ABOUT THE CONTEST

Thank you for your interest in NESN’s film production contest to be named later (the “Contest”). In order to submit your entry, each person involved in the creation of your entry will have to agree to the Contest Rules and Licensing Agreement (“Agreement”) at the time of your film submission. Here’s a link to the Agreement: http://nesn.com/nesnsnextproducer/agreement/.

What follows is a summary of the Contest and Agreement. This summary is not intended to take the place of the Agreement. In other words, this summary is not intended to create a legal relationship between you and NESN. Any such relationship will be formed only upon your submission of content to NESN and your assent to the terms of the Agreement. In the event that anything in this summary should conflict with the Agreement, the Agreement controls.

Please keep in mind that entries violating or appearing to NESN to violate the Agreement are not eligible for consideration. In addition, NESN reserves the right to disqualify any entry that it believes infringes upon or violates the rights of any third party, does not comply with this Agreement, or violates U.S. or applicable state or local law.

Upon request, you must be willing to provide any documentation requested by NESN to demonstrate that you have complied with the submission requirements for the Contest. If you fail to do so to NESN’s satisfaction, your Contest submission will not be considered.

The Contest and Your Submission

The Contest is designed to give New England undergraduate students the chance to have a film they create featured on NESN and the chance to compete for a prize based on the film’s quality. Entrants will be asked to create a five to six-and-a-half minute film about sports. In addition to the completed entry, entrants must also submit a thirty-second trailer previewing their entries. Teams or individuals are limited to a single film entry.

If you plan on participating in the Contest, you must email NESN at studentfilm@nesn.com by October 1, 2014 indicating your intention to participate. This email should include the subject line “Intent to Participate” and include your full name, age, phone number, mailing address, email address and school name and the same information for any other team member producing the film. While you are expected to submit a film if you indicate your intent to participate, you are under no obligation to do so. If at any time you choose not to participate, you must let NESN know as soon as possible.

You must submit to NESN a treatment and budget for your film between June 30, 2014 and no later than October 1, 2014. Even if you plan on spending no funds to produce your film, you must still submit a budget indicating such.

Entrants may begin submitting their films on October 1, 2014 and must have their entries submitted by no later than December 31, 2014. Final submissions must include a five to six-and a half minute film and a thirty-second trailer previewing the entry. Submissions must be made online at http://nesn.com/nesnsnextproducer. Submissions must be received by NESN by midnight EST on December 31, 2014. No submission received after this deadline will be considered.

In your entry, you must include a list of the persons filling the following roles: producer, director, director of photography, editor, or writer. For each position, entrants must provide their full names, ages, phone numbers, mailing and email addresses. NESN understands that some or all positions may be filled by the same person. All persons involved in the creation of the entry must sign and submit the Agreement at the time the completed film is submitted or the entry will not be considered.

Here is the anticipated timeline of the Contest, which is subject to change:

• By October 1, 2014: Entrants must inform NESN of their intent to participate.
• Between June 30 and October 1, 2014: Entrants must submit final treatments and budgets.
• October 1, 2014: Submission opens for all entries.
• December 31, 2014: Deadline for submitting all entries at midnight EST.
  Early January 2015: An internal NESN panel will select up to 20 teams to continue in the competition based on the quality of the submissions, the number of submissions and the criteria listed below.
• Late January 2015: The selected teams will travel to Boston (at their own expense) to meet with the judging panel at NESN, vying to be 1 of up to 10 films that may air on NESN in Round One. An internal NESN panel will select up to 10 teams to continue in the competition. The interviews with the teams and the judge’s deliberations will be filmed, edited and aired in a manner to be determined by NESN.
• February 2015: The selected teams will travel to Boston (at their own expense) for Round One of the competition, in which they will appear before the judges who will critique their submissions, deliberate and determine which teams proceed to the Semi-Final round. The interviews with the teams and the judge’s deliberations will be filmed, edited and aired in a manner to be determined by NESN and, during this round, the films created by the remaining teams may air on NESN. The judges will then select up to 6 teams to continue as semi-finalists in the competition.
• February 2015: An internal NESN panel will then select up to 3 of the remaining teams to continue in the competition based on the quality of the submissions, the number of submissions and the criteria listed below. The interviews with the teams and the deliberations and the announcement of the finalists will be filmed, edited and aired in a manner to be determined by NESN.
• March or April 2015: The finalists will submit revised versions of their films, which will be aired on NESN. The finalists will then appear before the judges who will give their critiques of the films and deliberate. The judges will then select a single winner based on the quality of the submissions and the criteria listed below. The interviews with the remaining teams, deliberations and the announcement of the winner will be filmed, edited and aired in a manner to be determined by NESN.

Eligibility

No purchase is necessary to compete in the Contest; if, however, entrants choose to incur costs in producing the video, these costs must not exceed $5,000 for the initial submission and $3,000 for any changes following NESN’s feedback. Entrants are solely responsible for any of the costs they do incur in making the film. Entrants spending more than permitted are not eligible for the Contest. This Contest is void where prohibited by law.

