Last month I had the opportunity to attend the Tribeca Film Institute's excellent Distribution 101 panel here in NYC. The panelists from HBO and Tribeca Films shared a lot of valuable information about deliverables -- i.e., if your film is acquired, you do not simply send over the movie itself, but also need to have a cornucopia of legal documents ready, including photo releases, chain of title, music cue sheet, and an errors & omissions policy. Above and beyond the info on the panel, attendees were handed a nifty USB flash drive, which contained a number of very useful documents and templates. Now TFI has released these documents free; if you hope to have a film acquired by a distributor one day, do not miss your chance to grab these files now.
Note: these are the actual deliverable documents that Tribeca Film requires. Requirements may vary by distributor, but knowing about these requirements ahead of time can help ensure your ducks are in a row from day one. They say it best:
There are certain obvious materials that are essential to releasing your film, and other not-so-obvious materials that may earn you gold stars and make your film much more attractive to potential distributors.
Link: Distribution 101: Lists, Documents and Other Essentials From Our Panel - Tribeca Film Institute
