Maybe It's Time For A Mission Statement

(standing, applauding)

Those are good goals and I’m glad you two shares your thoughts and experiences here.

While I’m sympathetic to arguments that screenwriters shouldn’t have to hyphenate to gain extra control or authority, it does seem that, as you’ve suggested elsewhere, making it easier for a screenwriter to be brought on as a producer (without undermining their ability to get a writing credit) is something that’s doable and would help achieve a number of other goals.

At least it seems to be a solution worth using while we pursue a more ideal result.

“I find that Craig’s writings seem to betray contempt for writers who are less successful/productive/talented than he is. Which is a tad unnerving given his role in the WGA.” (As posted by Todd, 5/24/06 on “If You Have to Ask…)

I comment as well as read you as a ‘norm’.

Wednesday - the day the crime scene was sealed - I was tutoring on the subject of ‘inverse, converse and contrapositive’. The parallellisms were astounding, and I found myself glued to my screen in between each and every client. However when I came upon Todd’s comment(s), I was a bit taken aback. I was left without words in that I couldn’t have disagreed with him more.

Again, reading you and Ted, but more specifically you Craig, I had never gotten the sense that you “betrayed contempt…etc.”

I remained silent as per my place as a ‘norm’ leaves me more reserved, and ‘put-in-my-place’ sort of speak, on the hotter and more focused topics, but to open up today and read the above was reassuring! What you stated very clearly above, is how you have been received by this norm, and never a ‘twinge’ of ‘poor vision’, nor ‘poor representation’.

Yes many may ‘roll their eyes’ at your stance, but ones position as a seasoned professional within a field never demands of us the need to make everyone happy. Your view/angle has not been read as such - not that of betrayal nor of a bragged nature. Much appreciation for your clarity!

xoxoLL

Well writ and spoke sir, though again, I disagree with you on one or two small parts (I myself don’t consider writers employees to an industry but rather independent contracters, heads of our own businesses, take your pick, but really, it depends on the deal one has) - but I agree that everyone who writes for a living should be more informed and again I thank you for this site -

I will respond more at length later on, once I’ve had time to soak it in.

If you believe screenwriters are storytellers, why don’t you tell some stories with your screenwriting instead of just satirising existing movies?

Stan:

First of all, I don’t satirize existing movies. I parody existing movies.

Second of all, film parody involves story-telling, just as adapting books into films or even remaking other films involves story-telling. It’s one kind of job that screenwriters do.

Third of all, I write other sorts of films as well. I’m working on an animated film right now. It’s an original Christmas story.

Now come on, Craig, I have no doubt you are an adept storyteller, but there is very little story-telling and even less plot going on in the Scary Movie franchise.

Gary:

I disagree.

But honestly, who gives a shit? I mean, let’s say I’m the worst storyteller in the world. Hell, let’s go one step further.

Let’s say that I’ve never told a single story in my life, and I never will.

What’s your point?

(insert applause here)

Craig! I didn’t mean to strike a nerve…you can OBVIOUSLY tell a story, or you would never get hired to work on the many projects you’ve developed at the studio level. My point was a rebuttle to your argument that the Scary Movie franchise involves story-telling prowess akin to book adaptations or remakes. That’s simply not true. Scary Movie has its genesis in Airplane and The Naked Gun franchises, but the narrative thread that held those films together is virtually non-existent in modern day parody filmmaking. Date Movie, Not Another Teen Movie and Scary Movie are more like SNL — a series of sketches that poke fun at genre filmmaking and pop culture at large. That was my point.

Something that confused me in the previous thread…

It was often stated that “the writer” is the primary creative force. That “the writer” should be on set. That “the writer” should be consulted on things.

Which writer? The one most recently hired by the studio? The one who theoretically will get the strongest credit as arbitrated by the WGA? The one who initiated the project?

From Josh Olson: “Writers are the visionaries who create the stories. Everyone else - as important, as lovely, and as brilliant as they are - is there to implement that vision.”

On a script with multiple writers, they all contributed to the story. They all contributed to putting words on paper. Should they all be on set? Should they all be given the right to meet with the director to discuss his vision?

Gary:

Couple of things. First, your point is irrelevant to this topic. Second, you’re wrong. I’d love to sit you down and explain why Scary Movie 3 and 4 are very different from Date Movie and Not Another Teen Movie and SNL, but I’m not going to, so I guess we’ll just have to continue to disagree.

I will say, as I’ve said before, that the Scary Movies were the hardest story-telling tasks I’ve ever been assigned. By far. But I certainly didn’t expect that going in, so I’m never shocked to hear people think exactly the way I did (before I actually had to do it). Airplane! and The Naked Gun, btw, were very easy story-telling tasks. Airplane! was lifted entirely from one story: Zero Hour. The Naked Gun was lifted from one story (mostly): Telefon. The Scary Movies I’ve done were plotted from anywhere from three to six different stories, and, like I said, hardest story-telling task I’ve ever had.

But we’re off-topic. Wildly at that.

Keith:

I’m concerned with the empowerment of the collective group of professionals known as “writers.” In the case you describe, I want the current writer of employ to be treated well.

“I’m concerned with the empowerment of the collective group of professionals known as ‘writers.’ In the case you describe, I want the current writer of employ to be treated well.”

Craig, I can see how this is consistent with your views on the subject. I’m curious what the answer would be for Josh Olson, or someone with similar views. Would it still be the current writer?

I could see that leading to a lot of cases (perhaps the majority) that wouldn’t stay true to the spirit of Josh’s belief of: “Writers are the visionaries who create the stories. Everyone else - as important, as lovely, and as brilliant as they are - is there to implement that vision.”

Following that credo, whichever writer contributed the most to the story and the vision should be the one that reaps the rewards of involvement in the production of the script. Also, that theoretically should lead to a “better” film. I’m not sure how he would propose that is enforced though.

Josh, still reading? Any thoughts on this? Am I misunderstanding your view? (very possible)

• keith

this again brings us to the same point I made earlier.

Your proposed solution is that writers should learn to be producers / directors in order to empower themselves. Now, being a director in addition to being a writer, I certainly believe it’s a good thing to do.

However, I think being a producer / director only empowers that particular writer on that project - it doesn’t empower writers as a whole - if anything, it disempowers writers as a whole because it emphasizes the view that if the only thing a person does it write a great script, that’s not enough to view them with respect.

In other words, they have to direct or produce in order to respect their POV on the creative project.

Again let me restate - I do think it’s a good thing for a writer to be educated, I think it’s a good thing, if the writer wishes to, for a writer to also produce and direct, but I don’t see that that will necessarily empower writers collectively.

All it does it emphasize that the job of the director is, for whatever reason, much more important than the job of the writer.

Keith asked a question I thought was overlooked also in the previous thread. And I disagree with Craig that the writer of record should be the one with the “power.” Realistically, though, every case is different. For instance, my partner and I wrote a script for a children’s movie which was radically rewritten. Ultimately, we received sole final credit on the movie. In retrospect, knowing we would receive sole credit, we should have fought harder to have our voices heard during pre-production and production. We won’t make that mistake again.

Don’t get me wrong. If we are rewritten and we agree the rewrite is an improvement… then part of getting our voices heard is to say we agree with this or that portion of the rewrite. Conversely, if we are rewritten and we feel this or that portion is inferior, then we will identify the problem and propose solutions. Passivity has you sitting in a theater on opening day saying “what the hell happened to my screenplay?” Activity may end in the same result if your pleas fall on deaf ears, but at least you can say “I know what the hell happened to my screenplay.”

With such high stakes — your name on a movie — it behooves you as a writer to do the best you can to champion your work. In Esterhaz’s case, that meant to be militant. In Mazin’s case, that means to foster strong relationships with the other players on his movies and to seek out additional roles for himself in the moviemaking process. In Josh O’s case, that means to let the work speak for itself and to be a nice guy.

I’m sure that each screenplay, each production requires its own plan of attack and results will always vary — because this business has a hell of a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Still, I am convinced the worst thing you can do is sit on your hands — whether you’re first, second, third or fourth writer on a project.

For me, I choose to be tactful, professional, and passionate. It may not always be enough, but I’ll know I tried.

Seems to me Craig’s position is basically: If you want to be respected for your scripts, than sit in your office and type away. Your job is done as soon as you reach FADE OUT. But if you want to be respected for your films, than take part in making the damn film.

It doesn’t seem particularly radical or difficult to grasp. The only radical part is his suggestion that individuals should take some responsibility for their own professional destiny instead of wringing their hands and waiting for someone (studios, producers, directors, and/or the union) to hand them a golden key. I don’t understand why anyone would be insulted by the position. Unless they are either lazy or just enjoy playing the martyr.

Based on all the comments on the last post, it seems that the only way not to offend some of the more delicate members of the screenwriting communtiy is to hold their hands like a bunch of kindergarteners and tell them that they are just as wonderful and important as everyone else. This isn’t an afterschool special folks. If you need affirmations, read a Chicken Soup book.

Craig — great post. Differences aside, you’re one of the (very) good guys. Thanks again for this site, your openness to debate, and your work with the Guild.

“I myself don’t consider writers employees to an industry but rather independent contracters, heads of our own businesses, take your pick, but really, it depends on the deal one has…”

But writers are employees.

It’s important that we all grasp the reality of the business of filmmaking in order to move forward and empower ourselves.

I believe Derek pretty much hit the nail on the head. Each of our circumstances are different, so how we work is different. But one thing remains clear: Complacency and Inaction don’t work. If we don’t stop dwelling on the “preciousness” of screenwriting and realize that we do work within a business, we are lost.

Writers aren’t not ALWAYS employees, sometimes writers are the employers.

When I write a spec, it’s written for my company (headed by me) and sold as a property for profit for my company. I’m not employed by anyone other than myself.

Now if I am hired by a studio to write the film version of WHAT’S HAPPENING starring Bernie Mac (not a bad idea when you think about it) then perhaps you are right, I would be an employee - but I could also be an independent contractor coming in to work on that specific job.

No one is saying that inaction and complacency are things we should be doing.

What I am saying is that it’s a lot of work to write a really good screenplay and doing that is NOT complacent nor inactive.

Writing is an active, vibrant and rewarding craft and what you are suggesting is that to only do that is inactive and I very much disagree with it.

I will say this right now, it’s a lot harder to write a good screenplay than it is to direct or produce one that’s already written and written well. Why is it considered inactive only to write screenplays really well? Why is that complacent?

I think a lot of writers do understand that we work in a business that that business is creating stories that sell. I think the problem lies with biz and marketing folk who try to control a craft that they often do not understand by disempowering those that create the product and dictate what the market wants or does want to see without regard to the expertise of the craftspeople who make the product.

So what I am saying Kevin is that it’s not that what writers do is “precious” it’s that it has great value and that value is not shared by the other creatives in the pot with us. As Craig said, the writer is the most important part of that machine.

But writers are not viewed that way now and that’s a problem, not just for the writers but for the business as a whole. It hurts the business.

And as an aside to Jen Doe (very original) The idea that a writer of films will not be respected for their films unless they take an active part in the filming is plain ridiculous.

William Goldman never goes to a set and he’s fairly respected (two Oscars). You’re saying that because all he did was WRITE them he is therefore UNINVOLVED and doesn’t deserve respect his contribution to the FILMS? Come on, that’s just plain silly.

Again this underlines the problem - writing the script and doing it well is the most important part of any great film but it’s viewed as the least by more than a few people.

The question is, how do we change that?

“What I am saying is that it’s a lot of work to write a really good screenplay and doing that is NOT complacent nor inactive.”

I think you misunderstood me. What I mean is, if want to create change within the business we can’t be complacent or inactive, i.e. just complaining about it. Unfortunately, writing a good screenplay by itself will not gain more respect. Of course that’s wrong but it won’t.

“I think a lot of writers do understand that we work in a business that that business is creating stories that sell.”

Trust me. No, they don’t.

“I think the problem lies with biz and marketing folk who try to control a craft that they often do not understand by disempowering those that create the product and dictate what the market wants or does want to see without regard to the expertise of the craftspeople who make the product.”

This statement is true. This statement is also false. Marketing at times can be intrusive and one-sided and they’ve been known to destroy a movie, so in that aspect, I completely agree with you. But this is not true all the time. Most of the marketing people I know and have dealt with are smart business men that have the unpleasant task of uninforming filmmakers that nobody wants to see a movie about a man who falls in love with his goat.

“But writers are not viewed that way now and that’s a problem, not just for the writers but for the business as a whole. It hurts the business.”

That is 100% correct.

“William Goldman never goes to a set and he’s fairly respected (two Oscars).”

That is 100% incorrect. I can’t imagine where you got that idea but William Goldman goes to the set all the time. Like ALL the time. If he didn’t, that would be pretty stupid. And he sure as hell wouldn’t be doing himself any favors if he didn’t. No writer would.

“The idea that a writer of films will not be respected for their films unless they take an active part in the filming is plain ridiculous.”

Don’t you want a more active role in the filming of a movie that you wrote?

I think a lot of the problems/opinions discussed in these past two threads run with a gamut of endless possibilities…but are summed up in something we all know.

Knowledge is power, but only if you choose to use it. The more we know about the business were in, the more we can succeed in seeing our product emulated on screen, as it was in our minds.

Great Post. Great Site. Thank you.

James

Your proposed solution is that writers should learn to be producers / directors in order to empower themselves.

No, it’s not.

It’s one way. But it’s not the only way. Hell, until you wrestle enough power and respect for yourself as a screenwriter, it’s not like they’re going to be handing out producing and directing gigs, right?

Ted Elliott is a very empowered writer of the Pirates movies. He is neither the director nor any sort of producer of those movies. Directing and producing is not necessary for empowerment.

If it were, Josh, I would have put it in the mission statement.

Joshua James, I have a hard time taking your comments seriously when you say stuff like: “I will say this right now, it’s a lot harder to write a good screenplay than it is to direct or produce one that’s already written and written well.”

I don’t understand why you feel the need to tear down other professions to show the importance of writing.

But anyway, to the point. You say:

“So what I am saying Kevin is that it’s not that what writers do is ‘precious’ it’s that it has great value and that value is not shared by the other creatives in the pot with us.”

OK. I’m with you here. You want the writer to share the other rights the creatives have in the production. I take this to mean you think writers should have the right to be on set, consult on casting, consult on editing, etc.

Then you say…

“And as an aside to Jen Doe (very original) The idea that a writer of films will not be respected for their films unless they take an active part in the filming is plain ridiculous.”

Huh? I thought the whole point was for writers to have the RIGHT to take an active part in the filming. How can you argue that they shouldn’t have to do this?

Then you say… “William Goldman never goes to a set and he’s fairly respected (two Oscars). You’re saying that because all he did was WRITE them he is therefore UNINVOLVED and doesn’t deserve respect his contribution to the FILMS? Come on, that’s just plain silly.”

I will ignore the falseness of your statement (William Goldman has been on set for many of the films he’s written). You are right, he deserves respect for his contribution to the films by writing the screenplay.

However, what do you want that respect to MEAN? Your post seems very contradictory. Normally writers want to have the right to go to set and to consult on filmmaking decisions. You seem to be saying that they shouldn’t want this.

I can’t really wrap my head around what you want, Joshua James. It sounds like you just want writers to have “more respect.” That’s a noble thought. However, what do you think it should mean in practice? What rights would it confer upon writers?

Well, it’s coming from all angles and sides -

Well let’s begin with Bill Goldman - I made my statement that he rarely goes to sets based on what he’s written in two of his books on screenwriting (according to him, he rarely goes to a set because he blows shots) and seconded by a lunch I had with an unnamed Castle Rock exec some time ago.

The exception being the Clint Eastwood film because Bill wanted to see how the Great Clint worked.

I didn’t take it to mean that he wasn’t involved with the principles during the process, but that he was not, nor did he consider himself, a producer or director. He wasn’t that, he was and is a writer and leaves the other jobs to other people. I just took it that he wasn’t on set that much because that’s what he wrote and plus, he doesn’t like to leave New York too often Is it possible he was on set more than he led folks to believe? Sure - I only have his words to judge by, so if I made a mistake, it’s at least a well researched mistake. He said (in print) he rarely goes to set and I took him at his word. I can live with it.

