Contracts

Contracts

What contracts have you worked with? - Tiffany and Vey

When Reaction Theatre came into college to perform their show ‘The Magnetic Diaries’, we had a Q&A session with them before the show. Within the session, we were informed about the contracts that they have and are using.

The contract which Tiffany (the director) offered to Vey (the actor) was a Heads of Agreement contract. The contract includes many different elements such as a period of employment and company expectations. It also includes the ownership of devised work which means that if the play becomes famous, then the individual is not allowed to claim it as the material belongs to the theatre company and not to you specifically. The contract also includes subsistence which covers food and travel for the days of which you are working with the company.

Tiffany went on to tell us that when she works with an actor, she normally offers them a contract because it is easier and the actor is aware of what they are entitled to. 

What contracts have you worked with? - Cara Tivey

Cara has worked with 3 types of contracts. These are:

Retaining contract – a contract where you are employed with the band/company all the time even if you’re not with the band all of the time. In this case, you are paid half of what you are paid when working with the band. You are also paid per diem (per day) which is £15 per day which paid for extra expenses. The only band that gave Cara a contract (Everything but the girl) paid her £500 per day when recording in a studio but then was paid nothing when the records were released, Whilst on this contract she got paid £500 a week when on tour.

Licensing contract – issued when working with the BBC or ITV. When you work on a programme such as Top of the Pops or TGIF you are given a contract in which you give your permission for your performance to be played around the world. If there is a link to another record company you would also get paid by them. Cara was paid £150 per day from TV companies.

Publishing contract – signed for 3 years. For this contract the publisher acts on your behalf to exploit your work. 60% of the money earnt goes to the musician and the other 40% goes to the publisher. However, this can change to a 70% to 30% split or even to a 75% to 25% split. When on this contract, Cara was paid a non-returnable advance of £2000 and with that she bought a recording system so she could record her own pieces. A publisher publishes individual pieces by the artist. The publisher will help the artist to promote their material in a number of ways. They may liaise with a record company, they will carry out research to find out if anybody is looking for the type of material that they are publishing - this could be film companies, advertising agencies, TV production companies. In other words they exploit their published material in order to support the artists. 

What types of contracts do you work with? - Dinos Aristieou

Variety of contracts- one day positions, annual positions, project based positions. The majority I would say are project based.