Most People Sign Without Reading It

Production contracts have a reputation for being dry, and it's earned. They're also the reason projects run clean when they run clean.

The contracts themselves aren't complicated. Everyone's just working from the same document. When something comes up mid-project, the answer's already agreed to. Saves a lot of emails.

I've sent a lot of these contracts. Read enough of the ones that came back with circles and question marks. Here's what I've seen stand out.

Three Videos Is Not a Deliverable

A deliverable is a 2-minute brand film delivered as H.264 at 4K resolution, 16x9 for web, with a vertical cut for Instagram and a square cut for LinkedIn. Closed captions included or not. Color graded or not. That's the level of specificity worth asking for.

Ask your production company to specify format, resolution, platform cuts, and caption status for every piece in the scope. The difference between "we'll deliver a final video" and "we'll deliver a 16x9 master, a 9x16, a 1x1, and a 15-second trailer" is usually the difference between finishing on time and chasing three extra edits you assumed were part of the deal.

If your content needs to live on your website, run as a paid ad, play at a trade show, and get cut down for social, each of those is a different format. Make sure the contract lists them. All of them.

Usage Rights Are Not Automatically Unlimited

This one gets skipped more than anything else, and it matters more than most people realize.

Paying for a video production project doesn't automatically give you unrestricted rights to the footage forever. Usage rights are negotiated, and they vary. Some contracts grant full ownership. Some grant rights for specific platforms. Some include time limits. Some distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use.

Know which one you're getting before you sign.

If you're planning to run paid ads, confirm the contract covers commercial use. If you're buying a two-year campaign, say that explicitly. If you think you might ever license footage to a partner or use it in a co-branded context, check if that's permitted.

Talent is a separate layer. If you hired on-camera talent through the production company, their usage rights are their own agreement. An actor appearing in your video might be cleared for digital use but not broadcast. Expanding into new media means re-licensing. Worth knowing before you plan the TV buy.

Define What "Revision" Actually Means

Most contracts say two rounds of revisions. That number is almost useless without a definition underneath it.

What counts as a round? Is it one consolidated feedback document from one person? Or can three stakeholders submit notes separately and that's still round one? If you ask to restructure the middle section or add a new sequence, is that a revision or a scope change?

Worth drawing a line between technical fixes and actual revisions. A technical fix is when audio levels are uneven in one section, or a piece of equipment ended up visible in the background of a shot. Those get caught in quality review and corrected before delivery. They're part of handing over a finished product, not a round of revisions.

A real revision is a creative change. Swapping the music (which should have been locked in pre-production, but here we are). A different ending. A different opening. A shift in the color grade. Or shortening the runtime from 1:30 to 1:00, which sounds minor but means re-editing the timeline, re-pacing the story, and re-exporting everything. That's real editing time and it should count.

Write the definition together if you have to. It's a five-minute conversation that prevents three weeks of back-and-forth about what was agreed to.

Ask about timing too. If your team takes three weeks to give feedback, does that push the delivery date? It should. Good contracts spell out review windows on both sides, because turnaround is a two-way thing.

Music Licensing Is Not a One-Time Fee

Stock music is licensed, not owned. Most production companies pick a track, clear it for the edit, and hand you a final video where the music is licensed for a year on digital platforms. If you want to run that same video in year two, someone is re-licensing it. If you want to use it at a conference, that's usually a different license tier. Broadcast is another tier on top of that.

Ask what platforms are covered in the music license they're using. Ask when it expires. Ask who's responsible for renewals.

If you're planning to repurpose content across a long campaign window, this matters more than you'd think upfront.

Raw Footage

Some production companies include raw footage in the project fee. Some charge for it separately. Some don't hand it over at all.

If you want it, ask before you sign. The answer isn't always obvious and the conversation is a lot easier before the shoot than after delivery.

Having your raw footage means you can repurpose content without scheduling a new production day. Testimonials, B-roll, interview clips. If you need a new social cut two years from now, you're not starting from scratch. As brands have gotten smarter about how much a single shoot can produce, the value of owning that raw material has gone up. One shoot day can keep working well past the original deliverables.

What Happens If the Project Gets Cancelled

Plans change. Budgets get cut. Projects get shelved. A kill fee clause isn't pessimistic, it's just practical.

A kill fee is what you owe if the project is cancelled after work has started. Pre-production takes real time. A crew holds specific dates for your project and turns away other work to do it. If you cancel the week before, that cost is real.

Standard kill fees are usually somewhere between 25% and 50% of the total, depending on how much pre-production has happened and how close you are to the shoot date. Know what yours is. Know when it kicks in. If the contract doesn't address it, ask for it to be added.

The Payment Schedule Should Connect to Something Real

Standard splits are 50% at signing and 50% at final delivery, or thirds split across signing, shoot day, and delivery. Both are normal.

What you want to watch for is vague language around "delivery." Make sure the contract defines delivery as having the final approved files in hand, in the formats listed in the deliverables section, ready to use. A rough cut doesn't count. Neither does "almost done."

If final payment is tied to that definition, everyone knows what done looks like. That clarity is worth more than it sounds like when you're three rounds into feedback and the deadline is Thursday.

Short Version

Read the contract before you sign it. Ask for specifics on deliverables, formats, and platform cuts. Confirm usage rights cover how you actually plan to use the content. Define revisions in writing. Ask about music licensing expiration. Know your cancellation terms.

None of this is adversarial. A production company worth hiring has thought through all of it already. The conversation shouldn't take long.