My point (a response to Jen Doe) was that even though he was neither a producer nor director, he had a signifcant impact upon the film as a whole. Jen maintained that if you want to be known only for writing, stay at home, but if you want to be known for your film work, get out of the house and become a producer / director.

I felt that was a ridculous statement and still do. A great script is a great movie when filmed - NETWORK is a great movie with great performances and very much a work of the great Paddy C (I always mess up the spelling of his last name). He wrote it and the quality of his work shines right through. Now obviously it helped to have Peter Finch, Bill Holden, Faye Dunaway and Sidney Lumet on the job, they’re all great talents - but to say we cannot respect Paddy for that film because he ONLY wrote the script is ridiculous. That was Jen’s position and I disagree very much.

Now for my own self, I would want a writer on set, I would want the writer to be directly involved with the production, so I’m not making a contradiction here - my statement is thus: One should not have to be a producer or director on a film to be a creative and respected force in the process. Some writers (such as Ted and William G) obviously are - most writers are just disposible, unfortunately.

Jen Doe’s postion seems to be that it is thus only because we insist on ONLY writing and not taking on other jobs. I think what we do ONLY as writers is a very important job already.

I’m not necessarly tearing down other valuable jobs - just saying that I feel the writer is the creative equal to the director and / or producer and that should be acknowledged. That’s what I want, keith, I feel I’ve been very clear on that so far, but if you can’t wrap your head around it or take me seriously, so be it. I can live it that.

I do maintain that it is more difficult to write a great script than to direct a script that is already great. Not that directing a motion picture is easy, mind you. But as Craig said in the post previous, the writer is the most important job there is when it comes to making a good film. I agree with that. Not the only important one, but the most important one.

Now then, Kevin - “I think a lot of writers do understand that we work in a business that that business is creating stories that sell.”

“Trust me. No, they don’t.”

Trust me. Yes, they do. I’m one. There are others. Not everyone, of course, but many do. Many others. Craig does, doesn’t he? Isn’t he a writer? Just because someone calls themself a writer doesn’t mean that they cannot understand the workings of a business. It’s not as though it’s a foreign language, it’s business. Aren’t you a writer as well? Should I take your statement to mean that you don’t understand the workings of the business?

This idea that writers cannot understand the business end of things always frosts me a little, so if I get a little touchy please forgive me. But really, I think that there are FAR more marketing /business folk out there who don’t know how to read and don’t understand the product they’re selling (films, television, whathaveyou) than there are writers who don’t understand the business aspect of entertainment. This is just my experience, of course, but it’s one echoed by many peers I have met.

I think it’s one of those nasty stereotypes out there that “artists” or “writers” are by their very nature unable to speak the plain language of business. I disagree with that so much. The language of business and marketing isn’t nearly so difficult as the language of dramaturgy.

I think writers, generally, are more often smarter than you are painting them to be here, Kevin.

“I’m not necessarly tearing down other valuable jobs - just saying that I feel the writer is the creative equal to the director and / or producer and that should be acknowledged. That’s what I want, keith, I feel I’ve been very clear on that so far, but if you can’t wrap your head around it or take me seriously, so be it. I can live it that.”

Joshua, you’re just repeating what you already said. I know that you think writers should be acknowledged as being creative equals to the director and producer (even though your wording was that writers were MORE important creatively). My question is what does that MEAN? Practically, what would you want to see change? How would this respect have an impact on the job and righs of the screenwriter?

I’m not being facetious. I have fully “wrapped my head” around you wanting writers to be acknowledged for their important creative role. My question is HOW? Functionally, what would and should change?

• keith

You asked me what I want and I answered. That was why I repeated myself.

You asked me how and I don’t have a simple, easy answer for you - I asked that same question myself in my earlier post, if you recall. I said, how can we change it?

I have ideas, but they’re only ideas and far from perfect solutions and to post them here would only start fires - plus, Craig doesn’t seem to want to discuss the one writer per movie idea so I honor his wishes in that regard.

I don’t know exactly how, to be honest. I wish that I did. I do think that we can start by acknowledging writers are more important and less disposable than is believed, and that we have to convince ourselves of that before we convince anyone else.

Writers aren�t not ALWAYS employees, sometimes writers are the employers.

When I write a spec, it�s written for my company (headed by me) and sold as a property for profit for my company. I�m not employed by anyone other than myself.

Now if I am hired by a studio to write the film version of WHAT�S HAPPENING starring Bernie Mac (not a bad idea when you think about it) then perhaps you are right, I would be an employee - but I could also be an independent contractor coming in to work on that specific job.

That is incorrect. When you sell a spec it is as if they had paid you to write it from the beggining. Craig has listed this in previous entries, it has to do with copyright law and the fact that you cannot be represented by a union if you’re an independant contractor.

So as a screenwriter you are always an employee.

Joshua:

Have you directed a film?

Garrett:

That’s basically correct. In spirit, screenwriters function very much like independent contractors, but in contract and law, as members of a labor union, we are employees. We collectively bargain as employees, our contracts are employee contracts, and that’s the context in which we must maneuver.

Where’s my gold star?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

Hey Craig,

Directed a film, no, not at this time, though that may soon change. Just theatre. I understand the process is very different with film, of course, and actually have plans to direct a film in the future - I offered up that I direct and produce (theatre, among other things) to say that I don’t just write but do other creative gigs as well. I will say that my heart belongs to writing, if that matters, but I enjoy directing, which is challenging in a different way.

As far as the indepent contract thing, I am right in spirit but not in the letter of the law? So though you are the CEO of the Craig Mazin Company, you are employed by whomever you sell your scripts too and it’s not a limited partnership between two companies?

Hmm, I do remember you posting that regarding copyright, but I still took it to mean that, though you were selling the copyright, it didn’t necessarily make one an employee - my mistake and I apologize.

JOSHUA:

“I think writers, generally, are more often smarter than you are painting them to be here, Kevin.”

I never said that writers aren’t smart.

When Craig says that “screenwriters aren’t educated enough”, he means exactly what he says. This has nothing to do with a lack of formal education. It’s a lack of understanding within the business of filmmaking. We may all disagree on certain things but there’s not one professional screenwriter that would disagree with this.

Do you want to know why?

When you achieve a certain level of success in this business you reap the rewards of money, financial stability, and artistic choices that you didn’t have before. But you also get something else. Scripts. Tons and tons of scripts. All the time.

I can’t speak for Craig, Ted, Derek, or anyone else but I can bet you a billion dollars that when someone realizes that they are screenwriters—successful ones at that—they’re going to bet a script. And about 99% of them are going to be bad. Really bad. Embarrassingly bad.

When I was an agent, I got about 5 scripts a week. As a producer, director, and a writer, I get about 10 scripts a week. It never stops. And they’re all pretty bad. Not only because of bad writing but because they have no idea that what they’re writing is unfilmable, unmarketable, and just plain silly. No, you can’t sell a script about a man who falls in love with his goat. You can make it yourself but you can’t sell it. And this is just one example of the lack of business comprehension.

You personally may be different, I don’t know. You may even be smarter than most because I have no idea what you mean by: When I write a spec, it’s written for my company (headed by me) and sold as a property for profit for my company. I’m not employed by anyone other than myself. I have no idea how that would work or how that process gets your script made into a film.

“I made my statement that he rarely goes to sets based on what he’s written in two of his books on screenwriting”

This is a very strange statement considering how both of his books are PRIMARILY about his experiences in pre-production and on the set. I’m not trying to be a jerk but he’s pretty explicit about his experiences on set.

“But really, I think that there are FAR more marketing /business folk out there who don’t know how to read and don’t understand the product they’re selling (films, television, whathaveyou) than there are writers who don’t understand the business aspect of entertainment.”

That’s a ridiculous statement that’s incredibly naive and just plain wrong. You may think it, but that’s not true. How in the world can you expect more respect from the people who would make your films when this is what you think of the people who would market your film?

Here’s the deal:

• Screenwriters can be very smart.

• Screenwriters can be incredibly misinformed.

• Screenwriters need to learn more about their business.

• Screenwriters should be allowed to be more involved in the filmmaking process and if they’re not, they should fight for it.

If you don’t like the idea of writers getting into producing as a way to get more respect and creative rights, here’s another idea:

Contracts should include a provision for the writer to be on set at all times and be a part of all publicity.

Josh:

Earlier you wrote:

I do maintain that it is more difficult to write a great script than to direct a script that is already great.

You don’t direct a script. You direct a movie. And I think you’re wrong. Either way, I’m not sure you have the appropriate experience to make such an evaluation. Personally, I think it’s very difficult to write a great script, and it’s very difficult to direct a great movie from a great script. They’re difficult in different ways, but difficult nonetheless. Mind you, it’s not like I’ve written or directed anything great, but I talk to writers and directors and writer/directors who have written truly great scripts and directed truly great films.

And I listen.

I am the President of The Craig Mazin Company, Inc. The studios pay that company for my services. However, I also sign a certificate of authorship, as well as a letter of inducement, that essentially confirm my individual status as an employee in many important ways. I am subject to the collective bargaining agreement that covers employees. I am subject to work-for-hire as an employee.

Because of this, I must deal with certain realities.

Kevin,

Goldman wrote he rarely goes to set because he blows shots. I explained the rest of what I meant and I leave it at that. As for the rest of what you stated, you are outraged that I made my statement about marketing / biz folks, but what about your statement that writers don’t understand the business? Some do, more than I think you state. I find it interesting that you are outraged that I infer some marketing folk are less capable than they should be, but it’s somehow all right to do that very thing to writers - You probably have read bad script when you were an agent - I read bad scripts when I worked in casting, and it truly is astounding.

But I have read great scripts as well. They’re out there.

I can already see we could go around and around as we have in the past on the subject of quality and maybe we should just call a mulligan on that. I don’t know if you and I will ever see eye to eye on the subject, but who says we have to?

“I find it interesting that you are outraged that I infer some marketing folk are less capable than they should be, but it’s somehow all right to do that very thing to writers”

This is a website about empowering Screenwriters. The best way to do that is to be objective and realistic. If this was a a website about Marketing people, I would be just as candid about their issues and problems.

“But I have read great scripts as well. They’re out there.”

Well, of course there are some. But it’s extremely rare to find a great script. That’s what makes screenwriting so special. It’s very hard and most people can’t do it. So when you do find a great script, it’s an amazing and uplifting experience that makes you appreciate the power of words on a page.

What do you think could be done to empower screenwriters and gain more creative rights? Specifically.

Joshua,

I think I miscommunicated my question. I don’t want to know how you think writers should get the respect they deserve. I want to know what you think will change once writers have that respect. How would you want writers to be treated differently? In practical terms.

Should they have the right to be on set? Should they have the right to consult on casting, marketing, choice of director? Approvals? Should they have consultation on marketing and publicity?

If so, which writer do you think should get these rights? The one most recently hired, the one who contributed the most to the screenplay, or the one who initiated the project?

I have Criag’s answer on the issue, and I’m curious to hear your point of view. I hope my question is much clearer in this post. But to restate: I know that you think writers deserve more respect. I know it’s tricky to get that respect. My question is what would happen if writers had that respect. How do you think the working relationship and writer’s rights would/should change?

I really hope I worded the question properly this time, because it’s what I’ve always been trying to ask.

• keith

Craig — curious if you agree with this line of thinking:

There’s a great deal that individual writers can do to secure creative control and power for themselves, but relatively little that can be done FOR them by the Guild. Because:

In a typical labor union, one can reasonably claim that all employees with x years of seniority deserve such-and-such — it’s a uniform group. But in the WGA, a writer’s place in the food chain is based only on that writer’s achieved worth, not seniority or anything else. What Craig or Shane Salerno or Ted can get, I myself cannot (yet!).

So, the thing to do is to get clout for myself, not expect the Guild to get it for me. The MBA is the group floor, which we can really only rise above on an individual basis.

hey Craig,

“You don’t direct a script. You direct a movie. And I think you’re wrong. Either way, I’m not sure you have the appropriate experience to make such an evaluation. Personally, I think it’s very difficult to write a great script, and it’s very difficult to direct a great movie from a great script. They’re difficult in different ways, but difficult nonetheless. “

You direct a movie from a script, so it’s a bit of semantics. In theatre, the play means not only what was written but what seen, so it’s an easy mistake for me to make - can you direct a movie without a script? Other than a documentary, can one do that? I guess so.

But I agree that directing is difficult - for me, and for those directors that I have discussed it with, it seems writing a great script is more difficult. But life is fluid, so mayhap I will change my tune at some point.

Regardless, you may be entirely right, I may not have the appropriate experience to make the evaluation that I did - I haven’t yet directed a film (though I have been on sets) and in terms of experience, I in no way approach what you have achieved, nor have I worked with the directors you have. I’m not going to pretend to be perfect or an expert, I’m just going to do my best to think hard about the work and craft that I care about so much.

And try to listen.

Tom:

I sort of agree with that. The WGA can and has collectively bargained for incredibly important creative rights for all writers, like the right to control credits, our credit position, the right to do the first rewrite of a spec sale, etc.

However, there are a class of creative rights that have been difficult to achieve collectively. As such, it’s my belief that:

1. We should be doing what we can individually to achieve those rights while we wait for the WGA to enshrine them for all.
2. The more individuals who earn certain rights, the easier it will be for the collective to earn them.

Well Keith,

I don’t know that I will have a satisfactory answer for you, but I’ll do my best and hope I don’t get flamed too terribly - ultimately, I’d like to see writers have authorship of the film, which directors now currently hold. I’d like to see that because as writers, they are the authors, in my view. I know fully well that this is a view not shared by many, but it’s simply what I believe now.

At some point, it would be nice if more screenwriters became brand names, like Charlie Kaufmann has been able to do.

As an aside to Kevin, how many passed on BEING JOHN MALKOVICH? great film, yet many passed on that great script? That’s more of a problem than the crappy scripts floating around there, is great scripts being passed on - there’s the famous story of Pulp Fiction being passed on by everyone. Bad business decision on someone’s part and made by someone who wasn’t a writer.

But I digress. Back to Keith.

You know, I went to see MI3 primarily because JJ Abrams wrote it (he’s a writer I admire) - not because Tom was in it. That’s me, I’m weird that way. But I read books by authors I like, and I watch anything on television that Tom Fontana had to do with because he’s a writer I admire very much (and very fun to talk to, in person, may I add, I was lucky to meet him).

So I’d like to see authorship because when a great writer writes something, that person’s voice comes through and it’s thrilling for everyone involved.

When it becomes tamped down and processed through ten or fifteen different writers (like ARMAGEDDON), it becomes boring for me, personally. I like to hear the writer’s voice, be it in a book or television show or a movie. I like to know who the author is.

This is just my personal preference and only because you asked.

I don’t want to take the Josh Olson role here (but I do admire his work) in this debate - I’m interested in the subject but I am not offering myself up as an authority, okay? It’s only what I think based on what I’ve seen and heard and life is fluid, so mayhap I will change my tune, as Craig pointed out I’m still a tyro in some respects and I’m man enough to see and acknowledge that.

Craig — interesting! And, of course, the WGA has achieved enormous collective rights; didn’t mean to imply otherwise.

Probably off-topic, but I’d be curious to know what that class of creative rights is: gains that haven’t been made yet, but which you see as possible for the collective. Thanks for the site!

Tom:

I’d like to see the companies obliged to offer the position of production/set writer to the current writer of employ at the time of greenlight.

I’d like to see a trailer on the set and an office in the prod suite for a writer.

I’d like to see the writer’s name on the slate used before each shot.

I’d like to see the writer meaningfully consulted on marketing.

I’d like to see the writer included at any and all test screenings.

I’d like to see the writer automatically included at table readings.

I’d like the companies to allow the WGA to publish and sell the final scripts of all movies.

That’s just a few off the top of my head.

I’d like to see all writers on a project given copies of subsequent drafts at the time they are delivered to the delivery agent.

“As an aside to Kevin, how many passed on BEING JOHN MALKOVICH? great film, yet many passed on that great script? That’s more of a problem than the crappy scripts floating around there, is great scripts being passed on - there’s the famous story of Pulp Fiction being passed on by everyone. Bad business decision on someone’s part and made by someone who wasn’t a writer.”

