Eve Foreman: navigating contracts, copyright and legal terms for Australian screen projects
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What is the purpose of this episode and who is the guest?
Welcome to Breaking Screen, a podcast about the Australian screen industry and the creative people within it. I'm your host, Karis Bazaka, and I'm recording this podcast from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Iora Nation, where I'm very grateful to be a visitor and be able to work on these lands. Always was, always will be. Joining me on today's episode is lawyer Eve Foreman, who's the principal of entertainment law practice McLay William. Eve has worked in the film and television industry for over 20 years, starting with hands-on experience in the production office, script department, and in continuity, and then becoming admitted to practice as a lawyer. She predominantly acts for producers across their development, financing, production, and distribution work, as well as advising
US studios on production work in Australia. Throughout the podcast, Eve covers a variety of topics, including whether legal requirements differ if your project is low budget or big budget, some of the legal jargon people might encounter, what to do if you need clearances for things like video game characters or songs, terms to expect or look out for if you're selling your project, and much more. Here's that chat.
Yeah.
And so we always start the podcast the same way talking about inciting incidents. Uh, what would be the inciting incident of your career?
Um, probably when I was at law school and I don't Even though I full disclosure, both parents are in the film industry as creatives. So my dad's a cinematographer and mum's a costume designer. They're both semi retired now, working on kind of art film projects and docos and the like. But I s I didn't actually appreciate at that time that you could kind of work as a lawyer exclusively in film and T V and I didn't think I wanted to get into the film and TV industry because I'd sat on the side of freelancers where it was all very kind of last minute and you wouldn't know when the next job was coming up and Sometimes you feel amazing like off the back of several projects and then other times you'd have big periods of unemployment and that
What was Eve Foreman’s inciting incident that led her into entertainment law?
As a child of that, I was I didn't like that at all. So I wasn't really interested in getting into the film and T V industry. But then a film producer was like, Have you ever thought about doing entertainment law? And I hadn't, I don't think I appreciated there was that area. I didn't think I was interested in it. And he was just super enthusiastic and he's like, Why don't you come along, take some time out of law school? And come along and mirror what I'm doing in film production and I'll make sure all the contracts that I'm doing come through you and you'll get an understanding of what it is and see if you like it. Um, so just a really generous person. I I feel like I've been lucky with the generosity of some really fantastic mentors.
So he was the first one, Gus Howard, working at Southern Star I think at the time. And so I came along and worked on a project called Rain Shadow. and married him and I really enjoyed it and They were a bit light on in the continuity script department, so I ended up helping out there. And then off the back of that I was finishing my law degree and just working on a bunch of short films and other bits and pieces. So then I got quite interested. in film production I thought I wanted to be a film producer, so then I did a bunch of different Random things to get better on set experience. I'm South Australian, South Australian Film Corporation was really supportive. I did SAFC funded attachments for both production.
And continuity. and worked with some producers who came to South Australia to shoot, Leah Churchill Brown on Beautiful Kate. And Tim White on the Boys are back. And then I moved to Sydney to keep working with Leah and Tim. Yeah, so I would say Gus Howard was the first one who's like, Hey, there's this thing called entertainment Laura and you might be interested in it. And then through working with really generous, lovely, exciting producers such as Lear and Tim. Yeah, and then, you know, the next stage was the lawyer stage.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the purpose of this episode and who is the guest?
0:02–2:05
2
What was Eve Foreman’s inciting incident that led her into entertainment law?
2:05–5:18
3
How did Eve’s early production experience shape her legal career?
5:18–11:23
4
What services does Eve’s firm provide to Australian producers?
11:23–37:37
5
What is a ‘chain of title’ and why is it critical for screen projects?
37:37–43:35
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Breaking Screen
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