New: The Documentary  Film Money Map - A Guide to Tax Incentives

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Women in Film & Television Louisiana is committed to the career

advancement of our membership. This is a guide to the Business

side of film:​

• FAIR USE FOR FILMMAKERS

• COPYRIGHT PROTECTION AND CLEARANCES

• MUSIC LICENSING

• GUIDES

• VIDEOS

• STUDIES

• GO GREEN WITH YOUR PRODUCTION

• MEDIA, DIVERSITY & SOCIAL CHANGE INITIATIVE

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• FAIR USE FOR FILMMAKERS

  • Fair Use is an important right for filmmakers.  We are lucky to have the AU Center for Media & Social Impact leading the discussion on this subject.  The Infographic: Can I Employ Fair Use In My Documentary? is available here. A handout, Documentarians, Fair Use and Best Practices is available here.  Pat Aufderheide, Director of CMSI, provided this powerpoint at a recent presentation, Making a Living in a Fair-Use-Friendly World.

• COPYRIGHT PROTECTION AND CLEARANCES 

  • General information

  • Registering and protecting your work

  • Searching registered copyrighted works

  • Guidance on copyright clearances

  • Trademarks Basic Information

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• MUSIC LICENSING

  • Compulsory digital transmission

  • Publishing/Composer

  • The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)

  • Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)

  • The Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC)

  • Mechanicals

  • Harry Fox Agency

  • TEXT AND IMAGE LICENSING

• GUIDES: 

  • New: Unit Photography Production Guide

  • Meryl Streep Funds Lab for Women Screenwriters Over 40

  • Queen Latifah Teams up with Jessica Chastain and Others to Launch Company to Produce Films By and About Women

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• VIDEOS

  • Vimeo is launching Share the Screen, an initiative to help female filmmakers by funding their projects, teaching them the business, and promoting their movies.

  • YouTube Boosts Female Content Creators with Two New Initiatives

  • Cindy Williams: “We Were Paid Half of What the Boys Made

  • Glamour’s: Role Reversal Series

  • Women In Hollywood and Gender Equality

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• STUDIES

  • Inclusion or Invisibility: Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment (CARD)​

  • Inclusion in the Director's Chair

  • Barriers and Bias: The Status of Women Leadership

  • Exploring the Careers of Female Directors: Phase III

  • Gender & Short Films: Emerging Female Filmmakers and the Barriers Surrounding their Careers

  • Inclusion or Invisibility? Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment

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• STATISTICS ABOUT WOMEN IN MEDIA INDUSTRY

  • If you are looking for statistics about women in the film industry, we suggest the Celluloid Ceiling reports by Martha Lauzen, PhD.  Click here for the most recent report.

  • Despite the high profile inclusion of films written and directed by women at this year’s Sundance Film Festival,a gender gap still persists in the American independent film industry, according to a study conducted by researchers at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism that was commissioned by the Sundance Institute and Women in Film Los Angeles. Only 24% of all movies programmed for the Festival between 2002 and 2012 were directed by women, the study found, and women are more likely to direct documentaries than narrative films. “Female directors are more likely to feature girls and women on screen than male directors,” said study authors Stacy L. Smith, Katherine Pieper and Marc Choueiti. (“Sundance 2013: Women lag men even in independent film, study finds”)

  • The International Women’s Media Foundation’s Global Report on the Status Women in the News Media reveals that men occupy 73% of the top management jobs and 64% of reporting jobs of the over 500 companies in almost 60 countries surveyed. The study provides more evidence supporting the challenges of women worldwide, in all fields of media, as well as identifying both glass ceilings and companies with model gender-parity policies. The full report is available here; a summary is available here.

  • The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is leading the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children’s entertainment. Dr. Stacy Smith and her team at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication carried out several discrete studies, including ones on children’s television and film.  Full reports are available here.  Summaries can be found here:

  • Key Findings of Changing the Status Quo: Industry Leaders’ Perceptions of Gender in Family Films

  • Key Findings of Gender Disparity On Screen and Behind the Camera in Family Films

  • Key Findings of Gender Stereotypes: An Analysis of Popular Films and TV

• GO GREEN WITH YOUR PRODUCTION

  • Want to “green” your production?  The School of Communications at American University has issued: Code of Best Practices for Sustainable Filmmaking.

  • Find out more about Second Line Stages the first Green Studio in the United States

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• MEDIA, DIVERSITY & SOCIAL CHANGE INITIATIVE

  • Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative recently published a report entitled Inequality in 700 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race, & LGBT Status from 2007 to 2014. The full report can be read here!

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If you have any questions or find a link not working, please contact us. 

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