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Rental Agreement


RPSharman

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Since the competitive bid thread went here...

I drew up this contract based off Noah's - fits on one page, which they like.

Thoughts?

I guess I will just go ahead and post the original here.  I hadn't been planning on it, but what you have posted is so very similar that it probably only makes sense to have the original available for comparison's sake.

Some of what you have done is just streamlining the text a bit, which as we all know, sometimes is probably good to do with what I write.

That said, here are a few objections to your revision:

"Equipment rental agreement will be effective the first day of the film production, or the day production takes possession of the equipment from the owner, currently ______________ (date), and will end once the equipment is returned to owner, currently ______________ (date).  Owner "

I believe the dates should be very concrete.  You know when you are booked from and until, or should be, when you accept the job.  Leaving it vague with "currently" doesn't benefit you and can leave room for legal loopholes.  At least in what is usual for me, the loadout rarely happens the day of shooting, and that's when the contract should begin to protect you -- when the truck drives away with your gear.  I've seen equipment trucks overturn on the BQE and trucks (or their contents) get stolen while the drivers were off having pizza.  You can always alter the return date later as they go over schedule, change the loadin day, etc if you feel it is necessary.  Usually that only affects the end of the shoot and by then one usually has a good idea of whom one is dealing with.

I should note that I've never had to invoke this agreement.  Most of the time I'm lucky and my clients take care of L&D without much fuss or arguing.  90% of the time it's just obvious stuff like comteks and earwigs lost, radios dropped, slates beaten up, and lavs broken in self-dewiring by the talent or improvised physical fight scenes no one (including the director) was warned about.  But there was an instance years ago where a pipe froze and broke in a walkaway location while we were sleeping, flooding it.  Tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear was lost.  The deal the insurance company eventually wrangled with production was not nearly enough to cover all of production's losses and I did have to seek collecting directly from production.  I eventually recouped most of my losses and there wasn't really a battle, and I assume that they would have taken responsibility regardless, but I'll never know what would have happened if the agreement had not been in place. 

"Equipment shall be rented at the fixed rate of _______/day during all film shooting days.  "

I think it's easier to leave your options open for how you want to bill your client for your kit rental, or what you agree upon with the client.  This mandates it's a fixed day rate only applicable for shoot days, which is not necessarily how it always goes.

".  An invoice for equipment will be submitted at the end of each week, or at the conclusion of the picture, if shooting period is shorter than one week."

Many times equipment is paid for through the payroll company rather than through weekly invoices.  This can be preferred for several reasons: A) it ensures payment is timely, B) the payroll check won't bounce (unlike how a company check from the client might) and C) it is less work with invoices, getting a million 1099s at the end of the year from every show, etc.  I'm not sure that insisting upon separately invoicing the client is the best idea.

"Additional Insured & Loss Payee "

As I understand it, Loss Payee is the only necessary part, not Additional Insured.  I also usually prefer the production company to name the insurer as part of the rental agreement -- that way there's no room for debate about it when that happens.

"Damages shall be repaired as quickly as possible, including incurring rush repair fees and priority shipping, if required. Rental of replacement units during repair period, if required, will be the responsibility of production.:

Too much "if required" here -- lawyers can have a field day with that one.  Also, it opens up the door to what happens when the camera truck gets robbed or stolen on the second to last day of the shoot and you're supposed to start another movie for someone else the next week.  I know what you meant, but "if required" and so forth may allow them to construe that they are only responsible while they are shooting their film.  I prefer to make it clear that until equipment is repaired and returned, they are responsible for a replacement, and that time frame solely revolves around the repair time.  Otherwise you may have to justify your obligation to another client and why the current client is responsible, and who knows how that will go with the lawyers and the courts.

"the equipment, except will express permission of the owner."

WITH express permission of the owner

These are subtle criticisms, but what's going to happen if a client decides to screw you (and it gets to that point) is that they'll send this agreement to their legal team and see if they can get out of it.  The more wiggle room you give them, the longer you'll end up in an unhappy court battle and that wiggle room may affect the outcome.  The best way to avoid such things (and getting into one in the first place) is to make the terms clear, obviously spelled out, and unwavering.  None of it is really unreasonable or unfair, in my opinion.

.02 nvt

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This is a very interesting thread. Noah has a good rental agreement form that covers the issues well.

A couple of years ago I was researching an article about equipment insurance for the Local 695 newsletter and I tried to address the issue of the reluctance of production managers to sign a detailed contract. Often they will balk or insist on sending the document to their legal department for advice. I consulted with my sister, an attorney, and she advised me to draw up a very simple letter that merely establishes that the production company is renting equipment from me and assumes responsibility for its safety. This requires only about three sentences and I rarely have difficulty getting a producer to sign it.

According to my family legal advice, the two pages of 9-point boilerplate that make up the standard camera rental agreement really address ancillary points. For instance, the detailed agreement may be very specific about how quickly settlement is to be made and how disagreements must be adjudicated. These are not trivial points but they may not be absolutely necessary. Most people, I think, will try to be honest and responsible. Some require a little nudge in that direction, particularly when being responsible requires some sacrifice. And a simple letter of agreement can provide that nudge by confirming the nature of the business relationship. The people who have no intention of behaving responsibly will stiff you regardless of the documents you hold. While specific contract details may be enforceable, they require expensive and troublesome court action. If you believe you are working for decent people (and why would you risk working for anyone you think may be less than honorable?) then a very simple agreement ought to be enough. Of course, if they company is willing to sign a fully specific contract, like the one Noah uses, go for it. There is some risk in using my simplified version. But I think it's a manageable risk, considering the strain that pushing for an all-encompassing rental agreement can put on the relationship.

