Contract Management Services

Here is how this works in practice. Contract running for global productions shooting in New Zealand runs through a layered legal stack and our coordination team holds the spine of it together. Performer agreements ladder up to Equity NZ scale (partnered with MEAA Australia), director and editor agreements to Directors and Editors Guild of NZ (DEGNZ) frameworks, writer agreements to the NZ Writers Guild (NZWG), crew agreements to E tū Service Sector Workers Union and SPADA producer-side norms, and union recognition flows through to PAYE deductions and ACC accident-cover registration with Inland Revenue Department and ACC at once. We sit alongside in-house legal counsel and NZ-admitted entertainment lawyers to draft and revise option agreements, NZSPG financing-side documents, deal memos, location agreements with Department of Conservation and Heritage The country Pouhere Taonga, drone-operation contracts under CAA NZ Part 102, and the Co-Production grant paperwork that gates global finance.

Here is the short of it. Cultural and regulatory contract layers compound the standard production legal stack. Iwi and hapū memoranda of knowing cover filming on classic whenua, cultural-protocol consultancy fees, karakia and powhiri plan, and the intellectual-property handling of taonga, te reo Māori dialogue, and waiata — drafted in partnership with Te Puni Kōkiri-aligned advisors and signed before scout dates lock.

Here is how this works in practice. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga heritage-site licences, Department of Conservation Part 102 commercial filming permits across Fiordland, Tongariro, Aoraki/Mount Cook, Mount Aspiring, Westland Tai Poutini, Abel Tasman, Nelson Lakes, and Whanganui carry their own indemnification, environmental-bond, and ranger-cost schedules. NZSPG audit trails need QNZPE evidence packs, NZ Customs Service ATA carnet bonds bind gear-import obligations, and GST 15% and PAYE bracket reporting flow through IRD-registered local production entities. We carry a 24-hour turnaround on standard documents and a 2-5 day cycle on tricky co-production paperwork.