Who these terms are with
This site and this work belong to O.C.T VIDEO PRODUCTION LLC, an Illinois limited liability company trading as OCT Productions, based in Chicago, Illinois. In these terms that company is we or us, and the person or business hiring us is you.
We are a small studio. One person directs the work and brings in crew for each production. Anyone we bring is our responsibility, not yours.
These terms apply from the moment you book a call or accept a proposal. Where a proposal, statement of work or signed agreement covers the same ground, that document controls and these terms fill the gaps.
What we agree to make
Every engagement starts with a written proposal. That proposal is the scope. It names the shoot days, the locations, roughly how many finished pieces you receive, the formats they arrive in, and the date they arrive by.
A piece is finished when it is delivered in the agreed format after the revision rounds in section 05 are used or waived. Anything not written in the proposal is not included. That is not us being strict. It is so you never receive an invoice for something you did not know you were buying.
If you want something added once we have started, we will tell you the price and the effect on the delivery date before any of it is done.
Booking, deposit and payment
A date is not held until the deposit clears. We take half up front to reserve the shoot dates and start preproduction, and the balance on delivery.
We invoice by bank transfer, which is Zelle or ACH, or by a card link if you would rather. Card payments carry the processor fee at cost, shown on the invoice before you pay it.
Invoices are due 14 days from the date on the invoice. After that we may pause work and hold delivery until the account is clear. We would much rather call you than do that, so tell us early if timing is a problem.
Late invoices carry interest of 1.5% per month on the outstanding balance, which is 18% a year, running from the due date. If we have to pursue an unpaid invoice, you also cover the reasonable costs of collecting it, including legal fees. Neither of these is a profit centre. They exist so that being slow to pay is not cheaper than paying.
Our prices exclude any sales or use tax that applies. Where a permit, a location fee, talent, insurance for a specific venue, or travel outside the agreed area is needed, it is quoted and approved by you before it is booked.
Changes, cancellation and weather
Shoot dates are real commitments. Crew turn down other work to hold them, so moving a date late has a real cost.
Weather and conditions. If an outdoor shoot cannot safely or usefully go ahead, either of us can move it. That is not a cancellation and nothing is forfeited. We will agree a new date within 30 days where we can.
If a shoot is delayed on the day by something on your side, such as access, a location that is not ready, or talent who do not arrive, we will wait and keep working. Beyond two hours we may need to bill the crew time or return on another day.
Revisions
Every deliverable includes two rounds of revisions unless the proposal says otherwise. A round means you send your notes together, once, and we work through them together.
Revisions cover the edit: pacing, selects, text, music, grade, sound. They do not cover reshooting, a new concept, or a change of direction after approval. Those are new work and we will quote them.
If we do not hear from you on a delivered cut within 14 days, we treat it as approved so the project can close.
What costs extra, and what it costs
Nothing here is a surprise fee. Every one of these is quoted and agreed in writing before it happens, and you can always say no.
Who owns what
This is the part worth reading twice.
You own the finished work. When your final invoice is paid in full, every right in the finished delivered pieces passes to you, copyright included. Copyright law requires a transfer to be written and signed, so the line that actually makes the transfer sits in the proposal you sign, not on this page.
If that transfer ever fails to take effect for a technical reason, you still hold a permanent, worldwide, fully paid licence to use the finished pieces in any medium, including paid advertising, so you are never left unable to run work you paid for.
Until payment clears, nothing has transferred and no licence has started. Work sent before final payment is for your review only, not for publication.
We keep the raw footage. Rushes, project files, and the material we did not use stay with us. They are working material, not a deliverable. We archive them for 12 months, after which they may be deleted. If you want the raw footage or the project files, ask, and we will quote it as a separate item.
We keep the right to show the work. We may display finished pieces in our portfolio, on this site, and on social media. If a project is confidential, say so in writing before delivery and we will not show it. Ask us to take something down later and we will.
Music and stock. Any licensed music or stock in a deliverable is licensed for the use described in the proposal. Using a piece far outside that, for example taking a social cut into a national broadcast campaign, may need a wider licence, and that is on you to obtain. We will always tell you what a track is cleared for.
What you are responsible for
So the shoot day works, you agree that:
- You have permission for the locations you provide, and you will tell us about any rule, insurance requirement or permit a venue imposes.
- Anyone appearing on camera at your request has agreed to appear. Where we bring talent, we handle their release.
- Logos, product, music, and any other material you hand us is yours to hand over, and using it will not infringe anyone.
- You will give feedback and approvals in the time the schedule assumes, since a delivery date depends on them.
If a claim is made against us purely because something you supplied was not yours to supply, you cover us for it. That is the only indemnity in these terms.
Calls, recording and your data
We often take notes from a call by recording the audio and having it transcribed, so that you leave the call with a written summary and a clear list of next steps instead of relying on anyone’s memory.
We ask you first, before the call, and we only record if you say yes. If you would rather we did not, say so and we will not. It changes nothing about the work.
No video and no image of you is recorded or analysed. The audio is used to produce the notes and the summary for your project, it is not shared outside the studio, and it is not used to train anything.
What we hold about you, where it lives, how long it stays and how to have it deleted is set out in full in our privacy policy.
If something goes wrong
We will do this work with reasonable care and skill, and we will tell you quickly and straight if something is going wrong.
Beyond that, the honest limit of what a studio this size can carry: our total liability for any engagement is capped at what you paid us for it. We are not liable for lost profit, lost revenue, lost opportunity, or other indirect loss.
Equipment fails and files can be lost. We work from more than one copy and we take that seriously, but where material is lost through something outside our control, the remedy is that we reshoot at our cost where a reshoot is possible, or refund the part of the fee covering the lost material where it is not.
Nothing in these terms limits liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited.
Events outside anyone's control
If something genuinely outside either side's control stops the work, such as serious illness, a public emergency, a strike, or a venue closing, neither of us is in breach for the delay. We will reschedule where we can. If it cannot be rescheduled within a reasonable time, either of us may end the engagement and you pay only for work actually done up to that point.
Illinois law, and what happens in a dispute
These terms are governed by the law of the State of Illinois. Any dispute belongs to the state or federal courts sitting in Cook County, Illinois, and both sides agree to that.
Before anyone files anything, we both agree to actually talk, in good faith, for 30 days. Almost everything is fixable that way and it is cheaper for both of us.
If a dispute does end up in court, the side that wins recovers its reasonable legal costs from the other. That cuts both ways on purpose, and it is there so that neither of us can make a point simply by being more willing to spend money on lawyers.
If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands.
Changes to these terms, and how to reach us
We may update these terms. The date at the top of this page always says when they last changed. A change never applies backwards to an engagement already under way; the version in force when you accepted the proposal is the one that governs it.