Clearance report clients hire us to read their scripts and use our experience to tell them that story elements are “clear” or “not clear.” Seeing the words “Consider clear for use” throughout the report means no clearance-triggered revisions, no permission requests, no conversations with your lawyer. Smooth sailing. A report seldom has 100% good news, though. What happens when something doesn’t clear?
Any clearance company you work with should provide clear alternatives that you can use instead. The cost of clear alternatives is a factor to consider when hiring your clearance company. We try to provide (free of charge) 2 clear alternatives for each NOT CLEAR cast name; if we are banging our heads against the wall and coming up with little to nothing, though, we’ll give you what we have been able to clear and we will consult with you on what you want to do next.
We look to the script for clues about how to come up with these names. Is the male lead referred to mainly by his first name? If so, we’ll look for some alternatives to the surname. We’ll try to find surnames that match the flavor of the scripted name, i.e. Jack Murphy won’t become Jack Van Damme but rather something along the lines of Jack Murray, Jack Moriarty, etc.
Our alternatives or yours? Some clients take every suggestion we offer. Others: not so much. For that reason, we started asking on our order forms whether you the client want to come up with the alternatives — or should we? That way, we are not wasting time and effort trying to clear numerous alternatives for Jack Murphy at a number of sources. The process can be quite time-consuming depending on the character’s attributes.
Over the years I have seen productions that are intent on using a scripted name that is not clear. They decide to contact the person/people who might be an issue and try to get him/them to sign off on name use. We’ll provide contact info in that situation. But if your Jack Murphy character is a doctor by day and serial killer by night, you’re not going to have much luck getting the only Jack Murphy m.d. we find in your setting to grant you permission to use his name. That’s where the cleared alternatives come in handy.
Once shooting is complete, that “not clear” story element puts you in an unfavorable negotiating position. Writer-director Edgar Wright whose 2017 movie Baby Driver featured large amounts of music speaks of his own recent experience with this scenario. Talking with Chris Willman of Variety in an interview published on June 29 2017, Wright said, “Even before the movie was at Sony, we had sort of quietly started clearing the tracks. Because, you know, if you’re going to do a movie called Baby Driver and try and use that song, you should approach them way ahead of time to make sure that that’s okay. You don’t want to be in a situation where you’ve made the movie and Simon & Garfunkel are saying, ‘Come on, pay up. We know you want this.’” The name clearance situation is the same; if you are approaching Dr. Jack Murphy to request permission once shooting on your serial killer movie has wrapped, you’re in a tough spot.
First published January, 2018