Bringing up the rear of this release parade is the most important of all, the appearance release. This gives you permission to use a person's likeness and voice in your show and you should try to never shoot anyone who hasn't already signed one of these. Anyone who's face appears onscreen must sign an appearance release or they will have to be blurred, including random people walking by in the background. Also worth noting is that subjects MUST BE SOBER when signing the release for it to be valid, or else they can sue you even if you have the release.
Usually during a shoot on the street, PA's help wrangle folks away from the camera, or intercept the ones who already walked through a shot to get them to sign a release. So, an average show has hundreds of appearance releases, especially if there are scenes that take place in public, at a club, etc. They need to be kept track of for a clearance coordinator to watch the cut and make sure everyone is released. Best thing to do is write a large bold number on the back of every release beforehand, starting with 001 and going up from there. After each person signs their release, have them hold up the side that has the number on it and take a digital picture of them. This way, the number can be matched to the release and thus the release can be matched to the person in the footage. If you have an iPad, there is an app for this so people can sign on the screen and you can just take a picture with the iPad's camera.
Here is a standard appearance release:
I'm curious as to how many studios or networks actually use Release Apps while shooting. Have you worked with any particular shows that really benefited from using an Ipad to get releases?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it looks like there isn't really an app that professionals would recommend, but there may soon be one. Here's this response I got from Robert Tonkin at http://batchcapture.com/
ReplyDelete"That's a tough order to fill, unfortunately. While my company provides the leading TV industry tools to manage and match signed documents to cuts during the TV clearance process, we currently don't have a "field signature" tool.
We'd originally hoped to integrate with a robust third-party tool for this, but they're just not that great and operate in a far different way than I believe you'd need them to work.
In the end, while getting that signature on paper is sometimes cumbersome, we have found that it's tough to compete with a pen and paper on this when everything is factored in.
But we do look at every mobile signature tool we can find out there for both the iPad and Android and while I can't recommend any of them, you can be the judge. A search on "sign documents" in either the Android or iTunes store will lead you to these types of apps.
Of course we want to solve this so we're building something that will beat pen and paper. By year end or earlier, we will be launching a fully-integrated mobile signature solution connected to our RELEASE system."
So it looks like there's nothing good out there now, but maybe on the horizon. Hope this helps...
Thanks for looking at my blog!
Dan