I'll post my sample letter in another post.

David Waelder

(working e-mail is my name + wae, my server is earthlink dot net)

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My sample letter of agreement:

(I request that the production company use my text on their own letterhead. I permit them to reword the text so long as they hit all the important points. And I do, of course, make certain that they get a detailed inventory prior to load-in.)

Letterhead

[Name of Production Company]

Address

Address

Phone

[Date]

[Name of Production Company] is renting motion picture sound equipment from David Waelder for the production of “Name of Show.” [Name of Production Company] acknowledges receipt of an inventory of the supplied equipment and pledges to provide insurance coverage at replacement value and to assume responsibility for its safety. Rental is expected to commence on [Date] and conclude on or about [Date].

Signed and agreed to by:

Position:

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Noah,

Thank you very much for sharing your rental agreement.  This topic just came up with a producer friend of mine who had gear stolen on her last film.  The show's mixer pretty much got screwed as the insurance company paid out to everyone with a contract first.  Your agreement seems very well written and serves as an excellent reference.  It does seem like a good idea for this to become a standard practice for everyone.

Wow, you clearly have a lot more gear than I do.  I don't think I can fill anywhere near 11 pages! 

Thanks,

Brandon

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Wow, you clearly have a lot more gear than I do.  I don't think I can fill anywhere near 11 pages! 

Well, everything is detailed line by line in the inventory list, down to lav accessories, adapters and patch cables, which makes it chew up a lot of paper.  (I certainly don't bill the production for two lost RCA adapters or anything like that -- it's more to cover what would happen if the entire adapter and/or patch kits got lost, which then represent a larger sum [and in the case of the patch kit, days of soldering]).

Thanks for your nice words.

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There is some risk in using my simplified version. But I think it's a manageable risk, considering the strain that pushing for an all-encompassing rental agreement can put on the relationship.

I've tried to make it non-confrontational and simply spell out that they are responsible for loss and damage while the equipment is working in the service of their production, or in its possession.  FWIW, again, maybe I've just been lucky but I have never really had a strained relationship with anyone based upon the rental agreement, other than the one example I pointed out in the other thread where the production company refused flat-out to sign it at the last minute after holding it for weeks without any indication of such.  That, for me, proved that these clients were not really ones I wanted to work for, and I didn't end up doing so.  It cemented further fears about other questionable demands they were making, and when I talked to others who had worked on the show I didn't end up doing I found out the job was a nightmare and I was right to refuse it.  It's only happened once in many years.

The rest of the time, all that happens is I send out the agreement to the UPM or LP a couple of weeks before load-in, they sign it and return it with a C of I, and we're done.  It's the same thing they do for every other rental house, I believe, whether it's trucks, lights, cameras, props or what have you.  The few times I encountered initial opposition, it was something along the lines of "well, other sound mixers don't make us do this" -- that's why I think it's important for the procedure to become more standard, since I believe it is protection that isn't unfair and that we all deserve.  I do also think it's our responsiblity to play fair and try to resolve conflicts peacefully when they occur and not to wave contracts in people's faces at the first instance of L&D or questions about resolving it.  The contract is more for when all other options have been exhausted without satisfaction, and as I've said, I've never really had to invoke it.

I think in the unfortunate event of a lawsuit or court battle (thankfully, it's never come up for me) having specifics in there would shorten the length of that, rather than extend it.  I think having it vague and not concretely defined leaves lots of room for interpretation, and those of us with other legal experience do know that those things can make the wheels of justice grind very slow indeed, and not necessarily in one's favor.

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Since the competitive bid thread went here...

I drew up this contract based off Noah's - fits on one page, which they like.

Thoughts?

rpsharman,

it looks good,

but you should have the  full replacement "costs" (not value)

or thats what you will,  the value of the gear. when you will have to purchase brand new gear. especially now with so many manufactorers having "unilatteral pricing", you will be out thousands of $$ if a items are lost or stolen.

also,

nice job Noah. I was having trouble sending my contract to jw.

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Okay - With some modifications... here's another agreement.

I left the invoice section in there, because I have always invoiced for my equipment rental, and plan to continue doing so.  But I know some other folks use the box rental area on the timecards, and some productions require it.  So you may want to replace that bit.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and if can all agree on something once we have collected some input, then we have our somewhat standard form.

Equipment_Rental_Agreement2.doc

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Thank you very much for posting your rental agreements.  This has been a great help.

I'm interested to see how they bounce off my UPM.  Always good fun to watch.

I thought about this very thread as they were bringing my crushed bullhorn back to the sound cart yesterday...  I get the craziest shows...

PWP

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good job everyone, very good documents.

I hope none of you have to deal with the "big ticket" items if lost or stolen off set.

second note the philip was talking about was a pdf of a "competitive bid". both Robert Noone and myself thought of this and we both concluded that there was a little more personilized info needed ist hand when typing up a qoute from a vendor, instead of just filling in the blanks.

so we (lsc, coffey) have a standard competitive bid we both save and just change the info as requested.. and we just tpye 1 line item,with a "inflated" weekly price, actually a true weekly if they rented all the items it would be around $5,000 a week (competitive bid multitrack  recording package) instead of listing over 100 items that you the sound mixers would bring to the game. so far production has been very responsive to the bids with just the line items stating a competitve bid for the week. lets face it they just have to show it to the bean countwers that you are giving them a good deal. (it's not like they would rent from us anyway for the season)

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