SPRING 2024 39
A contract may imply exclusivity, but a
savvy negotiator knows better. A person
working in a creative industry like animation
will often have multiple projects in various
stages of development. Before you sign your
deal memo, make sure that projects you may
be working on outside the existing deal are
"carved out" to allow you to work on them
separately from the assignment.
How many carve-outs should your deal
memo include? As many as you can get the
studio to approve. Maybe it's something for
which a script already exists or there is some
existing paperwork. Maybe it's a project in
the earlier stages, i.e. an idea that you had
a conversation with a producer about.
The more carve-outs you include, the
greater your options. So when in doubt,
carve it out.
"Especially in animation, I think it's
almost mandatory that you work on
multiple things at once, because the pay
is so low and the price of living in L.A. is
so high," says Amick. "I think you're still
exclusive to the studio for anything new
[you develop while working for them], but
the carve-outs look backward and say you
don't have to stop working on those."
SPRING 2024 39
