I forgot to mention the other big bonus of splitting it with the school. Everyone competing will likely sign a waiver or release form. It doesn't take much for the school to add a paragraph about being filmed for an event video.

by the book
 

I'm a by-the-book type of guy and this type of large audience event is a first for me. Much different than a wedding and other smaller, individual based projects.

I want to be as legally pure as possible, but I have a feeling I'm going to miss something ignorantly. And I'm the guy that worries that the one wrong person will be in attendance and looking to cause problems.

What I'm going to shoot for is to get signatures from all of the competitors parents and keep the cameras on them. That shouldn't be too much of a problem as I'll get to the coaches early and talk to them about the taping. I'll have talent release forms ready with signatures for the parents and competitors.

If anyone refuses to sign, I won't tape their performance.

Hi Jacob -
First, don't be surprised if you sell quite a few more DVD's than you expect - I shot one recital as a "favor" for a friend - as an afterthought they announced DVD's would be available - I expected 20 tops, burned over 100... a little marketing and probably would have been a lot more... People like watching themselves or especially for parents, their "kids"...

Second, when you find an attorney that can answer ALL legal questions surrounding IP (intellectual property, which includes copyrights, etc.), you'd better also buy a lottery ticket, because you'd be the luckiest man alive!!

Attorneys can parse words to argue anything... what does "is" mean...? If someone is "looking to make trouble", they can probably find an atty to take the case... this is the risk one takes in a litigious society, best you can hope for is to try to cover your tail any way you can think of in advance and cross your fingers. If you've covered your tail reasonably well in advance, your legal fees should only wipe out 2-3 years of profits rather than your whole business should you get "screwed" (oops, I meant to say sued...).

Legal issues can pretty much suck the fun out of anything, but ya gotta try to be careful and proceed with caution. Keep in mind that any legal advice you get is only going to provide guidance... you can be 100% in the right and still end up on the recieving end of a suit... and lose... just life in these United States!

I explored this area for my business and i have to be honest, I didn't delve into the legalities until after I did my initial "test" on the potential market.

my conclusion is yes, it could be worthwhile covering such sporting events.

But as someone earlier mentioned. A lot of work needs to be done to generate adequate earnings and compared to other avenues, well, for me its not a contender.

My feeling is that if one could deliver a good product which couldn't be copied too easily then, and only then, could it pay off.
I tried to discourage copying by going heavy on the cover and disc design on this particular project.

http://www.iol.ie/~griffinpromedia/nabba/nabba.html

Jacob,

This is pretty good advice. This is why it would be better, (though likely would not work), to follow Dylan's initial advice. That is, to get paid by the school to shoot the competition, edit the job, and turn over the tapes.

Here's a scenario. The whole cheerleading team, but one member, sign a release. does this mean you can't shoot the team?

I'd consider this too. These are cheerleaders. Would-be, wanna-be, models or actresses or whatever. The likelihood that one of them (or their parents) is going to guard their image closely, is much higher than say... the high school jazz band or the football team. Especially if you've got skirts flying up, or unflattering shots... yikes! Could be trouble.

Or worse yet! Someone buys a copy of your DVD, re-cuts it (or maybe not), and it shows up on youtube or some soft porn site under the title 'Hot, Young, Cheerleaders'. I know it's not likely, but there's something about the cheerleading aspect of this that makes it seem like trouble.

You live in a very litigious country. It's so bad that MY insurance company in Canada won't insure me if I do business in the US. They say the likelihood of getting sued is far too great.

I hope it works out for you.

off hand ! ...
who is responsable party for state sales tax ?
the school if they are selling ? ( jacob sells wholesale to school )
Jacob if he is selling ?
or eveybody forgets sales tax ?

state sales tax.
 

I'm taking on the state sales tax.

Update:
 

Things went as I expected on Saturday. We sold 23 instead of the 20 I predicted. This event was very different than anything else I’ve done. I have a huge appreciation for anyone who is part of a broadcast team that produces a live event that lasts 10 hours. I did it by myself with some help from a kid keeping an eye on the full view camera. We got there at 7am and didn’t leave until 7pm and it was intense from start to finish. Intense = fun and tired.

It’s funny how people will pay $22 for a t-shirt, but “I ain’t payin’ that much for a video”. Next time I’ll package DVDs in a case stitched to a company promotion t-shirt and I’ll sell hundreds of units. We took a bunch of email addresses, so when I get a little demo to send those folks I suspect I’ll take in a few more orders if not several more. My biggest problem was that I didn’t have a “cheerleading” demo to run on the TV at our display table and no one knows what to expect from the final product. I had demos of other stuff, but not cheerleading.

I captured the audio with a rented AKG C414 on a mic stand about 20 feet from the competitors. The DJ was set up on the gym floor about 45 degrees from the mic and the sound turned out pretty good for a 1-mic set up. No clipping and nice range.

I’ve been asked to do another competition coming up in a month or so and I learned a lot about what to expect next time. I’m very pleased with the number of people that we’re in attendance through out the day and the DJ did an awesome job throwing “plugs” our way every 30 minutes or so. Sure, I would’ve liked to have sold more units up front, but getting our name out there to over 1,000 people in our demographic wheelhouse is good too. Plus, I love this stuff.

Not sure if anyone else has had this happen, but my wife said that several people came up to her at the booth and asked, “Are yall taking pictures too?” Apparently they thought we were also one of those “sports shots” groups. Those guys always seem to do well at the ball fields.

I took this job primarily on the prospect of future business, learning the process and legal issues, and after the post production process is complete I think people will be impressed and know what they’re paying for next time.

Yep. And they will pay $10 for a single still and not your price for the entire comp. Go figure.

Based on my experience, you might get 3-7 after event sales if you are lucky. It goes out of sight and mind after the event.

You're probably right.
 

You're probably right. There are more than a couple of teams that want to purchase them as a group for the price break and we traded email addresses and such, but we'll see.

It was what I expected it to be. I will focus more attention to a demo for the next one.

George, do you do these as well? I see that you're close. I grew up in Gwinnett, but like many locals we've moved on to other locations not so crowded.

I have shot band competitions in the past. And yes, here in Gwinnett.

The demo will help too.