If you were called for a recording session, would you know how much you should be paid? How about if you wanted to produce an album – do you know what options exist to fit your budget? Do you know how session payments and residuals work if you’ve appeared with a guest band on a late-night show? How about back-end payments for film scores? Or, what if you’re at the movies and you hear a track you played on?

The Local 802 Electronic Media Services Department understands that recording contracts are complicated, even to those who have done a lot of prior work under any number of agreements. Wage scales, overtime calculations, doubles, foreign use, residual cycles, Internet use, working conditions, cancellation policies, paperwork…

When all that information is different across a dozen collective bargaining agreements, it can be hard to keep your head on straight. That’s why we’re launching a series of educational seminars and discussions to help guide musicians through these often-complicated questions.

Every month, we’ll discuss the mechanisms, intricacies and stipulations of a different medium of recording, whether it be live television, commercials, sound recordings, film scores, or others. Before you go to work for a session, make sure you know what to expect, what to look out for, and what you are owed, both up front and on the back end.

Join us on Sept. 12 at 5 p.m. in the Local 802 Club Room for the first of these events, as we meet to discuss the AFM Theatrical Motion Picture and Television Film Agreements, which are currently extended through April 2019. We’ll discuss topics such as wage and benefit calculations, B-7 report filing, new media and Internet series, low budget qualification, sidelining, secondary markets, and anything else related to the world of films. For more information, call (212) 245-4802, ext. 162.