I was recently contacted by a company who wants to use one of my animations as part of a documentary. We've agreed on a price but they also want something (a document I assume) which acts as a "proof of license" for them to be able to use it commercially. Since I haven't sold directly to somebody like this before this is a first for me, and I don't exactly know how to go about it.

I don't really know what the contents of the license should look like. Should it simply say that I'm giving their party the ability to use the clip commercially for project X and that's it? Just include that single statement in an PDF with my name signed? I just don't know what it should look like. Has anybody else had to do this themselves? Can you give an example of what this may look like?

You're welcome to adapt my Royalty Free licenses (you will need to change a few things to refer to your animations, or remove stuff about editorial use only just to keep it simple)

https://www.joannsnover.com/end-user-license-agreement/

https://www.joannsnover.com/extended-license-agreement/

Your license should cover anything specific to use in a documentary - if they want to make a TV program from the documentary and include your animation, is that covered by what you're being paid or would that mean you'd expect more money. Do you want to exclude use in any future films (on another topic) or is this a license just for this one use?

I generally suggest people think about what might occur in the future that they'd be upset about if their image was used for that without additional payment. It's helpful for the buyer to have clarity on these things (i.e. I don't expect that they'd be upset about you being specific about uses or limits).

I use a form from the Graphic Artists Guild graphicartistsguild.org which lets you outline what rights you are transferring.