Contract Negotiations in the Age of Social Media

With references being much more important than university degrees in the media world, and with social media becoming more and more a vital tool to actually get your name around, you should make sure about a few important issues when you negotiate deals for projects:

1.) Specify the crediting in contracts/written agreements. This is particularly important when you are sub-contracted by another composer for doing orchestration/assistance/programming work. Make sure that you can use the name of the project on your CV. Additionally make sure in the contract that your name will be mentioned with the project/on IMDB/in the end credits etc. Don’t assume that this will happen automatically. There are many cases of people being massively disappointed about working on a project and learning later on that they are mentioned nowhere. Avoid that by clearing these things in the contract.

2.) Make sure to be able to use your work or even excerpts from the movie/game on your (public) Demo Reel. Leaving that out might even result in a juristic argument with a former client if you didn’t clarify your use of the material properly in the contract. In the excitement of landing a big gig and not wanting to be too demanding with your new client, many people just forget or ignore to secure their right to actually later on exploit the fact that they have worked on this project. But essentially, what is big project going to do to your career if you can not mention it properly?