Scripts get passed on all the time. And it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad business decision. I consider myself a pretty smart business man and I’ve made films that at face value, aren’t really considered the most commercial prospects. But I have to admit that if someone pitched me a movie about a puppeteer that finds a portal into John Malkovich’s head, I probably couldn’t have passed fast enough. Does that make me an idiot? I don’t think so. What’s your point?

“I’d like to see writers have authorship of the film, which directors now currently hold.”

Directors don’t have authorship of a film.

Good ones. And they all seem quite reasonable…

“What’s your point?”

A great script makes a great movie which makes great money. Shouldn’t be passed on then. Isn’t it obvious? If not, then perhaps we should not have this discussion.

“A great script makes a great movie which makes great money. Shouldn’t be passed on then. Isn’t it obvious?”

You’re not serious, are you?

I like Derek’s suggestion a lot. I love the idea of writers getting later drafts of a project they worked on.

I’m not sure about the idea of the WGA being able to publish and sell the final scripts of all movies. I would love it, as someone who likes to read scripts. But if we’re fighting for this, shouldn’t this be a right the writer(s) gets to retain? What if a writer on the project (two situations: credited or uncredited) doesn’t want the script to be published? How does this serve their interest?

Also, Craig, how can you put having a trailer in the MBA? I know plenty of low-budget films where no one has a trailer. Perhaps it could be tied to if the director or producer has a trailer?

• keith

Joshua:

You say that a lot screenwriters are versed in the knowledge of the entertainment business. You even said, in no uncertain terms, that you are one of them. But then you go on to say things like:

“Writers aren’t not ALWAYS employees, sometimes writers are the employers.”

“But really, I think that there are FAR more marketing /business folk out there who don’t know how to read…”

“A great script makes a great movie which makes great money. Shouldn’t be passed on then. Isn’t it obvious?”

“I’d like to see writers have authorship of the film, which directors now currently hold.”

I’m not calling you out on differences of opinion. These statements you made aren’t opinions. These are wild statements that clearly show a lack understanding and knowledge in the entertainment business. Again, this has nothing to do with your talent. This is not a slight on you as a person, personally I think you’re a really nice guy. But you need to understand that there are a lot writers out there like yourself that believe they are business savvy and they really aren’t.

Point in fact, I’m definitely not an authority. I totally don’t have all the answers. My only real leverage is that I’m objective and I realize that I still have a lot to learn and that my potential employers aren’t idiots that can’t read. I respect them and they respect me.

But you’ve definitely made my point. Most writers ARE NOT as informed as they should be. Including myself.

Keith:

Right…when it comes to things like trailers and offices, it’s always phrased in terms of parity.

So if the director has one…

That sort of thing.

The reason I think the WGA should collectively bargain for the right to publish scripts is thus: it is probably to the collective benefit of all writers. How the WGA administers such a program is a different story. I’d certainly urge them to run it entirely for the benefit of the membership, with royalties paid out in proportion to who is buying what.

There are many writers who currently receive the separated right to publish. That’s something the WGA won for writers with story by or screen story by credit.

Very very few of them take advantage of this, mostly because it’s an expensive endeavor for either them or a publishing house to take on the publication of a single screenplay.

Those writers with separated rights could now have the option of joining everyone else and granting the WGA the license to publish. Remember, none of us actually retains copyright, so any right to publish must be negotiated…one way or another.

Terry and I were on location when the Pirates movies were shot, and we did spend a lot of time on set.

However, the only time we were necessary on the set was when the day’s shooting included the start of a new scene. We would hang back and watch the blocking and the rehearsal. Once that process concluded and set-up for the first shot began, if we had suggestions regarding the scene — not as we had written it, but as Gore intended to shoot it — we would make them, talk ‘em out with the director.

Sometimes they weren’t incorporated, sometimes they were, sometimes Gore’d tell us to go give an actor or actors new lines (they’d generally gone back to make-up by then), sometimes we’d go back to our office and write up new sides and then deliver them personally to the actors, to explain why the changes have been made, and get their input (a lot of times, it was “Oh, I liked that word or phrasing in the other version better” — really, a word) and see if we could/should incorporate it as well (if it was a rather substantial difference from what we’d agreed on with Gore, then, first, it was back to the set to talk to Gore for his approval/input).

There was one instance where Terry and I were in the trailer, working on something for the third movie, while something from the second was being shot. As we worked, something occurred to us that needed to be included in the scene that was shooting — that had already been blocked, rehearsed, a couple of set-ups done. So we ran out to the set (it was a bit of a distance) and … waited until Gore finished the shot-in-progress, which was exactly where the new idea had to play. We talked to him, he agreed with it (it was a performance thing that required slightly different blocking, not a dialogue thing), and worked it out with the actors and the crew.

So even though we did not spend a lot of time on set per se, we nonetheless spent a lot of time around the set, working.

The writer’s primary purpose on any set is the same as anyone else on a set: To help the director make the day.

Anyone who is not doing that is not necessary; and anyone who is working counter to that, shouldn’t be there.

If William Goldman has a tendency to blow takes, then he’s not helping the director make the day, he’s impeding it — and that’s why he has decided for himself he shouldn’t be there.

-

Kevin,

I don’t believe that I have proved your point - I didn’t address your last post because I didn’t want to go down that valley with you again regarding quality, but since you called me out, let me address a few of the things:

One) Screenwriters as employees - I got this wrong, recognized it and rectified it. I misunderstood and when Craig and others pointed it out, I copped to my mistake. I should point out that it’s when one is IN the guild is this applicable. I’ve done some non-union work where I wasn’t an employee but an independent contractor and thus , this is why I was misinformed.

So sometimes writers are not employees, but only when they are not in the union.

I consider myself corrected. I definitely make mistakes from time to time and probably will again in the future, though I try hard not to.

And as an aside, I stated I am not an expert and my statements are based on what I’ve witnessed, experienced and discussed with those more in the know than I, including the kind folks on THIS site and the previous discussion thread.

Two) Directors are not authors of the film. In response to this, I have four words for you. A MICHAEL BAY FILM.

Three) Many marketing / biz folks don’t know how to read scripts. Are you saying that they all DO know how to? Your point is that writers don’t understand business - I say many do (and mention our kind host Craig Mazin as an example) - I don’t say that ALL marketing / biz folks don’t know how to read - just many, which is why they hire readers, is it not?

I do know a couple of really great people, non-writers who are in the business, who do have an eye for work and am currently working with them. I know there are others. My point is that the folks often in these positions don’t understand the craft in the way that Craig or Josh O or Ted does and as a result many incoming great writers (the Craig’s, Josh O’s and Ted’s of tomorrow) are not recognized for the good work that they are doing, in fact, the work is just passed on, which leads me to the next point:

Four) - Great scripts make great movies which makes great money. I don’t understand how you could have issue with this, but then I remembered that you think or believe that the quality of the screenplay has nothing to do with how good the movie will be or how much money it will eventually make. We had that long argument on quality, remember.

Suffice to say that I disagree. And if the quality of the script doesn’t matter, why hire readers at all, why spend time learning to write well to make great movies, why even read the damn things?

Why be here if writing a great script is not important?

Kevin, I like you, you have an obvious sense of humor and anyone who loves the martial arts as much as I do gets points in my book (we are still the only two people here who know who Ernesto Hoost is) - but I disagree with you on many issues and if you recall, I’m not the only one (see previous thread) - you’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but my opinion is that you, yourself, have proven my points for me. Now you will respond, and I will, and we’ll have that same funny, lively talk about how much writing does or doesn’t matter.

For me it does and I’ve been very consistent on that point even when I have messed up.

But honestly, I don’t want to have that long, long argument on quality in writing again - I don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye and as I said before, who says we have to?

I said: But if you want to be respected for your films, than take part in making the damn film.

Joshua James says: Jen maintained that if you want to be known only for writing, stay at home, but if you want to be known for your film work, get out of the house and become a producer / director.

He goes on to say: I would want the writer to be directly involved with the production

And then says: Jen Doe’s postion seems to be that it is thus only because we insist on ONLY writing and not taking on other jobs.

Fascinating. Show me exactly where I said that a screenwriter had to take on other jobs. Particularly, where did I say a screenwriter also had to be a director and/or producer?

Go ahead, I’ll wait…

What’s that? You can’t find it? Hmm … maybe because I never said that.

What I said was “take part in making the damn film”. One could translate that to mean “be directly involved with the production”, but to say it means “become a director or a producer” stretches the bounds of reading comprehension.

I have no secret agenda. I said exactly what I meant to say. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I never said you had a secret agenda: You said:

“If you want to be respected for your scripts, than sit in your office and type away. Your job is done as soon as you reach FADE OUT. But if you want to be respected for your films, than take part in making the damn film.”

Which I can take to mean that if the ONLY thing you contribute to the film is good writing, you’re not going to be respected for your films, only for writing.

You’re right, you didn’t say direct or produce. But you did infer that the writer cannot lay claim to the quality of the finished product if all they did was stay home and write a great script. You also inferred that one needed to take part in the actually filming of the product, which led me to believe you meant producing or directing, but I guess it could have also meant gaffe the show, or be a PA.

Your point is that if all one does is stay home and write, you’re not going to be respected for your damned films.

My point is that if a writer contributes a great script, either at home or near the set (as Ted and Terry have done) you’ve already made a contribution worthy of respect.

Just because you assume something does not mean I inferred it. You want writers to lay claim to the quality of a finished product. I agree. But that means the writer has to lay claim to a bad film, too. Especially if they were not willing to defend their product.

Your point is that if all one does is stay home and write, you’re not going to be respected for your damned films.

Damn right. If you don’t want to have anything to do with the making of films, then why the hell bother to write a screenplay?

My point is that if a writer contributes a great script, either at home or near the set (as Ted and Terry have done) you’ve already made a contribution worthy of respect.

Which is all well and good. If you want to be known for your writing. And just to be perfectly clear, I know and respect the talent and skill it takes to craft a good script. But a script is not a film.

Feature films are not made by just pointing a camera at people while they read dialogue. There are thousands of decisions made for hundreds of reasons that often cost millions of dollars. It is in the writer’s best interest, as the story expert, to get involved in the process of turning their script into a film. If they shirk that responsibility, they have no right to bitch about the finished product.

It’s bad enough that some studios and directors fight to limit the writer’s involvement. Why in the hell would you volunteer to wear the shackles?

Question:

What is an “author”?

Is it someone who has an idea for a novel?

No; that’s just someone who has an idea for a novel.

It’s the person who expresses that idea for the novel as an actual, honest-to-God novel that you can hold a copy of in your hands and read it and come to understand a story through the decisions made in selecting words and creating sentences and arranging them in a specific order …

So, here’s the question:

Who is the person or people who makes the decisions in selecting shots and creating scenes and arranging them in a specific order so that you can hold a copy of a film in your hands and watch it and come to understand a story through the decisions made in selecting shots and creating scenes and arranging them in a specific order?

It’s not a trick question.

-

“Great scripts make great movies which makes great money.”

This is simply not true.

This isn’t a Quality issue. While, great scripts can make great movies, they do not necessarily make “great money”. If it were that simple, flops would cease to exist. You make it sound as if you could walk into Paramount Pictures, recite that sentence and all the executives would look at you and start giving you the slow clap.

Many marketing / biz folks don’t know how to read scripts. Are you saying that they all DO know how to? Your point is that writers don’t understand business - I say many do (and mention our kind host Craig Mazin as an example) - I don’t say that ALL marketing / biz folks don’t know how to read - just many, which is why they hire readers, is it not?

First of all, Craig is the exception, not the rule. There are many things I don’t know but trust me, I know for a fact that I’ve dealt with literally 100 times more writers than you and I assure you, most writers are not educated enough.

Now the second part, “…just many, which is why they hire readers, is it not?”

Dude…what are you talking about? Marketing people don’t have Readers. Reading a script and marketing a film have absolutely nothing to do with each other. It’s all about the finished film. That’s the only thing they can market.

And if you’re talking about the Studio Executives in development or production, they employ Readers because it’s simply impossible to read the hundreds and hundreds of scripts that come in every week.

Directors are not authors of the film. In response to this, I have four words for you. A MICHAEL BAY FILM.

Maybe I misunderstood you. Were you talking about perception rather than legally? If you’re talking about perception than I agree with you.

This shouldn’t be a beat up on Joshua session so let me drop out of this. Just try to understand the reality of the situation that we’re all in and accept the notion that we all need to know more.

Because of all the different hats I’ve worn in this business, I’ve dealt with all the areas of entertainment and I’m pretty knowledgeable (In fact, I just realized that I’ve dealt with Josh Olson years ago when he was casting a film called Infested and I was still an agent) and I realize that I don’t know HALF of what Craig knows. And you know what? There are people out there that know TWICE as much as Craig. That’s the reality. Let’s just be open to it.

Jen, a lot of what you’re bringing up was area covered in the previous post / comments section. But here are some of my points:

“But a script is not a film.” Try making a good one without a script then, see how far you go. Funny then, why it is so important to have a good script in order to make a good film. A good script is a blueprint for a good film.

“Damn right. If you don’t want to have anything to do with the making of films, then why the hell bother to write a screenplay?”

By writing a screenplay, we’re already involving ourselves in the making of a film. It’s an important part, writing a good screenplay, in fact, the most important part, something that Craig stated in his comments on the post previous to this.

I’m not volunteering to wear shackles - I am pointing out that by writing a great script, whether at home or on set, is a valuable and important part of the filmmaking process (unless you’re doing a documentary). You appear to think that it is not.

Shoot, I wouldn’t stay at home, I’m a socialable guy and I’ve been on a few sets and know what not to do, know not to blow shots, know not to get in the way and impede the director from making his day. I think most writers would want to do whatever they can, in person or on the phone, to make the film even better during the filming.

I don’t think that the studios should limit the writers involvement - my issue was with the idea that a writer HAS to direct or produce to be taken seriously. I believe writing well is serious enough work.

I also know that what any writer has done by writing a great script is create a valuable first step in the creation of a great film WHETHER THEY COME TO SET OR NOT - you state that a writer cannot lay claim to the quality of the finished product if they’re not involved in filming and I disagree .

Man, I knew you were gonna get me about the author thing, Ted - I hestitated to write it, but I was asked what I would like to see that that is what I would want to see, eventually. I like to know who the stories come from, but it’s just my opinion.

The author is the person who expresses the idea of the story in the way unique to the author, is what I believe, but I know fully well it’s not so simple as that. And honestly, I am feeling ganged up on here at the moment, perhaps I brought it on myself for opening my mouth (actually, I know I did) but I said what I said and now I should keep quiet for awhile and just listen while the bigger kids play …

Joshua, I realize many of these points have already been addressed, which is why it amazes me that you seem to miss them so completely.

I also know that what any writer has done by writing a great script is create a valuable first step in the creation of a great film.

First step. First goddamn step. You said it yourself and you STILL don’t get it.

You know what? I give up. You win. You’re right. Writers just never get any respect. Let us all rend our hair in lament.

I’m going back to lurking.

“I know fully well it’s not so simple as that…” “I should keep quiet for awhile and just listen while the bigger kids play…”

The four of us, that includes Laura, are almost sorry for adding in here, because we are not the ‘bigger kids’, but the real live Geek Quartet who ponders Math therums and quantitative expressions willingly and regularly during barbeques, whilst our Argentine and Russian husbands bask in how well their steaks are sizzling on the parrilla, but we were in total disbelief in that Laura swore, HOLY SWORE we’d find an active interaction based on the concept that there really was on ongoing and true tangible entanglement of the ‘inverse, converse and the contrapositive’!!!

We ponder Math challenges, and both Laura and Alina go to sleep and dream up the finishing touches so to make these therums balanced/sound/equal, and here we were betting soo madly against her - holy jesus dudes & dudets, she won!

This site has brilliantly proven that all the ‘stuff’ we are all introduced to in High School that we never thought we’d use again, we do - indifferent forms.

This Geek Quartet graciously bows to all of the above and to the ‘previous thread’ - you make the contrapositive proud and you prove that p->q and that q->p (read as “if p then q, therefore then q if p.)

