Once you have delivered a master tape, you would think that your job is over, but it isn’t.
Chances are, you will be called some time in the future to do a revision of your project. You will have to dig up the original project from an archive and rebuild it to the way it was when you finished it. Or, you may be asked to forward the project to someone else if you are not available.
You are also responsible for safely packing, labeling and making an inventory of the entire body of elements, then shipping them to the client or their designated storage facility. This is a bigger deal than you might think! The editing company is liable for the disposition of all production elements in their posession, including having insurance to replace anything you have lost, destroyed or had stolen, so had better have a procedure in place that accounts for your disposition of the client’s stuff.
But before I go over some points about archiving, you should know about the legal terms of ownership in case there is a dispute about who owns the project.
Whether you are a “for hire” freelancer or a staff editor at a facility, you or your facility own the project files, but nothing else. The client – the one who is paying for everything – owns everything else, i.e. all film, tapes, discs, etc. (provided they actually do pay!). In other words, you (or the facility you work for) own the creative means by which the product was made, but not the product itself. So if someone tells you that you have to submit your FCP or AE project to them so that they can pull the job and go somewhere else with it, you are not technically obligated to do so, although there may be ethical or business reasons why you probably should. This is a judgement only you can make.
There has been only one occasion in my working experience where I refused to submit an archived project, and it was because of the number of years I spent developing it and the terms under which I was removed from the account. It was an Avid project database comprised of hundreds of hours of logged library footage and graphics that I had cataloged for an advertising agency client in New York City. I had worked on their client’s TV commercials for seven years doing over 2300 spots, but in 2003 the NYC agency (my client) was fired. The new ad agency in Chicago promised to work with me transitionally, but then disrespectfully reneged on their offer, dismissing me offhandedly by a freelance producer. Not surprisingly, within 48 hours of the dismissal, I was called by an executive at the Chicago advertising agency asking me for the database. I refused, partly because I was pissed off that I had been lied to and then disrespected, but mostly because they were in Chicago and I knew I would never work for them in the future. Nor did I owe their client anything more in our business relationship. Had I felt there was possibility of working with them in the future, I would’ve been more thick-skinned about the situation. (It was certainly not the first time I had been insulted!).