To participate in the Contest, you must be an undergraduate student enrolled at a New England college or university, and you must also be 18 years or older and be a legal resident and citizen of the United States (excluding its territories). If you are a graduate student, you are not eligible. Please note that to be eligible you and your teammates must be available to receive on-camera feedback, re-edit your film, and receive additional on-camera feedback in early 2015.

You are encouraged to work in teams to produce the entry, but you are not required to do so. You may not have more than five persons on your team. While you may seek advice from a third party in the process of producing your film, you may only have one advisor providing you guidance and feedback. The advisor must be affiliated with a college or university and cannot earn a majority of his or her income from working in the media industry. Advisors must be available to appear on NESN, and grant NESN permission to use their name and likeness, in connection with the contest and its promotion.

The Contest is not open to any NESN officer, director, or employee, or their immediate family members. Entries that have been submitted to other contests or previously disseminated are not eligible for consideration.

Submission Requirements

Intellectual Property

In order to be considered, your submission must be your own creation. That is, you may not submit any content that is not the product of your own effort and design.

You must own the intellectual property rights in your submission, including any audio or visual recordings contained within your submission. For example, if your entry contains any intellectual property that is not owned by you – such as music, photographs or video footage – it is the responsibility of you as the entrant to obtain the necessary permissions to include that material prior to your submission to NESN.

NESN has the necessary rights for entrants to use excerpted footage from NESN telecasts of Red Sox and Bruins’ games, and which you are free to use in your submission. Again, to the extent entrants use any other type of footage, it is the entrant’s responsibility to obtain permission to do so.

You will be required to supply NESN with written proof establishing your ability to use the intellectual property of others. If you cannot provide proof demonstrating that you own or have permission to use the images, music, brands, videos and all other materials contained within your submission, your content will be excluded from consideration and will not be eligible for the Contest prize.

Privacy and Other Considerations

In order for your submission to be considered, you must also take into consideration the potential privacy interests of others. For example, content which reproduces the names, voices, and/or likenesses of individuals will be excluded from consideration unless you can demonstrate that you have obtained any necessary consent from those persons. You will be required to supply NESN with written proof that you have all such rights.

Also, please keep in mind that filming in certain locations may require the permission of the property owner, whose permission you will also be required to obtain and provide to NESN. In other words, participation in the Contest does not give you the right to film in private places, or in any place where filming is otherwise prohibited without permission. For example, you may need permission to film on a university campus or in places like restaurants, stores or houses. It is your responsibility to obtain any such permissions and provide them to NESN when you submit your film.

In addition, please do not submit content that is defamatory, abusive, harassing, violates third parties’ rights or is otherwise actionable under any civil or criminal laws. Similarly, please do not submit content that contains offensive language, expressions of bigotry, or that contains nudity or obscenity. No content of this kind is eligible for consideration.

Please take care to avoid any potentially dangerous production situations that put you or anyone else at risk.

Selecting a Winner

In selecting the winner, NESN, its employees, and judges will consider a number of factors, including (but not limited to) storytelling, production value, writing, editing, camerawork, and audience impact.

The name of the winner will be revealed during the series finale, which will air on or about March or April 2015.

NESN reserves the right not to award any Contest prize, modify the Contest in any way, or suspend the Contest temporarily or permanently at any time in NESN’s sole discretion. During the entire pitch, evaluation and contest selection process, any decision by NESN and the judges engaged by NESN are final and not subject to an appeal or otherwise challengeable.

The Prize

Subject to the terms of the Agreement (located at http://nesn.com/nesnsnextproducer/agreement), NESN will award a single winner a prize of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000). If the winning entry is the product of team participation, the check will split among the team, i.e., a four-student team would receive $5,000 per student, or a two-student team would receive $10,000 per student.

The distribution of the prize is subject to the winner executing an affidavit, which will require the winner to affirm that she or he is eligible for the Contest and has complied with the Agreement. Upon proper verification, the prize will be awarded by check. Income and other taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the winner.

Our Use of Your Submission

NESN undertakes no obligation to use the content that you submit to it or to disseminate your content. NESN may choose to use your submission in accordance with the terms of the Agreement (located at http://nesn.com/nesnsnextproducer/agreement), but NESN undertakes no obligation to do so. You will retain the copyright in your entry, but should NESN elect to use your content, NESN and its partners may use it in any media it sees fit, in any manner it wishes, forever.

By submitting your Contest entry to NESN, you are also granting to NESN permission to use your names and likenesses in connection with the Contest and its promotion.

Furthermore, if you submit the winning entry, the permission that you grant NESN to use your content will be exclusive to NESN for six months from the date of NESN’s announcement of the Contest winner. This means that during this time period you may not use your content in a way that would frustrate the grants you make to NESN upon submission. For example, you may not, during this period give permission to others to distribute your work.

The content you submit will not be returned to you.