Mathematically sound, balanced and equal, although WE ALL owe our Laura ‘extra hot chai teas, no foam, no water, whole milk, extra hot from her fave corner franchise…

xoxoLL & pals. :)

“By the way, I didn’t understand a single sentence on your post for Artful Writer. Gotta love Laura!”

Good morning all,

I write to you as Laura and with an explanation. Upon me popping on this a.m., just prior to me heading to the gym, I found two emails from two frequent commentors in my personal email, so I felt compelled to explain. I’m so sorry for all the academia shmutz….

In a personal letter I had explained the ‘contrapositive’ - hope it clears it all up. :)

“…I was working on ‘converse, inverse & the contrapositive’ with a student that defines as “the argument between two or more mathematical expressions/equation in that there are infinitely a ‘pro’ and a ‘non’ - argumentative math banter that yields no solution – I thought of the Artful Writer.”

There you have it, now I promise to return to my custodial position in ‘Good Will Hunting.’ (and Yuri and Yoshi, damn you - you said this would happen - man it’s tough to be a geek today!)

Again, my apologies! xoxoLL

Craig,

Great column. But oh the humanity… How can you misquote the great Van-Halen-era Diamond Dave? He didn’t feel “dirty.”

Craig,

Nice of you to clarify these things. Much of it has been extremely unclear in your previous posts. I’m chugging along happily, though, until I come to this:

“Screenwriters and directors are the coauthors of films.”

I don’t expect to see real change happen in my lifetime, but I would like to see some progress in the right direction, and so long as we can’t even identify what the issue is, that ain’t gonna happen. So long as any of us - let alone our representatives - are running around buying into this sheepish, Uriah Heepy bullshit, we’re gonna remain the servile lackeys of people who don’t contribute as much as we do.

Directors are administrators who marshal large groups of people in an effort to bring the screenplay to life. If you’re lucky, they bring real art to the process. But let’s be clear - most of them don’t. Most of them are just administrators, and yet we treat them like artists. We give “film by” credits to people whose artistic contributions amount to directing traffic, and we don’t ask what THEY’VE done to deserve it, and they’ve done nothing to gain it save take on a job that isn’t as difficult as writing a movie.

This isn’t bitterness. This isn’t anger. This is the truth. Wouldn’t it be fun if we started acknowledging this stuff for a change? Who knows? It might even change the way we approach getting what we deserve.

Craig,

“First of all, I don’t satirize existing movies. I parody existing movies.”

Parody is a form of satire.

Keith,

You wrote:

“I could see that leading to a lot of cases (perhaps the majority) that wouldn’t stay true to the spirit of Josh’s belief of: “Writers are the visionaries who create the stories. Everyone else - as important, as lovely, and as brilliant as they are - is there to implement that vision.”

Following that credo, whichever writer contributed the most to the story and the vision should be the one that reaps the rewards of involvement in the production of the script. Also, that theoretically should lead to a “better” film. I’m not sure how he would propose that is enforced though.

Josh, still reading? Any thoughts on this? Am I misunderstanding your view”

No. Truth is, I don’t know WHAT the answer is there. I can only reference my own experience - I’ve never been rewritten*, so my experience is one-sided. I don’t very often take on rewrites, and when I do, I do it knowing full well that I am servicing someone else’s vision. I think it’s a different situation, and I think that goes to why it’s very important to do everything possible to protect the primary writer’s position on a film.

*Actually, one time. By a good friend I’d written with several times before. He was brought in to rewrite the worst script I’d ever handed in years ago, during my straight to video days. The end result was our first shared credit on a finished movie, and the irony was that after years of doing good work, it was the worst thing we’d ever done. And it got made.

Kevin M:

What misquote? Do you not remember Hot For Teacher? “Oh man, the clock is slow. I don’t feel tardy…” For shame, sir! For shame!

Josh:

So…some directors are coauthors? Eh, I don’t care. Whatever. Go in peace.

But this I’ll quibble with. Parody is not a form of satire.

Parody 1 : a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule.

Satire 1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn
2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly

They are entirely different. The first is an imitation, in which familiarity is used to generate laughter. The second is an original work that uses comedy to make a critical point.

You can do both at once. Sometimes, filmmakers parody other things in the service of satire. South Park occasionally does this, although they usually engage in original satire.

The ZAZ boys never satire. There is no critical point to be made. They are pure parodists.

Derek,

“In Josh O’s case, that means to let the work speak for itself and to be a nice guy.”

Um…. No. I keep saying this, and it seems to vanish in the wind every time, at least for some folks. I do everything Craig does and then some. I’m actively involved in every aspect of the job that I can get my hands on. I’m producing and directing, and if it gets the movie I want to see made, I’ll work crafts service. But I do those things because that’s how I’m made. I’m a full service operation. But I do that because I WANT to. I resent the notion that I HAVE to do it, and I resent the notion that a writer who’s better than me but isn’t disposed to direct or produce needs to learn to do that.

We need to value the real art of real writing. WE need to do that. Because if we don’t, we cannot begin to expect anyone else to.

Kevin,

“No, you can’t sell a script about a man who falls in love with his goat”

You can’t. Someone can. Someone once sold a script about a man falling in love with an old man, who was his girlfriend reincarnated. Someone once sold a script about a guy falling into John Malkovich’s head. Someone sold a script called Snakes On A Plane.

There are no creative limits save what you place on yourself.

Craig,

You responded to Joshua:

” ‘I do maintain that it is more difficult to write a great script than to direct a script that is already great.’

You don’t direct a script. You direct a movie. And I think you’re wrong. Either way, I’m not sure you have the appropriate experience to make such an evaluation.”

Okay. But I do.

He’s right.

Craig,

“I’d like to see the companies obliged to offer the position of production/set writer to the current writer of employ at the time of greenlight.

I’d like to see a trailer on the set and an office in the prod suite for a writer.

I’d like to see the writer’s name on the slate used before each shot.

I’d like to see the writer meaningfully consulted on marketing.

I’d like to see the writer included at any and all test screenings.

I’d like to see the writer automatically included at table readings.

I’d like the companies to allow the WGA to publish and sell the final scripts of all movies.”

Hey! We agree on some shit!

Amazing.

Good to hear your voice again, Brother Olson -

Ted,

“Who is the person or people who makes the decisions in selecting shots and creating scenes and arranging them in a specific order so that you can hold a copy of a film in your hands and watch it and come to understand a story through the decisions made in selecting shots and creating scenes and arranging them in a specific order?”

First of all, let’s clarify something - the auteur theory, as subsribed to today by intellectual midgets and illiterates - is based on a wild misunderstanding of the initial premise. The initial premise is not that the director is the creator of the film, or the true author, but simply that SOME directors have recurring habits and themes and motifs that allow you to recognize the movies they’ve directed without seeing their credit.

You can do the same thing with actors, you know. It’s pretty damn easy to figure out you’re watching a Cary Grant movie, but nobody’s running around saying Cary Grant was the “author” of North By Northwest.

Second, let’s ask something else - who provides the structure and framework from which the decisions you describe are made?

The notion that directors are the “authors” of a finished filom is arbitrary at best, and requires denying the primary importance of the screenplay. A good director makes choices that enhance the script. A bad one makes ones that contradict the script.

It’s like crediting actors with the lines they speak. If they speak the line well, we say the actor gave a great performance, not that he “authored” the line.

It’s good to be heard, Brother James.

Wonder twins powers, activate!

Josh, I know you are actively involved in every facet of production and then some. Why? I posit that it is not only because you are wired that way… but because you want the best possible chance for your screenplay to be realized the way you intended.

I’m advocating that screenwriters should do more of that. Not that they HAVE to, but that they should, like you, want to. For the record, I’m not advocating that screenwriters have to direct or produce their own material to achieve this. I just don’t think the job of screenwriter is over when you type FADE OUT.

Fuck, I think we agree on this, but I could be wrong.

It was about here I left several months ago, albeit from another angle of attack; interesting (and sobering) to see JO make his case.

Josh, let me start by offering a simple statement which - in my view - cuts to the heart of this conflict: an artist - one incarnation being the writer for film - has a patron that commissions a work; therefore, the ownership of said work is no longer the sole property of its author.

If you can accept this statement, then you must accept your activity has entered the realm of commerce - in addition to that of emotional expression. It is a strange and difficult intersection, indeed. Still, how are Craig’s pragmatic recommendations on succeeding in the economic realm a threat to the type of recognition you deem important? There will always be some artists who cater more to the patron’s requirements than others; but do you really assert that alligning with the patron’s interests is injurious to what you (second person) aim to accomplish?

lt

PS I can think of a few ways in which conforming to the patron’s wishes are destructive, but they all seem to quickly fall into the realm of deeply subjective… which makes it hard to find a common ground for discussion.

“No, you can’t sell a script about a man who falls in love with his goat”

You can’t. Someone can.

You’re right. I can’t.

“Directors are administrators who marshal large groups of people in an effort to bring the screenplay to life. If you’re lucky, they bring real art to the process. But let’s be clear - most of them don’t.”

In my experience this doesn’t apply to any of the directors that I have worked with and it damn sure doesn’t apply to me. Your experiences were obviously wildly different so I’ll just chalk this up to your personal opinion rather than fact.

And I agree with you regarding the Auteur Theory. It’s complete and utter bullshit.

“It’s good to be heard, Brother James.”

“Wonder twins powers, activate!”

Oddly enough, you guys truly do look alike.

The irony of speaking about “a man falling in love with his goat” as an example of an unsellable script…

“The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia?” by Edward Albee won the 2002 Tony award for best play and the New York Drama Critics Circle award. From what I understand, it was also a pretty big hit.

I saw it. It’s about a man who falls in love with his goat.

Derek,

“Why? I posit that it is not only because you are wired that way… but because you want the best possible chance for your screenplay to be realized the way you intended.”

You’d be wrong. I love production. I love being on a set. I love prepping a movie. I love every aspect of it.

This is all very bad news for my new spec THE SECRET OF THE GOATFUCKER.

Josh:

“A good director makes choices that enhance the script. A bad one makes ones that contradict the script.”

Of course this is only true if the script is absolutely perfect the way it is. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s not.

Keith:

I know.

I was using The Goat or Who is Sylvia and Being John Malkovich as examples of projects that are actually really good but for obvious reasons, could have been passed upon.

Derek:

I hope you didn’t steal my idea: GOATFUCKERS ANONYMOUS.

Kevin,

“In my experience this doesn’t apply to any of the directors that I have worked with and it damn sure doesn’t apply to me.”

Beyond Spike Lee, I don’t know what directors you’ve worked with. But you hardly need to work with a director to get whether or not he’s an artist or a traffic controller. Spike - love him or hate him (And I think when he’s good he’s great and when he’s bad, he’s terrible and interesting) has a very definite artistic vision. God bless him. But the overwhelming majority of movies are not directed by artists and it doesn’t matter if you know them personally or have worked with them. What matters is the end result.

If you can’t see the difference betwee a movie Spike Lee has directed - even a bad one - and a movie that, say, Joel Shumaker has directed - even a good one - I would submit that your critical faculties have become atrophied.

There is a difference between a great chef and a guy who manages a sausage factory. There’s nothing wrong with being able to distinguish between them, and in spite of the fact that there will always be some gray area and room for specific disagreement, it is the simple truth that most directors are just managers.

The proof’s in the pudding, man. It’s in the end result, not in how they conduct themselves on the job.

““Wonder twins powers, activate!” Oddly enough, you guys truly do look alike.”

When I let my soul patch grow out … he’s right.

Kevin,

“A good director makes choices that enhance the script. A bad one makes ones that contradict the script.”

Of course this is only true if the script is absolutely perfect the way it is. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s not.”

No, it isn’t. Nothing is perfect. But if a director has a really good script and his choices aren’t being made in service of that script, he’s a bad director.

Let’s not forget that Spike is an Oscar nominated screenwriter as well - obviously he doesn’t write all his movies, but most of the time a pretty decent writer as well ( not all the time, me loves HE GOT GAME, me hate SHE HATE ME and when a movie has bountiful scenes of lesbian love in it and I don’t like it, something went wrong somewhere … ) I always felt Spike was best represented by BAMBOOZLED, the first half of which was pure genius and the second half of which was just pure crapola … just my opinion of course, no more, no less.

Josh, Let’s say a novice screenwriter came to you saying that his screenplay had recently sold and was being fast-tracked for production? What advice would you give him to help ensure that his vision was realized on screen?

Josh:

“There is a difference between a great chef and a guy who manages a sausage factory.”

Two things. Number One, when I read your analogy, the first thing I thought of was Wolfgang Puck and some guy who manages a gay brothel.

Number Two, I’m actually very critical. It’s funny that you mentioned Joel Schumacher because yes, I consider him one of the worst working directors of the last decade.

The reason why I specifically sight my own experiences because there’s simply no way for me to what went into a movie that I had nothing to do with. Some of the Directors I’ve worked with have been Oscar Nominated. At least with the movies I’ve produced, I know that the Directors were intelligent, creative, and thoughtful artists that made the best possible movie they could have.

I’m just not that quick to make sweeping generalizations about Directors especially since Directors tend to make sweeping generalizations about Writers. I can only speak of the movies that I have first hand knowledge.

But trust me Josh, I too have hate in my heart.

“But if a director has a really good script and his choices aren’t being made in service of that script, he’s a bad director.”

Well…yeah.

Joshua:

“…and when a movie has bountiful scenes of lesbian love in it and I don’t like it”

You and I need to have a little talk.

Why is there the assignment of authorship? Hasn’t it been acknowledged that film is of a collaborative nature?

Joshua (James) —

Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to gang up on you. I just think this is a fairly important issue for writers to deal with, and can be summed up like this:

A screenplay written is not a movie produced.

The argument that the writer makes all, or even most, of the creative decisions necessary to produce a motion picture is not compelling to anyone in the film industry other than writers. As long as writers continue to base demands for greater rights — creative and economic — on that argument, little progress will be made.

Whereas, in the first 35 years or so of WGA history, writers argued for — and won — greater creative and economic rights based on two principals:

1. As employees of studios, writers are entitled to be rights of employment commensurate with the value of their work product to the employer.

2. As the authors of copyrightable literary material in the employ of U.S. Companies, writers are entitled to the contractual equivalent of the legal rights they would have in all other circumstances except employment by U.S. companies.

Every single real economic and creative right that screen and television writers have — residuals, separated rights, health and pension contributions, 4- and 5-figure minimum fees, the right to determine credit for screen authorship, etc., etc. — were argued for and won based on those twin principals.

For some reason, about 30 years ago, the WGA stopped advancing those causes, stopped educating its membership as to those issues and arguments, and that void has been filled by an argument borne of — and I am using this term accurately, and not pejoratively — ignorance (meaning: the absence of knowledge).

Creating the unique expression of idea in the form of literary material — what writers do — and the copyright in that literary material — what studios want/need to own — is valuable in-and-of-itself, separate and distinct from any copyrightable audio/visual material that may or may not be derived from the literary material.

Absent that knowledge … well, the idea that “Writers don’t get the power they deserve in Hollywood” can more accurately be stated as “Hollywood denies authors the power they have every where else except Hollywood.”

And, as the saying goes:

“Power without knowledge is power lost.” - Montesquieu

-

Josh O,

I’m sure it was easier to direct “Infested” than to write AHOV.

Speaking of which, I think AHOV is a good example of a movie that’s better than its screenplay.

Craig,

“Parody is not a form of satire.”

Well, yeah. It is. Satire is a large tent, encompassing all manner and variety of different forms and tools. Parody is simply one of the tools in the box.

You’re talking to the son of an English teacher.

Kevin,

“The reason why I specifically sight my own experiences because there’s simply no way for me to what went into a movie that I had nothing to do with.”

That hardly matters. How much work someone did really doesn’t matter. What matters is the end result.

“Some of the Directors I’ve worked with have been Oscar Nominated.”

But so has Ben Affleck, right?

Kevin,

“But trust me Josh, I too have hate in my heart.”

That’s too bad.

I don’t.

Bridget,

“I’m sure it was easier to direct “Infested” than to write AHOV.

Speaking of which, I think AHOV is a good example of a movie that’s better than its screenplay.”

Hey, I’ll make you a deal - tell us who you are, post YOUR credits, and I’ll take moronic shots at them from the shadows like a snivelling weasel.

