LAW 7352 - Entertainment Business & Legal Affairs

An overview of the primary areas of practice in which a lawyer and/or business affairs executive engage at a typical Hollywood studio throughout all phases of development, production, marketing and distribution of theatrical motion pictures. Emphasis will be placed on the business aspects in each of these areas and the economics of the various revenues streams exploited in such distribution. Deal structures will be taught for the customary transactions entered into for both “in-house” productions as well as films financed and/or produced by third parties but distributed by the studio (i.e. acquisitions, negative pick-ups, co-productions, split rights arrangements, etc.) as well as studio deals with financial partners to lay off economic risk. The course will conclude with an exercise in which the students will select a motion picture slate made up of various genres, cast and deal models they will select based upon the project elements of actual (but anonymous) Hollywood studio productions. The success of those slates will then be projected as revealed by the actual performance of the movies from which those elements were taken. This course is an approved elective for the Business Law certificate and the Entertainment Law certificate. This course will satisfy the Practice Oriented Writing Requirement OR the Experiential Course Requirement; one course cannot satisfy both requirements at the same time. Letter grade. 3 credits