Legal/financial demands

When starting out as a freelance performer, you are essential starting up your very own business. Like any other business, you are legally bind to follow the correct legal and financial demands of the law.


In this post I will be exploring the information, facts and figures behind Personal Liability Insurance, Contract law, Agents, Tax returns, Casting directors, Unions and Book keeping.


In class, we were assigned one of the areas to look into and research in detail, before feeding our findings back to the rest of the class. We found this was an effective way of researching as to do each one individually would have taken much longer and would have been pointless as this makes everyone's work load too big. The positives about doing it this way were that we all found out something that we would perhaps have not found out if we were to have researched each area by ourselves. Also sharing information is a positive way of finding more information out about each area in a fair manner.


In this post, after the feeing back of information in these presentations, I have summaries each area below and stated the importance, facts and figures behind each area.











PL Insurance
Having PL insurance as a self-employed actor is essential as it protects you if you cause any damage to the public or public property by accident. For example, a magician would have to take out PL insurance in case he caused damage to a member of the audience when performing a trick. This insurance would cover the damages. The insurance company would have to pay out for the damage caused which without, the magician would have had to pay for out of the money invested into the business. All of this considered, I would definitely invest in PL insurance as it could potentially save you, as a self-employed performer, a lot of money in damages as accidents do happen, especially in such a busy industry.




Agents
It is really important to have yourself an agent when working as a freelance performer add they are constantly promoting you and what your skills set had to offer. It can be difficult to constantly be promoting yourself when working as updating your online presence on a daily basis can be difficult as there are so many platforms you should be active on. The agents’ job is to ensure you are constantly attending auditions which, for all different kinds of roles which really helps to boost your name out there into the industry and also keep your name fresh, in the minds of casting directors.










Tax returns
If you keep a record of all your receipts from products that you have purchased in relation to furthering your business as an actor, then you are able to claim back your tax from these products at the end the tax year, every April. This is a positive as starting out as a freelance performer will be expensive, especially in the first year therefore getting all the money back possible is a bonus and can then be invested back into your business.










Casting directors
Casting directors are the main people that you want to have on your side as an actor working in the industry. After having worked with them once, if you have made a positive impression on them, then they will remember your name and if a role comes up that they think you would be suited for, they could get in contact with you and ask that you turn up to the audition for the role. For this reason, it is so important to make a lasting impression on casting directors by being easy and reasonable to work with by turning up to meeting and shoot dates on time, ensuring that you have all of your lines learnt allowing the shooting process to go run fluidly and overall, be a happy and positive person to be around. Having a memorable personality, is also one of the keys to success. If you made the casting director laugh, then this is something they will remember. Why would they want to be working with an actor who is bland and does not spark a conversation easily with when they could be working with an actor with a bubbly personality who has the same acting abilities and fits the role well too. Being social and confident is the key to success in this industry.








Union
Being with a self-employed or acting union gives you, as an independent individual, a safety barrier to fall back on to if you get yourself into any financial or contracting trouble. For example, Equity are a good union for actors. If you are flown out of the country on a job and when you arrive, the job is not what you expected and the company who are employing you did not include specific details in the contract, then equity will ha e for you to fly back home and will get you safely and securely out of the contract. You have to pay Equity a joining fee and a fixed amount per month/ year and after this, you are free to ask them any questions throughout your time with them, contacting them at any time you please.








Book keeping

Ensuring you keep a record of your receipts from products you have purchased to further your business as a freelancer performer, is key because you are able to apply for a tax return at the end of the tax year in April. It has been suggested to me that you keep all bank statements, receipts and invoices in a folder, sectioned off appropriately. This will help you at the end of the year when to comes to calculating how much you are owed and this also ensures you have proof of the purchases/ truncation. With no proof, you will not get the tax money back which will be really helpful as you can invest it back into your business to help it develop and grow even more so.

Contract law

For the safety of your career and to ensure you are not agreeing to anything you are unhappy with, reading all of the contract for every job you are considering taking is essential. Even though it can be a lot of paper work to get through, the importance of reading it is vital.


The reasoning behind this is that contracts can be very different, even if they are for the same type of job e.g. Acting role. The differences could be minor or major. Minor differences could be how much you are getting paid. However bigger differences if not seen, can lead to a lot of confusion and possibly the actor getting ripped off.


Some types of contracts for acting jobs are very internal and ask that you do not work on any other project whilst you are filming/associated with their role. The reasoning they give for this is firstly they want you to be the face of their product or character, and only known for that. If you are working other projects at the same time, especially if both projects are shown on TV, there is a danger that the actor’s face is going to overlap in jobs. This means the face would not be exclusive to one project, taking away the magic if you like, behind the character role. Secondly they may not want the actor to be displaying on forms of social media that they are working with the certain company. This can be for privacy reasons and also to avoid the character/product and the ideas behind it, being leaked or stolen y another company/exposed to the press.


On the other hand, some companies have the total opposite mind set to this. These companies will encourage actors that they have cast in their projects to be active on their social networking sites, updating and informing their audiences of their relations to the company. This gives the company and project free promotion as the actor is likely to have a growing/ large social media following. Also these companies may encourage their actors to be actively auditioning and working on other projects at the same time as working with them. This allows for the actors not to be restricted to one job and allows them to be constantly working, learning and earning money which furthers their career, experience and opportunities.
If an actor had two job offers which were similar to the two examples I have given, the later example which allows them to be working on other projects and be active on their social media sites would be the job to go for. However if the actor had not paid much attention to the contract provided with both job offers, the wrong decision could easily have been made.


Reading the contract thoroughly allows the actor to gain one up on the company, being able to see exactly what is being offered to them. If during the process of working for the company, something on the contract is not being followed properly, the actor is then well within their rights to bring this up and question the company. If the actor had not read the contract thoroughly in the first place, they may not have been aware that they were being wrongly treated. This is another reason as to why it is so important to read every contract you are committing to before you sign it.