Meanwhile, there’s a whole host of folks who AREN’T afraid to put their names to their opinion who have spoken quite vigorously on the matter, and it would seem you’re in the distinct minority.

Enjoy your bile.

Great site and great post! I couldn’t agree with you more regarding “Screenwriters aren?t educated enough.”

BTW - I caught a “typo” in this sentence: “And from now one, when people question what I believe, I’ll be able to just publish the link to this post, and that will save us all time and carpal tunnel pain.”

Best,

Brett

Josh,

Geez. Touchy. You stated that based on your experience writing was harder than directing. I have no directing experience. Yours is quite limited.

And so what if I thought Violence was a better movie than screenplay? I thought Cronenberg did a fabulous job with an ok script. Just my opinion.

My credits? I’m a single mom with two boys aged 8 and 10. I do temp work when I can, and court transcripts from my home. I also love watching movies. Some of my recent faves: Nobody Knows, The New World, Sexy Beast.

I love movies and I find Craig’s site to be fun and informative. So sorry if you are so easily offended. You come across as awfully confrontational, personal and pushy with your fellow writers. Rest assured I’m not one of them. Just a movie buff fascinated by the in-fighting.

Josh (Olson) —

I’m talking about the concept of authorship, which dates back more than four hundred years to John Locke (the English philosopher, not the character named after him on Lost), and is the basis for all laws that guarantee the moral and economic rights attendant to authorship. It deals directly with intellectual property.

That you confuse this with a theory of motion picture criticism that’s been around about fifty years, tops, demonstrates simultaneously that

A) you have little familiarity with the actual rights of authors, including the moral rights you constantly invoke in your arguments; and

B ) that you know absolutely nothing about the auteur theory beyond the fact that “auteur” is French of “author” —

— because, otherwise it is impossible to confuse the two, something you do consistently, to no good purpose.

Quick rule of thumb:

“Authorship” exists relative to any single work of intellectual property (ie, a physical object which uniquely expresses intellectual concepts).

“Auteurism” requires the existence of multiple works of audi-vlisual intellectual property that were created under a specific set of circumstances and no other and can be argued as including similar aesthetic qualities from the point of view of proving the auteur theory. As such, it is entirely self-reflective, and requires an individual to subscribe to the theory before it can be possibly be proved, and if it is subscribed to, it can only be proved or disproved in regards to specific directors, and not as general theory of film criticism.

In other words: the auteur theory is valueless except to those who value the auteur theory, whereas the concept of authorship is valuable to anyone who cares about the moral and economic rights of creators of intellectual property, ie, all authors.

See the huge difference there?

So now that you can offer at least a slightly-informed opinion, let’s try again:

Given that the writer(s) is the creator of the literary material used in the production of a motion picture, it is relatively simple to determine authorship of the intellectual property: the screenplay.

However, even though the motion picture uniquely expresses the same intellectual concepts that are uniquely expressed in the screenplay, they are two separate physical objects, easily distinguishable as such and, therefore, two separate pieces of intellectual property.

Since authorship in any piece of intellectual property vests in the creator(s) of that piece of intellectual property only, and since a motion picture is a separate piece of intellectual property from the screenplay …

… authorship of a motion picture derived from a screenplay is likewise separate from authorship of the screenplay, must be determined separately from any determination of the authorship of the screenplay, and authorship of the screenplay does not automatically vest authorship of the motion picture in the same individual.

However, a motion picture often is derived from a screenplay; that is, the ideas given unique expression in an audio/visual medium are derived from an intellectual property in a literary medium.

So, there’s really two questions:

In an instance where the ideas uniquely expressed in an audio/visual medium are not derived from any other intellectual property, in which person/people should authorship vest?

In an instance where the ideas uniquely expressed in an audio/visual medium are derived from a separate piece of intellectual property, in which person/people should authorship vest?

I’ve heard enough times that individuals who direct motion pictures aren’t the authors of those motion pictures.

I know for a fact that the individual who creates a piece of intellectual property in any medium other than an audio/visual medium has not authored a motion picture.

So, really, it’s ultimately really only one question:

If the director is not the author of the movie and since a screenplay is inarguably a work of authorship that is not the movie, then who is/are the author(s) of a movie?

Like I said: it’s not a trick question. Generally, I can figure out and make arguments supporting just about any position on an issue; most writers can, since it’s kind of a required ability. But, on this one, I’m stumped. I would really like to hear the argument supporting the position that the a director has no claim to authorship of a movie.

-

Well Ms. Jenkins - It’s not touchy to one defends ones work, that’s what I think. You can either stand up or walk away. Why shouldn’t a writer defend it?

Funny how anyone thinks it’s cool to take potshots at a person’s work and then act aghast when they stand up to it.

Does this mean you’re going to call up Oliver Stone and give him a hard time for writing the script for the CONAN THE BARBARIAN or, wait for it, directing THE HAND (a horror shlock classic about an evil runaway hand crawling around choking people. Interestingly enough, sometimes it’s a RIGHTY and sometimes it’s a LEFTY) which was made early in his career.

Not that I haven’t criticisms of my own, but if Spike Lee were to take issue with my view on SHE HATE ME, I sure wouldn’t call him touchy. But I ain’t butting into his conversations at the Knick games to tell him what I think about SHE HATE ME, either.

It seems kind of ironic to call someone confrontational when you jumped in and attacked his credits.

Kevin and I have tangled many o’ time and not bashed each other’s resume’. Well, perhaps not much. I don’t think that we have. Have we, Kevin?

If you think HOV was just an okay script that “accidently” got nominated for an Oscar, then you won’t mind if I call you silly, would you? Because that’s silly. And if you really want to find something to admire in terms of writing, read the source material for HOV and then read the screenplay adapted from that source- that was a ton o’ work to adapt that into a good screenplay, that’s my humble opinion.

Now I don’t want anyone to think I’m biased, Craig, you’ve heard me rave about this site and your work in Scary Movie 3 & 4 many o’ time, and Ted, I love me the Pirate movie (and Shrek and, well, damn, a lot of your work and also the columns on Workplayer, etc.) -

And Spike, if you’re listening, I’m sorry I didn’t like SHE HATE ME but if it makes you feel any better, I became a writer because of DO THE RIGHT THING and the journal you wrote for the making of the film has an honored spot on my bookshelf.

Lest anyone think I’m kissing up to Josh O, should I just call him a bastard right now to demonstrate my objectivity?

Josh O, you feisty bastard, stop terrorizing the single mothers who don’t want writers to be confrontational.

Damn, I just realized, I was going to sit the rest of this one out and I opened my mouth and fell into it again.

“Some of the Directors I’ve worked with have been Oscar Nominated.”

“But so has Ben Affleck, right?”

No. Affleck won the Oscar. Um…your point?

“But trust me Josh, I too have hate in my heart.”

That’s too bad.

I don’t.

Oh, Olson…

Yawn.

Obviously, I was just saying that I too can be critical of direction in motion pictures. Don’t be so literal. You won’t come off as such a priss.

“That hardly matters. How much work someone did really doesn’t matter. What matters is the end result.”

Yeah, but if I don’t have any real intimate knowledge of a film how would I determine if the screenplay sucked or the direction sucked? You know there ARE cases where the direction was good and the screenplay sucked just as there ARE cases where the direction sucked and the screenplay was great.

C’mon, man. Don’t lose your objectivity.

Personally, I don’t think it’s cool to attack someone’s body of work on a website wherein the parties have graciously given their time and experiences.

Josh O and I may verbally tangle and call each other names but that’s as far as it goes.

No hitting below the belt.

Bridget

To what Joshua said, I would only add - which draft of the script did you actually read?

Kevin,

The Affleck joke was exactly that - a joke. If you’re going to discount the significance of a thing when it suits you one time, then laud it when it suits you another, I reserve the right to mock you.

Alright, alright.

But I did get a chance to use that priss line.

I read an early draft of AHOV and the shooting draft of AHOV.

And they were both fantastic.

Which makes me hate Josh even more.

Ted,

First of all, re: the auteur theory - there’s a difference between not picking up in which context you’re using the word “author” and not knowing what it means, thanks.

“If the director is not the author of the movie and since a screenplay is inarguably a work of authorship that is not the movie, then who is/are the author(s) of a movie?”

Ignoring the legal aspects, and focussing purely on the artistic ones, you can’t really attribute authorship of a film. It is a synthesis of visions, and when there’s A writer (or A team of writers) it’s a bit easier to determine the origin of that vision. But it’s not an answerable question, which suggests that a system that requires identifying authorship of a motion picture is one that requires an overhaul.

But yeah, if you have to, for now, name the author of a film. I’d love to hear a thoughtful argument for naming someone other than the writer.

“But I did get a chance to use that priss line.”

Indeed. But I still retain authorship of it.

Josh O., You might have missed my question earlier. I was hoping you’d answer.

Personally, I don’t believe that one person can claim authorship to a film but I’m shocked that no one has brought up a person who’s probably the closest link to the finished film:

The Editor.

The Editor can make a comedy into a drama, an action film, into a romantic comedy, and a thriller into dogshit.

There have been soooo many times that I’ve attended a screening and the movie that I watched just wasn’t the script that I read or the film that was shot.

I’m sure there’s a blog out there somewhere, run by editors, that feel that they are the authors of a film.

Josh O,

Which draft of AHOV did I read? I read Cronenberg’s uncredited rewrite.

Joshua J: You make a cute cheerleader.

I’m done sparring with those who write professionally. It’s fun, but I know I don’t stand a chance here. You’ll always kick my butt. Good luck to all with your future projects.

Craig and Ted, thanks for the site.

Hello, Josh, Ted, Craig, and assembled guests.

I have a couple of questions for you Josh, if you don’t mind answering ‘em. You might not like them, so I’ll I’ll leap out of the shadows of anonymity where I’ve been lurking, if that makes a difference.

Hi. My name is Ruairí Robinson. I haven’t directed a feature (with a hopeful “yet”), but a short film of mine was nominated for an Oscar a couple of years back, so that I suppose justifies my existence on this planet. Etc. I mostly direct commercials right now, so I’m not expecting much respect here. (but I wrote the short film, all by my lonesome!)

Oh and btw Hi Ted, I’m pretty sure I sat beside you at the nominess lunch in 2002, and we didn’t exchange a single word. I wasn’t a big fan of Shrek, and couldn’t think of too many polite things to say, at the time not realising I had been reading your wordplayer column for the last year, and that I really, actually was a big fan of your work. So, yes. I am a fucking idiot. So was nice to sort of meet you… Sort of… If it was you.

I’m agreeing with quite a bit of what you say, but a few things niggle. Badly. Maybe it’s just the inexperience gnawing away at my soul.

Josh, as we all know, you wrote the screenplay for “A History of Violence”, and the finished film is in my top 10 or so best films of the last year. with reservations, of course. So great job. (I haven’t read your script, so I don’t know how closely the finished film adheres to it, but assuming it’s close, or better, great job…) The kid was a fucking retarded, but what can you do. Again, I haven’t read it, but I’m pretty sure you didn’t write “Tom’s daughter walks in. Her acting is almost as good as a cough syrup commercial” into the script.

So tell me this - Did Cronenberg like your script in the first place? Did Cronenberg add or subtract from what you wrote, in your opinion? Did you feel that Cronenberg screwed up your “vision”? or that the finished result is, at best “almost” as good as the script Did HE deserve a “film by” credit? If the answer is no, would you say it to his face? Did he change it himself? Or did you take direction from him as to what changes to make? Did you approve of the changes? Did he care if you approved or not? Did the writer’s of the graphic novel like your script?

and… Do you think Cronenberg would think you were being a little ungracious if he read what you’ve said about directors here…?

Considering (and bear in mind, this is just my personal opinion, so ignore at will) it’s the first great movie you have a credit on (the 30 movies you’ve worked on uncredited notwithstanding since I can’t comment on them, unless you care to list them)

I mean you could also argue that most writers are shit too, and that it’s only a small minority of them, or any other profession, that are considered artists (and I think there’s a fair amount of truth to that too, I don’t hear anyone calling Uwe Boll an artist), but hey, I was only nominated for an Oscar for a short film, so what the fuck do I know.

Apologies for all the disclaimers and qualifiers (including this one) I’ve just been watching so many people’s comments misinterpreted in the last couple of threads…

That’s Ruairi, pronounced “Raw-Ree”. looks like your site doesn’t properly support diacritic marks.

Shucks, I haven’t been called cute in a least a week or so - how many kids did ya say you have?

I wouldn’t mind being adopted …

Hmmm. I suppose I shouldn’t ever take a Memorial Day nap, because I missed some things.

I’m going to leave up the comments sniping at credits only because I think everyone sort of addressed them properly and I don’t want to start gutting the thread, but again…

…don’t be jerks.

Josh, I’m glad your mom or dad is an English teacher, but you know, my parents are public school teachers too ( your mom or dad is a public school teacher, right?), and they get things wrong all the time. I know that all too well.

Look, I don’t care if you think parody is a subset of a satire. Honestly. If so, your definition is functionally useless for me, and I spend a lot of time crafting parodies. How about that?

Umm…I “spoof” things, and in spoofing things, I offer zero critique and I have absolutely no point to make.

If you think spoof is the wrong word, I’ll make a new one.

How about…”pointless satire”?

Josh (Olson) —

First of all, re: the auteur theory - there’s a difference between not picking up in which context you’re using the word “author” and not knowing what it means, thanks.

So it’s my fault you introduced a completely irrelevant topic into the discussion, assigned it to me by implication, and clarified that only intellectual midgets and illiterates discuss it?

Okay, I apologize. I should have been more clear. Do me a favor, then, would you?

From now on, whenever I write a post in English, could you assume that I intend it to be understood in the context of the English language, and if I intend a word to be understood in its context of another language, I will use italics and quotation marks, like this: “argument d’homme de paille”.

Ignoring the legal aspects, and focussing purely on the artistic ones, you can’t really attribute authorship of a film.

Focusing solely on the moral aspects, you can’t not attribute authorship of a film.

It is a synthesis of visions, and when there’s A writer (or A team of writers) it’s a bit easier to determine the origin of that vision.

From a strictly moral standpoint, something created by the sweat of a man’s brow and the work of his hands is his (paraphrasing Locke).

That is the fundamental basis for authorship. A physical object of value is brought into existence in a form that never previously existed; it is property of a unique nature, and ownership of that property inalienably vest in the person or people who created it. The sweat of the brow makes it intellectual, and the work of the hands makes it property.

So we don’t need to determine the “origin of [the]l vision” of a movie, because, you know, an idea in-and-of-itself is not a work of authorship; a vision of a movie is not the movie of which we are trying to determine authorship.

And, really, every time you head down this path, we end up right back at “The creators of the graphic novel ‘A History of Violence’ had the original vision of a prose-and-image story; how come you took sole credit for authorship-in-fact of the prose-descriging-images screenplay that was the synthesis of their vision and yours?”

I can explain exactly why that was not only appropriate but morally correct; you cannot, without compromising your own argument vis a vis the authorship of a movie.

But it’s not an answerable question, which suggests that a system that requires identifying authorship of a motion picture is one that requires an overhaul.

Of course it’s answerable; in fact, its relatively easy to assign authorship of a motion picture, up to a point.

Joe has a vision for a film. He gets a camera, some actors and, directing their performances, expresses his vision for a film directly into the medium of film. Then he assembles the footage in the way he judges best reflects his vision, and pronounces it finished.

Joe is the author of the motion picture.

Joe reads a short story in the public domain, and it inspires a vision of a film. Joe does everything as above.

Joe is the author of the motion picture.

Joe reads a short story not in the public domain, and it inspires a vision of a film. Joe licenses the right to make a work of authorship derived from the unique expression of ideas in a fixed that is the short story. Again, he does everything as above.

Joe is the author of the motion picture.

In none of those instances does the writer or the screenplay even figure into the question of authorship, because: no screenplay.

And if a movie can be made that expresses the vision of a movie based on a short story, whether the writer is alive or not, then the writer of the story that underlies the vision of the movie actually produced doesn’t figure into it, either.

If Joe has a crew and instructs them in accordance with his vision, and has an editor who assembles the film as instructed by Joe in accordance with his vision … again, it is not difficult to determine authorship of the motion picture.

