither do "art house" theatres, regardless of whether they charge market rates.  Who decides what is an art house?  SAG. 

Who wants to go straight to DVD or show their film at an art house theatre, anyway?  Those venues are always crammed full of pesky low-budget indie films... oh ... wait a minute...

So, filmmakers beware.  If you choose to go with a SAG low budget agreement, keep your eyes w-i-d-e open.