Re: How payment to sales agents work after deals

S

salenvalls

Re: How payment to sales agents work after deals

My question is, when an agent puts any film through a distributor whether is feature, short, documentary and what have you, does he get a one off commission payment or does he get a continuous one for as long as the film is distributed in different ways like theatrical, video rental, retail, cable, TV etc.?

How does commission payment work for the agent if the distributor does it theatrical, then rental and retail then cable, then TV? How does an agent gets paid? A separate percentage from each of the above, or one whole amount from all type of distributions or they just get one off upfront payment upon signing agreement?

What if the agent only does agreement with distributor for theatrical and video rental, not retail and cable/TV? How does all work if rights are split with different distributors strong in their own sector e.g. theatrical, rental/retail, cable, TV etc?

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Thank you.
 
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I'm not 100% on this one but I think when you hire a sales agent you work out what they charge, expenses and commission before they start work, normally 15% I think.

So basically whatever the distributors pay for your film then the agent will take his expenses and his percentage off that, then send you a cheque for whats left over. I'm not sure but I think this carries on with royalties too. The distrubutor will keep sending cheques as long as the movie is playing in either cinema, video, tv etc. then the sales agent will take their share before sending you the rest.

Again, I'm not 100% on if it works this way and some of the experianced people here will know exactly how it works. Hope this helps
 
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welsh_gambit said:
I'm not 100% on this one but I think when you hire a sales agent you work out what they charge, expenses and commission before they start work, normally 15% I think.
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You're not 100% but I'd say you're at a strong 95%

A sales agent will offer different terms depending on the project.
Most will want a percentage of all earnings, some will accept a
higher percentage on the initial sale and nothing else. Some will
stick with you and the film until all outlets are explored and
exploited - some will work with you for a shorter period.

Hiring a sales agent is a difficult process. Best to speak to as many
as you can before signing with one.
 
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directorik said:
You're not 100% but I'd say you're at a strong 95%

A sales agent will offer different terms depending on the project.
Most will want a percentage of all earnings, some will accept a
higher percentage on the initial sale and nothing else. Some will
stick with you and the film until all outlets are explored and
exploited - some will work with you for a shorter period.

Hiring a sales agent is a difficult process. Best to speak to as many
as you can before signing with one.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's like asking how much a car salesman makes each year. It's always going to be slightly different because the products are always different, to different buyers. Typically though, a sales agent will take a percentage of a purchase price. It just depends what kind of deal you had with them.

Some sales agents go international and sell each territory individually, in that case, they're doing a lot of work in each territory, and probably will want to get paid for it. So say you sell distribution rights to the UK for $50,000 American, they'll take their 10-15% (should be 10 except in really spectacular incidents) from that sale price. So they'll get $5,000 from the deal in the UK, and same for any other territories.

But like ^^^ he said, it all depends on the deal you have with the agent.
 
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