So, at the very least, we can say this:

The director of a motion picture has a legitimate claim to authorship of a motion picture and, generally, is the author of the motion picture.

But is he the only author? Although he is always the author of a motion picture, are there circumstances where he shares authorship? Where he is the author in co-ordination with another author or authors?

Isn’t it nice to know what words actually mean? A work of authorship by co-ordinated effort — sweat of brow, work of hands, vision and and the creation of its unique expression — of two or more individuals is a work of co-authorship.

Is a motion picture that is derived not from literary material, but from literary material of a specific nature — a dramatization of a story for use specifically as the basis of work of authorship in an audio/visual medium — is that motion picture a work of co-authorship?

And Kevin brings up a thoughtful point: the editor generally does a lot of work independently of the director. All that work is subject to approval, of course, but: sweat of brow, work of hands, right?

Also: what about the cinematographer? Photographs are recognized as works-of-authorship in their own right and authorship vests in he who shot ‘em; a film is a series of photographs, and he who shot ‘em is … the director of photography. Says so right there in the job title.

In some countries, shot from a screenplay or not, the director and d.p. are legally recognized as a co-authors of the motion picture; in Germany, statutory co-authorship vests in the director, d.p. and editor.

And, where there is a screenplay … the writer is the author of the screenplay, but not the movie; however, because the rights in the movie cannot be exercised without also exercising the rights in the final screenplay, the writer has the status of co-author but is solely entitled the moral and economic rights of authorship in the literary material.

But yeah, if you have to, for now, name the author of a film. I’d love to hear a thoughtful argument for naming someone other than the writer.

Done and done. The director of a motion picture is someone other than the writer of the screenplay (for the purposes of determining authorship of two separate pieces of intellectual property that is; the author of each could be the same individual).

Now, I’ll ask again:

What is your thoughtful argument for not naming directors as authors of films?

-

It’s sad the morality of property rights has been so deeply perverted over the past 400 years, for it originated to protect people from the unjust usurption of their labor. Ted is spot on by citing Locke, and for “legal” views to be so unthoughtfuly dismissed by “artistic” passions begins to take on the very abusive dynamic Mr. Locke was seeking to destroy with his theory of property.

Again, I pose a simple question to Josh Olson: do you accept the role of your patron to use your work as they see fit? If you do not, then what strategy - other than legal recourse - would you suggest an artist pursue?

lt

For what it’s worth, which admittedly may be little, I still believe the writer is the author, Ted, though I will readily admit that I have none of the tools to debate it with you. And it’s not because I think ill of directors, many of the people I admire are directors (full disclosure, most of them are writer / directors). I just believe that the person or persons who wrote the story is the author.

It’s what I believe even after reading your compelling argument. I sense there’s more to it, but rather than argue with you when I know I’m overmatched (and as Craig pointed out, somewhat underexperienced), I’ll study upon it and either come your way of thinking after trial and time or perhaps someday find the way to express what I believe more exactly, buy you a drink and match wits with you at that point in time.

Until then, thank you for your time and views.

Josh,

Good for you. You’re a big man, chasing a mother of two off the site for expressing an opinion. She dared to say that AHOV was a better movie than a script, and you called that “bile”?

Have you ever listened/read to the crap that comes out of your mouth/keyboard?

You asked her which draft she read, and it turns out that she had read Cronenberg’s uncredited draft. Now, normally, I’m vehemently against the “Film By” credit, but knowing that Cronenberg actually worked on the screenplay as well as all of the other duties that a director must perform, it somehow makes his Film By credit on AHOV less galling.

Um…didn’t Derek ask a question a million years ago that was never answered?

“Josh, Let’s say a novice screenwriter came to you saying that his screenplay had recently sold and was being fast-tracked for production? What advice would you give him to help ensure that his vision was realized on screen?”

This is a very good question. I’d love to know what you think.

Marianne:

“Good for you. You’re a big man, chasing a mother of two off the site for expressing an opinion.”

If you didn’t know this already, Josh eats babies.

Uh, and if I recall, said mother of two threw the first punch …

Joshua,

First punch? All the-mother-of-two-movie-fan said was that she liked Cronenberg’s movie better than she liked Cronenberg’s draft of the script.

Mmm, she also took a crack at “Infested”. And Josh didn’t know she was a mother of two when he called her a snivelling weasel. He was polite after that.

Ted,

I’m confused by your use of the word “author”. It seems to me that “creator” would be a more appropriate term for what you describe (A physical object of value is brought into existence in a form that never previously existed).

Who would you consider the author of a building — the architect or the construction manager?

Dear Administrators of the Artful Writer.

‘converse, inverse & the contrapositive’ defines as “the argument between two or more mathematical expressions/equation in that there are infinitely a ‘pro’ and a ‘non’ - argumentative math banter that yields no solution – I thought of the Artful Writer.”

Laura, overtly enthusiastic as always, came barrelling on campus today, (checked HR, not allowed to disclose which campus), with the notion that there was actually and truly an active contrapositive in writing, in cyberspace!

Well, you must know she has the entire department entranced - ‘pros’ & ‘cons’ non alike, we already have a tizzy here in picking sides. Fascinating in seeing how you’ve evolved… all the best,

Department chair of post graduate studies. & xoxoLaura

Laura,

If you are - as your post indicates - mathematically savvy, I would suggest you are observing the mapping of a complex orthogonal function space (the individual views expressed here) onto how an “artist” attempts to navigate through the world; thus, rather than picking sides (why would someone root for one Legendre polynomial term over another?), or believing the sequence is doomed to non-convergence, instead pull up and find the degree to which there is convergence, and how the group wrestles with the remaining error term.

Or…

Just enjoy the fight.

It feels so good to be in a fishbowl….

lt

Bridget,

Thanks for trolling. It’s been lovely. If you’re ever in LA, look me up. That would be unique.

Ruairi,

“So tell me this - Did Cronenberg like your script in the first place? Did Cronenberg add or subtract from what you wrote, in your opinion? Did you feel that Cronenberg screwed up your “vision”? or that the finished result is, at best “almost” as good as the script Did HE deserve a “film by” credit? If the answer is no, would you say it to his face? Did he change it himself? Or did you take direction from him as to what changes to make? Did you approve of the changes? Did he care if you approved or not? Did the writer’s of the graphic novel like your script?”

Some of your questions involve divulging the contents of private conversations, so I won’t answer those.

Cronenberg loved my script in the first place. That’s why he stopped reading scripts and flew to LA to stump for the job directing it. Once he’d gotten the job, he spent a week going over my first draft page by page and talking about it. He suggested two large changes that I loved - one was removing a character the studio had wanted to see in the story; the other was changing the nature of Richie and Joey’s relationship from childhood friends to brothers. The first change was smart and insightful, and I loved it. The second made me smack myself in the head because it was so fucking obvious I should have done it from the get go. I added the sex scenes, despite what you may have read elsewhere.

When I first saw the fllm, I was knocked out. It was as close to what I’d written as I could have ever hoped for. The writer Dan Waters told me he’d never seen a movie so honor a screenplay. Do I think David should have taken a film by credit? Of course not. No director should, especially on something he hasn’t written. The rest of that question involves private discussions, and I won’t go into that here. Put it this way, the working relationship was tremendously satisfying, and I’d do it again. But I’d hammer his head to the fucking floor before I’d let him take that credit again.

David took that draft and as he prepped the film, he trimmed it, edited it, essentially. Anytime he did anything he sent it to me for input, and I either okayed it, or offered an alternative.

I met John Wagner at the premiere of the film, and was blown away by his response - he absolutely loved the movie.

It is, indeed, the first great movie I have a credit on. It’s also my first studio film. The straight to video flicks were exactly what they were - whore gigs that paid the rent while I worked on my own stuff, getting to the place where I could deliver the goods if I ever got the shot. I got the shot. I delivered the goods.

I’ve written two scripts since AHOV that are both better than that script. I’ve written one that’s about as good, and two that are pretty good, just not as good as that. I’ve written one I’m truly not happy with. I’m extremely clear-eyed about my work and what I bring to a project.

Great directors are a lovely thing, and can only enhance the project. My loyalty has always been and will always be to writers.

Craig,

I’m being a stickler for accuracy, that’s all. I don’t meant to imply your work is any attempt to satirize anything. I don’t see those films as satirical in any real sense. Just saying, technically speaking, parody IS a form of satire.

But don’t worry - I won’t ever call you a satirist.

Ted,

“And, really, every time you head down this path, we end up right back at “The creators of the graphic novel ‘A History of Violence’ had the original vision of a prose-and-image story; how come you took sole credit for authorship-in-fact of the prose-descriging-images screenplay that was the synthesis of their vision and yours?”

I can explain exactly why that was not only appropriate but morally correct; you cannot, without compromising your own argument vis a vis the authorship of a movie.”

Ay yi yi.

They WROTE the book. They got credited for it. I WROTE the movie. I got credited for it. They sat down to WRITE a book, and thus, they authored the book. I sat down to WRITE a movie, and thus, if we must assign authorship to a film, I got me one hell of a solid claim.

If I were as much a stickler for credit as you think, I’d argue that we need a different credit for faithful adaptations than for radical ones. Maltese Falcon, for instance, should have a different screenplay credit than Syrianna. And yet, they’re both adaptations, in spite of the fact that Falcon is an almost word for word transcription of the book, and Syriana takes a couple of ideas from a non-fiction book and crafts a distinct and original work of fiction.

And yet, neither Falcon nor Syriana would exist without the original source, regardless of how original the screenwriter’s vision was.

It’s a tiresome argument, Ted, this question of authorship. You behave as though I’m some kind of freak in the wilderness, calling for radical re-thinking of how movies are made.

For doing so, and doing so vigorously and with passion, I have had almost every aspect of my character and my work attacked here. I’ve been told being nominated for an Oscar is meaningless. I’ve been told I was rewritten by my director. I’ve been told I’m cruel to unwed mothers. To cap it off, you speak to me like I’m a fucking idiot…. then recreate an argument I made here months and months and months ago, that film is a collaborative medium, that assigning authorship to one person is ludicrous.

Now, what’s the solution to the problem? Well, you seem to have a keen legal mind, and as someone who’s not as able as you at collating mountains of details and facts and organizing them into a cohesive argument, I’ll do what I’d do if I were directing this mess - I’ll hear your answer, then, if I like it, I’ll subscribe to it wholeheartedly. Unlike a director, though, if it’s good, I’ll acknowledge the true authorship of your solution.

Lee: Laura said, “there are infinitely a ‘pro’ and a ‘non’”
That means it goes on forever, as we do as humans/writers/artists/creators. And you mean to tell me you’re not swaying toward one point of view here? Like you haven’t picked a side and find that you agree more with certain peoples posts?! Gee aren’t you a wet noodle laying over the fence.

Lee said: “instead pull up and find the degree to which there is convergence,” She never said she was ‘savvy’, she fell into her apology and her acknowledgement of being a geek. (You could almost see her stumbling with all her books falling all over the place and the tape between her glasses.)

Go pick on someone your own size, and I believe Craig did post some great ‘convergences’, scroll up the thread brother. Brother, you’re making us look ‘uneducated’.

“Josh, Let’s say a novice screenwriter came to you saying that his screenplay had recently sold and was being fast-tracked for production? What advice would you give him to help ensure that his vision was realized on screen?”

Sorry. Didn’t skip it. Been thinking about it. I don’t have an answer yet. I have gobs of advice on how to write a decent script, and how to break in, and how to kick unwed mothers around, but I’m truly not sure what I’d say to that guy. I could only talk about my specific experience on that track, and it’s limited and perhaps not applicable.

Dr. Olson,

Why do you still bother? I’ve given up after my last post was deleted (presumably by Mr. Mazin…if not, I appologize for the presumption). I guess my suggestion to stop the “quote & nitpick” practice and instead to focus on the issue (imho – to discuss new rights and regulations that support and protect the working screenwriter) was too constructive for this site. It feels certain participants rather revel in bashing heads with an oscar-nominee instead of talking to a WGA rep about ways to improve the writer’s position in the industry. Hundreds of postings and not one sincere proposal that goes beyond the dogma of “be nice and suck up”, or the argument “my A list writer pal had no problems on the set of his 300 million dollar franchise”. It’s a shame, as this forum bears the potential for a productive debate. Instead you find more constructive criticism in the aintitcool talkback. Hope you get to read this, Josh, before the makers of the site delete me again (PS. Please don’t tell me my post was omitted due to the obvious tongue-in-cheek “hacker friends” warning – I’m sure the writer of SCARY MOVIE can handle a bit of harsh humor). j

Josh,

God love ya. Unless you can get inside my head, you cannot know that what passion I did or did not write CA2 with. I happened to have written CA2 with a burning passion (I loved the series and the first movie), and not for the money. I have my pick of what to work on, and as a writer I am incapable of writing without a burning passion.

So please stop assuming I was whoring on CA2 just because you whored yourself in straight-to-video (an act I don’t hold against you, BTW). People whore themselves everyday in their jobs. I used to whore for a paycheck when I worked in aerospace. I am lucky enough now, however, that I do not have to whore. And I didn’t on CA2 or any other movie I’ve worked on. The movies we work on do not always turn out as we hope, but we always start out with a burning desire. You refuse to believe that for some reason. I just don’t get it.

And just so you know, you’re remembering the CA2 incident all wrong. We were discussing the merits of the Razzies and the Oscars, and I was the one who first brought up that I had worked on CA2 which had been nominated for a Razzie. So although you think the world revolves around you, no, YOU did not bring it up. I did.

And just so you know, I am never insulted by criticisms of my work. You saw how I handled that woman who blamed CA2 for the fall of cinema. I never lashed out at her. I have always maintained that I consider myself very lucky to be able to write everyday (with passion).

You, on the other hand, seem to “smart” over any little quibble people have with your work. I find that surprising considering your achievements. You seem incredibly inscure as most bullies are. Although anger seems to be your muse, I would hate to go through life so incredibly pissed off all the time as you seem to be.

As for MR. ED:

Unlike Josh, I am not a snob about movies. I love entertainment in all forms. Josh seems to think that a Mr. Ed movie is a bad idea. So do I. But I would never judge the line of people who wanted to pay ten bucks to see it for whatever reason.

It seems that Josh is still smarting over another discussion we had about art vs. entertainment. The Cliff Notes version is this: I like almost all kinds of movies, even those that Josh considers the dumb ones. Josh thinks anyone who paid to watch Dukes of Hazard is unevolved (his word). Josh seems to believe that only he knows which movies have merit and should be made and which movies we all should pay see.

In the 50s, people like Josh who thought they knew which movies were good for you instituted the Hays Code.

Hmmm, either the last couple of responses are referring to another site like Writeraction or there have been a shitload of deletions in this particular thread.

I think we all need some clarification here.

DEAR FRIENDS ‘N FOES:

I’ve been deleting comments more and more, and I’m not a big fan of that. I don’t do it indiscriminately; I think about each one carefully, particularly because I don’t edit comments. Either you’re published, or you’re not.

Since it’s just me doing the deleting, I’m applying my own subjective standards of what I think crosses the line of civility. I’m trying my best not to let biases about the poster’s points get in the way.

Still, I’m not happy doing this, and while it’s nice to have a blog where you get triple digit comments, I don’t want to us to descend into personal flamewars over and over and over…

Be as pointed as you’d like. Passionate as you like. If you want to make points about other people, do so.

Just try and not be mean. I dunno.

Maybe I’ll start being more vicious about comment moderating. I went an entire year without deleting more than one comment, and I’ve deleted about five in the past 10 days.

Kevin,

Yes, it was WriterAction. Sorry for the confusion.

Marianne,

“Unlike Josh, I am not a snob about movies. I love entertainment in all forms. Josh seems to think that a Mr. Ed movie is a bad idea. So do I. But I would never judge the line of people who wanted to pay ten bucks to see it for whatever reason.”

I am reminded of an exchange from A Fish Called Wanda.

“Monkeys don’t read Nietszche.”

“Yes, they do. They just don’t understand it.”

I would never judge anyone for enjoying the Mr. Ed movie. I would judge someone for believing it was anything but dumb fun.

