Shane Acker worked on his short animated film, “9,” while he was a student at UCLA, and soon after he finished the film began to receive awards and interest from studios.
Acker eventually sold the rights to the film and is now working on developing it into a feature-length movie for Focus Features.
At some film schools, that success would mean a complicated process of negotiations between school and student about the rights to the film and its profits.
But Acker only received encouragement from UCLA.
The UCLA film school does not claim copyright ownership of its students’ work. Part of the reason is that UCLA students pay for a lot of their own equipment.
Film schools that provide equipment typically do require students to give away the rights to their work.
“In general, intellectual property in any work produced at USC that uses substantial University resources is owned by USC and protected under a USC copyright,” according to the USC film school’s Web site.
Students say that the UCLA policy is more fair.
“You’re paying them for the education,” said Marshall Knight, a screenwriting student who will graduate this spring. “Why should they have rights to your work?”
Knight did say that the issue is not black and white, because USC’s role is like that of an executive producer, who finances a film’s production.
Another film student, Aimee Long, said she was not aware of UCLA’s specific policy but didn’t worry about losing the rights to her work.
“What we make should belong to us,” she said.
Rafael Perez-Torres, chair of the UCLA English department, said he would be surprised if UCLA tried to claim any rights to students’ short stories or essays that sold commercially and added that it is an “extremely unusual” situation.
But it is not an uncommon situation for film students, who often try to market their work or enter it in a film festival.
There are several other issues that film students face when their work receives commercial attention. In classes, students can use any music they choose. But in order to sell those films or even submit them to a film festival, the students must have permission to use the music.
“As soon as somebody sees (their song in a film) they’re going to want some money for that,” Knight said. “It can really get you in trouble if you don’t go through the proper avenues.”
The complex laws on intellectual property rights are a concern for students, because they can often make the transition from student to professional film-making more difficult.
“Killer of Sheep,” a film written and directed by Charles Burnett while he attended UCLA in 1977, could not be released on DVD for 30 years because of issues with its musical score. Even when it was released, one song had to be removed from the original because of copyrights.
Another UCLA film graduate student, Chris Eska, also had to receive an artist’s permission when his thesis film “Doki-Doki” appeared on PBS.
Long often works with students from the music department when she composes scores for her films. That way she does not have to worry about eventual copyright problems, she said.
Students also join various unions and guilds to protect their intellectual property rights.
Knight recently submitted paperwork to the Screenwriters Guild. He hopes that will protect him from losing rights to any of his screenplays.
“People can’t just say they wrote what you wrote. It is a little scary,” he said. “I hope joining the guild is enough to protect (my) copyrights.”
Long also said she would join the Directors Guild after she finishes at UCLA.
Both Knight and Long said they do not worry about UCLA ever asking for a piece of profits from their films.
“I think if one of my films sold, UCLA would just be very positive,” Long said. “I think they would encourage it.”