As for the Hays Code, that was the 30s, and they were dedicated to making movies as antiseptic and unthreatening as humanly possible. You may have gotten that jumbled up with the Hollywood blacklist, in which people were excoriated for having political views that differed from the accepted norm.

In either case, both of those entities were devoted to keeping everything clean and, most importantly, dumb as shit. The idea being that a contented, ignorant populace is one that is easy to control. A populace that cannot tell the difference, for instance, between thought provoking, adult, intelligent works of art and mindless pop entertanment is one to be devoutly wished for.

You can draw a graph showing a straight line that starts with the success of Dukes of Hazzard and ends with the passive public response to the theft of the White House by people dedicated to the overthrow of the US Constitution. It ain’t hard.

As for the Razzies, I continue to think they’re hilarious and apt. One of my best friends has won several, and demanded they actually give him an award when he showed up to collect. I’d do the same. He’s not afraid to admit the truth.

Lastly, on the subject of smarting, I’m not the one who came out of nowhere and started firing nasty personal jabs at someone who pissed me off months ago, Marianne.

It’s not your ignorance I mind, or your passionate embracing of mediocrity. It’s your hypocrisy.

Sorry, Craig. I know you hate this shit. it’s not what lights up my day, either. But since you only ever seem to do anything about it AFTER I’ve responded to these idiots, I don’t feel a particularly strong urge to ignore it.

Anon,

You really missed the spirit of my observation!

I was moved to respond to Laura when she offered earlier: “We ponder Math challenges, and both Laura and Alina go to sleep and dream up the finishing touches so to make these therums balanced/sound/equal…. This site has brilliantly proven that all the ‘stuff’ we are all introduced to in High School that we never thought we’d use again, we do - indifferent forms.”

I honestly love such a pursuit of synthesis, for it’s something I ponder endlessly. Thus, I was aiming to contribute to Laura’s effort in a language a mathematician could intuitivly understand. Perhaps I have misjudged, but I wanted to venture forth anyway.

Yes, you’re correct that Craig (and Ted) have offered some excellent “convergences” above, which, again, is why one can point out it’s not some meaningless infinite regress going on here. Candidly, to dismiss the exchange as ‘going on forever, as we do as humans/writers/artists/creators’ is to say almost nothing, which strikes me more as a “wet noodle” position, than underscoring the levels where there is consensus.

Sorry, but you’ll have to take another swing, mate.

lt

I wouldn’t want your job as the censor on this site. It’s gonna be hard to censor comments according to meanness.

It’s a shame, however, because it sounds as if Marianne had some pointed if not informative things to say within her post that was deleted.

Perhaps you could offer a Screenwriters Gone Wild edition to this site…

Kevin:

I haven’t deleted any of Marianne’s comments.

Josh:

I’m honestly sorry about the time lag. During the last week, I managed to write a 50 page “scriptment” for the movie I’m working on (it’s something I do because I like doing it, but I wouldn’t recommend it necessarily to anyone else), so I’ve been dropping in on the comments in between writing sessions.

And I have kids. And a wife. And apparently I was supposed to mount some candle sconces to the outside of the house yesterday, so I’m behind already and it’s not even noon.

Point being, I’m almost never going to be on time with the moderation. There’s a way to run this blog where all comments have to be approved by me prior to publication, but I’m not into that. By and large, everyone, including you, knows how to tiptoe up to the line without crossing it.

By and large.

Craig,

I retract my apology, and call “Liar” on you.

“Since it’s just me doing the deleting, I’m applying my own subjective standards of what I think crosses the line of civility. I’m trying my best not to let biases about the poster’s points get in the way.”

Craig’s subjective standards:

Any asshole can come in here and take a shot at Olson, and it stays. Olson responds to the asshole, and his post gets pulled. Marianne’s obnoxious, rude, out of the blue attack on me remains. My response to her is gone.

Tell you what, Craig. I’ll spare you some work. Here are MY criteria for posting a hostile response. They’re weird and idiosyncratic, so pay attention, cos they’re hardly normal or reasonable.

Someone comes out of nowhere and says what I say here is crap, I respond with something less than politeness.

Someone impugns the authorship of my work, I respond with something less than politeness.

I know - these are weird personal issues, and not at all reasonable.

My last comment to Marianne, and I’d point out SHE opened this door, not me - Marianne, no matter what anyone tells me, I will always believe in my heart that while the authorship of every other movie ever made cannot be ever fully determined, Charlie’s Angels 2 is a perfect reflection and summation of you as an artist and a human being. Well done.

Ted,

Why say that a film has an “author” at all? Look in any dictionary. The word “author” means the creator of a written work. To say that a film has an “author” is to play right into the hands of the inventors of the auteur theory, which is the most damaging bullshit ever to happen to the movie business.

It is theory — our irrational need for a theory, when none will ever really work — that is at the heart of these stupid arguments.

cbrown

Josh:

Although I don’t agree with, say, Bridget Jenkins attack on AHOV, you can’t really play the victim card.

Maybe victim is the wrong word but the line between passionate and obnoxious is a line you habitually cross.

The insults flow freely and continuously from your end so stop with the “What’d I do to deserve that?” crap.

Manners aside… “You can draw a graph showing a straight line that starts with the success of Dukes of Hazzard and ends with the passive public response to the theft of the White House by people dedicated to the overthrow of the US Constitution. It ain’t hard.”

…is a ridiculous statement. I suspect you’re being sarcastic. It’s hard to tell with you.

“Charlie’s Angels 2 is a perfect reflection and summation of you as an artist and a human being.”

Oh Jesus…

Josh O., I’m happy that you’ve been thinking about the question. The reason I asked is: a) I think it will get us all back to the original post, which was about empowering writers, b) I think you have some valuable insight, even if it is unique to your personal situation. People can glean a great deal from unique anecdotes, and c) I offered my opinion, which was to do whatever you can to stay actively involved, even after you’ve turned in your script and your contract is complete. This seems like simple advice, but I’m surprised how often writers just accept (or assume) their ideas are no longer wanted.

All too often I believe screenwriters are passive in their careers. They get fired off a project and say, “that’s just the business.” Or they, sit on their hands during production in deference to just about everyone but the script. Or they complain about a subsequent draft but don’t offer up their criticisms and/or solutions to the powers that be because of wounded pride. Or they moan, wail, tear their robes and gnash their teeth after it’s too late. Or they go with the flow and stand-by while everyone improvises new dialogue and action just because they’re so damned happy to be on the set. These are easy pitfalls to fall into. My advice to avoid these pitfalls is to remain professional, tactful and passionate (no, that doesn’t mean sucking up)… and to take an active role in the production, any way you can.

It seems that Josh alternates between the idea that films have NO author and the idea that if a film has to have an author, then it should be the screenwriter.

I think that a film has so many co-authors, that a discussion of authorship is moot in the majority of cases. (For this reason, I also think the “film by” credit is ludicrous.)

Ted said: “A physical object of value is brought into existence in a form that never previously existed; it is property of a unique nature, and ownership of that property inalienably vest in the person or people who created it. The sweat of the brow makes it intellectual, and the work of the hands makes it property.”

For this reason, the following crew positions could have a claim on co-authorship: Writer(s), Director(s), Producer(s), Production Designer(s), Cinematographer(s), Editor(s), Costume Designer(s), 2nd Unit Director(s), Stunt Choregrapher(s), Actors, Makeup Artist(s), Visual Effects Supervisor(s), Sound Designer(s), Sound Mixer(s), Color Timer(s), Composer(s), etc.

All of these roles require original creative thought and implementation. Sure, there are other people overseeing these creative decisions and implementations. However, there are people overseeing the creative decisions and implementations of every single person on a film crew (or more realistically, there is usually a compromise made).

Yes, an argument could be made that the Director(s) and the Writer(s) had MORE impact than other people on the finished creative product. However, one contrary point will always remain… If you replaced any of these people on the film, then the resulting film would be different. Because the creative work would be different, the changing element must have an authorial impact on the work.

Sure, there are people on a film who have no claim on authorship. The role of a PA generally has no impact on the creative result of a film.

However, can you argue that the following films would be the same work (or even the same quality creative work) without the crew member I am suggesting…

UNLEASHED without martial arts choreographer Woo-ping Yuen. HERO without cinematographer Christopher Doyle. THE HOURS without composer Philip Glass. THE MATRIX without sound designer Dane Davis. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS without “special visual effects creator”/Associate-Producer Ray Harryhausen. THE PAWNBROKER without editor Ralph Rosenblum.

And finally, the film commonly used to show the importance of the writer… BEING JOHN MALKOVICH without actor John Malkovich.

Yes, we are writers, and so we tend to value the contribution of story and character as primary. And that is true for the finished work known as a screenplay. However, they are not the sole creative elements in the creative work known as a finished film.

I have never heard a convincing argument that the writer or director is the SOLE author of a film. I have never even heard a convincing argument for the writer AND director as the only co-authors of a film.

I’m all for opposing the “film by” credit for directors (although I think it’s relatively minor issue). But I’m also all for abolishing the idea that writers are THE author of a film.

On posting, I should have known my formatting for the list wouldn’t work. Also, clearly a lot of you are saying the same thing as me, just using less words (which is much smarter of you).

Where to begin?

I’ve been writing for pay, as a resume/ghostwriter for individuals and strategic position and website content writer for businesses, for 12 years now. That’s what I get paid to do.

Here is the truth I’ve learned and have been wrestling with for all this time. The better my writing, the more “transparent” it is, the more it meshes in the reader’s mind as if it is their own voice and thought — and the harder it is for me to get paid for it BECAUSE, once read, my client thinks what is on the page is SO obvious, it MUST have been their own to begin with and all I did was copy/type it.

My favorite clients (and who also send me all their family and friends as referrals) come from other writers - a nationally syndicated columnist, a Ph.D. in Poetry, a number of Senior and Editor-in-Chiefs for major publishers, etc. My most troublesome clients, the ones most inclined to think they could it themselves after seeing my work, are EVERYone who doesn’t write.

The advent of the Internet has made this worse. Apparently, humans exhibit a Magpie nature, cutting and pasting shiny bits together and claiming them as their own.

Even writers who should know better exhibit this trait. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a writer on a writer workshopping board respond to a fellow participant’s post “Gee! that’s a clever bit of dialogue you just wrote. I think I’ll use it!”

When I first discovered the community of screenwriters, I was ecstatic. YOU people (of which I aspire to become one) are the saaviest, smartest bunch of folks I’ve ever encountered all in one place. Visiting here or over to the Wordplayer forum, I feel like the dumbest person in the room…and I LOVE it. I love being stretched and challenged this way.

However, as an unrepresented writer running a sole proprietorship, I think perhaps my brutally-won perspective might add some value here. The underlying issue is that the better you are as a writer, the more likely your work will be claimed by the reader as if it were their own thought. On one level, this is exactly what we want — but it is a double-edged sword when it comes to getting proper recognition and renumeration.

All the above I have known for years with little idea how to resolve it. There is a secondary issue which is the conflict between a person’s stated ethics and how they will actually behave. There was a recent study on prison guards involved in capital executions and ethics — out of that study, one observation was that those individuals with the highest stated ethics actually did NOT behave in accordance with what they stated AND were in denial as to their behavior.

Although this ethical component may seem out of context here, I have observed it often in relation to my work with clients and getting credit/paid for that work.

I find myself educating the world, one person at a time, about the value of a writer’s work.

Craig, Ted, et. al., I submit to you that “respect for a screenwriter’s work” is really a symptom of a much larger problem (Ted, I think you may have touched on it in your Locke references) of a behavior ingrained into humans/society.

Dare I suggest that instead of sniping at each other, screenwriters look outward to where the enemy really lies, and collectively apply their brilliant minds to solving it.

“It did however criticize the curator of this site”

Johnny, I’m all for freedom of speech, but this website is not a democracy. If Craig wants to edit your comments to state that you love to molest sheep, and criticise you for it, that’s his god given right.

Josh (Olson) Thanks for answering my questions. The ones you didn’t answer, I didn’t really expect you to, to be honest. Though I part of me wouldn’t have been completely surprised to if you were to come straight out and say “Cronenberg is a fucking retard and he fucked my film, fuck him, fuck you, fuck everyone else, I hope you all are raped, in public, by a specially trained Giraffe!”

Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised, entirely. You have a fantastic knack of rubbing people up the wrong way.

In fact, I think I would have enjoyed this thread even more if you had said that. Craig - please don’t delete any more posts! Just edit them to make the posters look like idiots! It’s way funnier that way. Hey, isn’t that your job anyway? writing parodies? Or is it spoofs? I’m confused…

Btw Ted, if you did read my original post, >>>>>”I’m agreeing with quite a bit of what you say, but a few things niggle. Badly. Maybe it’s just the inexperience gnawing away at my soul.” wasn’t actually meant for you, I just structured it poorly, probably because I’m a shitty writer.

Hey I think I’ll be a director, Josh, I hear that’s EASY! Any idiot can do it! Directing traffic now, have you ever done that? You better have firsthand goddamn experience of directing traffic or else I’m gonna call you a hypocrite. I’m not sure why, but I’ll backtrack later, after rereading everyone’s comments and come up with a good justification. Or use ad hominem attacks. Whatever works.

Josh:

Look, I’m sorry you’re unhappy with what I did. After many, many comments, that was the first of yours that I’ve ever deleted, and I did so after some careful consideration.

Respectfully, this is the third forum you’ve had problems with. WriterAction, WordPlayer, and now me.

If you can’t reconcile yourself to the notion that a subjective mind may delete your comments if they cross a subjective line, then you shouldn’t participate here. I’m sorry for us all if you don’t, but that’s your choice.

Comments that suggest raping giraffes and molesting sheep remain?! But a highly acclaimed screenwriter gets the boot for defending his work?! Craig, please put an end to this. You’ve created an unprecedented platform for screenwriters to hold discussions that could potentially make a difference in the industry. It’s your site, be biased, that’s fine. But please, again, I beseech you, steer the debate away from bestiality and back to constructive dialogue that remains on-topic.

Respectfully, this is the third forum you’ve had problems with. WriterAction, WordPlayer, and now me>

Craig, I didn’t realise you were a forum! wait a minute, you said you were, don’t backtrack and say you aren’t one now! You have to be completely consistent, with everything you say, all of the time.

And Johnny, I the suggestion was rape by specially trained giraffe, not raping of giraffes. Don’t twist my words for your sick personal agenda.

In fairness. Too far. Ok.

Just to force this back on topic, sort of, I think the “A film by” credit should be automatic for writer/directors , or certainly easier than either writers or directors, and it should be impossible or nearly so for a hired hand director to have credit.

That’s what I think right now anyway… I’m sure I’ll change my mind soon enough. Probably the next time Ted posts.

“Hey I think I’ll be a director, Josh, I hear that’s EASY! Any idiot can do it! Directing traffic now, have you ever done that? You better have firsthand goddamn experience of directing traffic or else I’m gonna call you a hypocrite. “

This is a ridiculous comment, especially after Josh O did answer and write at length about his experience on HOV with Cronenberg at your request and responded pretty genially, I think.

Where did he say directing was easy? I believe he just said, writing a good screenplay well is harder than directing and as a matter of fact, it’s what I have said, too.

And Josh never mentioned that one would need experience directing before making that evaluation, Craig did.

He’s not rubbed me the wrong way so he hasn’t rubbed EVERYONE and the only time he’s ever unloaded on anyone other than Craig or Ted is when they’ve attacked his work rather than his arguments. Okay, he got snippy with Kevin, too, but Kevin evidently is a lot tougher than most of you cats because he simply gave back instead of whining about it.

Listen, an Oscar nomimated screenwriter takes the time to come here and share his thoughts and experiences with everyone and anyone reading this should considered themselves LUCKY to be in on it.

No one says you have to agree with him or give him a reach-around but at least be frigging civil and leave the personal crap behind. I don’t agree with Craig and Ted on everything (and I don’t even agree with Josh O on everything) but I sure as hell ain’t taking potshots at their behavior and resume. Just disagree and thank them for telling you what they think!

Baka! (I’m going to curse in Japanese now so that I won’t get deleted).

Damn man, if you attack someone’s work don’t be surprised when they fight back. How are you going to achieve any level of success if you don’t know to do that? Watching Ted and Craig and Josh O simply talk about the work and fight for their POV is an object lesson in and of itself.

Baka!

Jeeezus. If it wouldn’t be mean, I’d start calling folks names and get my comment deleted.

That’s it. I’ve swung your way, Craig, you convinced me, a lot more writers DO need to be more educated … more than a few lurking here belong on the short bus.

“Where did he say directing was easy? I believe he just said, writing a good screenplay well is harder than directing and as a matter of fact, it’s what I have said, too.”

You’re right. Josh never said directing was easy. He did say, however:

Damn, that’s what happens when you don’t close your tags…

“Where did he say directing was easy? I believe he just said, writing a good screenplay well is harder than directing and as a matter of fact, it’s what I have said, too.”

You’re right. Josh never said directing was easy. He did say, however:

“Directors are administrators who marshal large groups of people in an effort to bring the screenplay to life. If you’re lucky, they bring real art to the process. But let’s be clear - most of them don’t. Most of them are just administrators, and yet we treat them like artists.”

Now, you have to admit, that’s a pretty ridiculous statement. I know you mostly agree with him but I don’t think you agree with this perversity, do you?

Isn’t it amazing how FAR from the original topic we’ve strayed? But yes, Craig is right. Most writers aren’t educated enough. Including myself. Including Josh.

Including most.

But I do know one thing. If we as writers, push the harmful and point in fact, INCORRECT, propaganda that most directors aren’t artists, we’ll never succeed in our struggles.

The statement:

Most Directors aren’t Artists is about as idiotic as Most Writers aren’t Artists.

This is a ridiculous comment, especially after Josh O did answer and write at length about his experience on HOV with Cronenberg at your request and responded pretty genially, I think>>>>

Of course it’s ridiculous, pretty much every comment I’ve made here is. I don’t stand by any of them, in fact. You might even say I was “just joking”. See you have to navigate through several dense levels of irony to get through to what I actually mean. And you only have security clearance for level 1. To be honest I’m pretty sure it’s not worth the effort to get to the top level. It’s pretty boring here.

Seriously, I was just kidding. I hope that was clearer to Josh Olson than it was to you. Especially if he’s gonna give out to people about not being able to take a joke (I might just fire out a few more accusations of hypocrisy in that case! Blahahahahah!!!!) I really do appreciate his taking time to answer my questions. I just skipped most of the fawning part. But I accept that I’ve left some of my comments open to be (mis)read in a (more) negative light (than was intended), so if, when you read my comments, you could visualise them being said in a lighthearted/silly voice by someone you have no respect for, then I wouldn’t have to use any more disclaimers than I already am. Christ it’s hard work covering every angle. After I post this I’m gonna to see 20 things I should have altered, removed, retracted, or fixed.

But hold on, I don’t want to misread or overanalyze anything other people have said either, so in case I’m reading anything into it that’s not intended, but:

“Most of them are just administrators, and yet we treat them like artists. We give “film by” credits to people whose artistic contributions amount to directing traffic, and we don’t ask what THEY’VE done to deserve it, and they’ve done nothing to gain it”

I think it’s fair to say “Most” directors wouldn’t think being compared to administrators is a favourable comparison. “And yet we treat them like artists” suggests they don’t deserve to be. Their artistic contribution amounting to directing traffic suggest, ummm…. NO contribution, and saying they have done NOTHING to gain it, well… NOTHING isn’t “little”… is it? I mean those are pretty bleak terms.

If those are fair statements, then I think it’s a fair statement to say that MOST writers are shit too. Except the good ones. And there’s only a few good directors too. So I’ll agree that most directors are shit, and I’ll add that most writers are shit. And most plumbers. And most drivers. And most tennis players, and most… umm… What were we talking about again?

I don’t consider that a ridiculous statement at all Kevin - I think it’s actually very accurate.

Think about it in this way, Kevin, reverse it:

• A writer is just putting down a bunch of words and sentences and making sure the commas and puncuation is in place. If you’re lucky, it has a beginning, middle and end and makes sense of a some sort. If you’re really lucky, they bring real art to the work. But let’s be clear. Most of them don’t. Most of them are just typists and we treat them like artists.

Now given what you’ve experienced reading scripts as an agent or producer, would you say that the above statement is true or untrue?

Me, I think it is true - I think that there are a lot of bad writers out there - (my issue is that not enough of the folks doing the deciding can tell bad from good, but we argued about trhat already so let’s not dredge that up again, okay?) and you’ve certainly testified as much.

So if the above is true about writers, why wouldn’t Brother Olson’s statement about directors also be true? Directors are adminstrators, after all (and writers are typists, in a sense) - so why is it ridiculous? He did say that some do bring art to the work and nowhere does he say it is easy.

it’s not a ridiculous statement when you really break it down. Nor does he say that directors are not artists, he just says MOST of them are not (he does say that they are not authors). Most writers are not, either, and he would probably agree with you on that.

I notice you’re really tough on writers (which is all right, really, it’s good to be tough) but the moment anyone says anything critical about one of the other jobs you jump in and say, “Hey, we can’t criticize these guys, it’s just making our job here worse” and it’s certainly good to look at the other side of things, but I do think you go a tad overboard. Let’s face it, if there are uneducated folk among the writers, it stands to reason that there are uneducated folk populating the other jobs in the field as well.

Kevin,

“Although I don’t agree with, say, Bridget Jenkins attack on AHOV, you can’t really play the victim card.”

Agreed. Which is why I didn’t play it. I played the Bullshit card. There is no standard by which Marianne’s post is anything but an unprovoked personal attack. If you’re going to pull my response to her and not hers, you’re making a very specific, very clear statement about what goes here.

“Maybe victim is the wrong word but the line between passionate and obnoxious is a line you habitually cross.”

Unless you’re saying you think obnoxious posts should be pulled but personal attacks shouldn’t be, the fact that I’m obnoxious is pretty much irrelevant.

“The insults flow freely and continuously from your end so stop with the “What’d I do to deserve that?” crap.”

I never started.

“Manners aside… “You can draw a graph showing a straight line that starts with the success of Dukes of Hazzard and ends with the passive public response to the theft of the White House by people dedicated to the overthrow of the US Constitution. It ain’t hard.”

…is a ridiculous statement. I suspect you’re being sarcastic. It’s hard to tell with you.”

Saying it’s a ridiculous statement is a ridiculous statement.

Keith,

“It seems that Josh alternates between the idea that films have NO author and the idea that if a film has to have an author, then it should be the screenwriter.”

Sort of. I don’t alternate between them. I believe both of them. Films have no author. If you cannot live another minute in this world without attributing authorship to a film, it should be the writer of the screenplay. But I think it’s ridiculous to do so.

Karen,

“Dare I suggest that instead of sniping at each other, screenwriters look outward to where the enemy really lies, and collectively apply their brilliant minds to solving it.”

Wouldn’t that be nice? That’s my ultimate goal. But so long as writers - especially writers who are representing our rights and needs - perceive us as less than we are, there’s always going to be a problem.

Ruairi,

We’re cool. Don’t sweat it. Digging your posts.

Reagan —

“Author” is the appropriate term when discussing intellectual property (like novels, screenplays, movies, photographs, paintings, etc.) and authorial rights (moral rights of authors, economic right of authors (copyright).

It does essentially mean “creator,” but in the context of a specific kind of creation: a unique expression of an idea in a fixed, tangible form.

Basically, it’s not conceiving an idea that makes someone an author; it’s doing all the other work necessary to express that idea in a way and form that no one had ever expressed it before that confers authorship.

Architects are, indeed, authors: the design of a building as embodied in any tangible medium (drawings, blueprints, models, including the building itself) are works of authorship.

-

Ruari,

Okay. Sarcasm is a tough play on a comment board and I missed it. My apologies.

Kevin

““Directors are administrators who marshal large groups of people in an effort to bring the screenplay to life. If you’re lucky, they bring real art to the process. But let’s be clear - most of them don’t. Most of them are just administrators, and yet we treat them like artists.”

Now, you have to admit, that’s a pretty ridiculous statement. I know you mostly agree with him but I don’t think you agree with this perversity, do you?”

Once again, with the blanket statement as though it’s fact. Here’s what I have a problem with, Kevin - we live in a world where people mindlessly subscribe to all SORTS of stupid ideas without question. That directors are, for the most part, artists is one of them. I have zero tolerance for the mindset that responds as you do. You say my comment is ridiculous, yet you don’t offer any substance. You just expect me to fall back in line with all the other sheep who buy into the notion you’ve also bought into without question.

There are - OBVIOUSLY - many directors who are undeniable artists. But most aren’t. Most shlub away, acting as, essentially, creative administrators who confuse bringing a script to screen with actually creating the script.

We automatically operate on the assumption that directors are artists even though very few ever actually do anything to actually earn that sobriquet. Then we turn around and belittle the contributions of actual creators - ie, writers.

To somone who doesn’t think much, what I say on the subject IS ridiculous. To someone who stops for a minute and doesn’t just eagerly chow down whatever swill is pumped into his mouth, what YOU say is significantly more ridiculous. Downright foolish, in fact.

Ted,

“Architects are, indeed, authors: the design of a building as embodied in any tangible medium (drawings, blueprints, models, including the building itself) are works of authorship.”

Interesting. You ducked the question. We already know - sticking with the metaphor - that you think architects are authors of the blueprints. But do you think they’re authors of the finished building?

Josh —

To cap it off, you speak to me like I’m a fucking idiot … then recreate an argument I made here months and months ago, that film is a collaborative medium, that assigning authorship to one person is ludicrous.

Please, Josh: you introduced the topic of the “auteur” theory into the discussion, and averred that only mental midgets and illiterates discuss it. Was I not supposed to understand that to mean that you consider yourself a mental midget and/or illiterate?

Personally, I don’t consider you to be either … but since you dealt that particular rhetorical card, I figured you wanted me to play it. Same with all the rhetorical cards you play. You’re not the only person on the face of the earth who’s ever read Schopenhauer’s 38 Strategems, after all.

And, the simple fact is: I am not arguing that authorship of a motion picture must be assigned to one person — only that it must be assigned, because that is one of the moral rights of authors. So: to whom should it be assigned to?

I’ve already presented my argument, several times. Writers are unconditionally authors of screenplays; directors are unconditionally authors of movies; conditionally, the director of photography, the editor, the producer or the writer may be co-authors of movies.

You’re assertion that it is ludicrous to assign authorship of a motion picture at all is, itself, ludicrous: a motion picture does not generate spontaneously; it is the product of human intellect, and would not exist absent the desire and drive of humans to create what has never exited before. That is a work of authorship is unquestionable; that authorship must be assigned is one of those moral rights of authors that you seem to invoke only when it would serve you personally, and don’t give a shit about in regards to anyone else.

The reason I invoke the legal definition of “authorship” has nothing to do with the fact that it is law, and everything to do with the fact that I believe it is an accurate definition of the truth of authorship — save for the frickin’ “work-made-for-hire” law, which recognizes the financing as the only element necessary to the creation of an intellectual property. I think the value of the economic contribution should be recognized, given we are talking about both moral and economic rights of authorship and some economic contribution is necessary in any creation of a work of authorship — but authorship should be a least equally weighted toward the individual(s) who actually contribute the sweat of brow and work of hands that is essential to the creation of an intellectual property.

There ya go: in order to avoid conceding a point in the specific that would make your position indefensible, or advancing a specific point that was in-and-itself easily refuted, you endeavored to shift the discussion back to more general terms, while declaring yourself not competent to judge the argument already presented (Strategems #8, #19 and #31, for those keeping score at home), and I obliged.

But, again, I will ask you, since you still have not answered this one (among others):

What is your thoughtful argument for not naming directors as authors of films?

(That’s an ol’ #34, by the way).

-

Both Hays Code and the Blacklist are forms of censorship. One to keep things “clean” and the other to punish those with “unacceptable” political views.

You said this:

“You can draw a graph showing a straight line that starts with the success of Dukes of Hazzard and ends with the passive public response to the theft of the White House by people dedicated to the overthrow of the US Constitution. It ain’t hard.”

For you not to see how that sounds very much like those same censors who instituted the Hays Code and the Blacklist is beyond me.

As for impugning the authorship of your work, where did I ever do that? Because I said that Cronenberg’s vanity credit is not as galling knowing that he did a draft? The Film By credit is still galling, just not as in the case where the director actually writes. I’ve always maintained that.

The fact that you may or may not have been rewritten by your director doesn’t discount your majority contribution to the screenplay of your movie, and you were credited as such.

You and I have both been rewritten by directors. You and I have both worked on projects that were based on source material. So to assume I was insulting you by talking about any of these facts says more about you than it does about me.

As for this:

“Any asshole can come in here and take a shot at Olson, and it stays. Olson responds to the asshole, and his post gets pulled. Marianne’s obnoxious, rude, out of the blue attack on me remains. My response to her is gone.”

It’s interesting that you view me as “obnoxious and rude,” and yet you are the one who has been banned from websites for obnoxious and rude behavior. I always find it fascinating that the bad guy never sees himself as a bad guy.

OK, so enough off topic. I know Josh will want to have the last word, so please do. Josh, the beach is yours.

CBrown —

Your dictionary is incomplete.

It’s funny: on another writer’s message board, this exact same argument was raised. It struck me as kind of amazing then, and it still does. Writers who do not understand the fundamental nature of the work done in the film and television industry? Wowzer.

-

Josh O.:

My comment about sniping wasn’t directed specifically at you :). It takes more than one to make an argument. Sometimes what is happening here reminds me of that cartoon of a firing squad standing in a circle, guns pointed inward.

As for you, Josh O., I’ve noticed that a number of ungenerous remarks over the past few weeks have been directed at your work on this site and I suspect it is precisely because you are a recently Oscar-nominated writer who is also egalitarian enough to reply to anyone who directs their correspondence to you. I think you’ve become a target - that people go “hey, I sniped with !! Josh !! Olsen !! today.” I’ve seen this before with people who are suddenly thrust in the limelight. Strangers will treat you as an object and your conversing with them as a trophy instead of a generous dialogue with a living, breathing, sensitive, and creative human being.

I appreciate your candor and wish you well.

Ted,

“And, the simple fact is: I am not arguing that authorship of a motion picture must be assigned to one person — only that it must be assigned, because that is one of the moral rights of authors. So: to whom should it be assigned to?”

You’re saying it must be assigned because it’s a moral right of a person we can’t even agree exists. Curious.

“I’ve already presented my argument, several times. Writers are unconditionally authors of screenplays; directors are unconditionally authors of movies; conditionally, the director of photography, the editor, the producer or the writer may be co-authors of movies.”

You have NEVER presented an argument that directors are the unconditional authors of the finished film. You’ve asserted that a film has many authors, and that was a premise I offered many, many moons ago.

Josh (Olsen),

You clearly have a message that you want to share with the masses. Why don’t you have a blog of your own? Seriously? You would have throngs of religious readers, myself included (not that you give a damn about my personal surfing habits, I’m just saying). And no one will delete the comments you make on your own site.

Marianne,

“For you not to see how that sounds very much like those same censors who instituted the Hays Code and the Blacklist is beyond me.”

Please don’t take this personally, because I mean to cast no aspersion on your character - that’s one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever read. It’s ridiculous in the extreme to equate criticism with censorship, and indicates an ignorance that is baffling. Newsflash, bunky - saying something is stupid is a universe away from saying something must be censored. You clearly don’t get that, though, as your posts here are geared solely towards making me shut up, which is far more censorious than anything I’ve ever posted.

“You and I have both been rewritten by directors. “

At best, my script was edited. Our illustrious - and almost certainly fictional - unwed mother read something somewhere and decided to post it here. Whatever.

“It’s interesting that you view me as “obnoxious and rude,” and yet you are the one who has been banned from websites for obnoxious and rude behavior. I always find it fascinating that the bad guy never sees himself as a bad guy.”

I find it remarkable that censorious twits who come in out of the blue calling people’s remarks crap never see themselves as censorious twits.

I do not, however, find it even close to remarkable that you would endorse the idea of people being thrown off writers’ boards for expressing themselves.

God, I love it. Any post that starts out comparing me to HUAC, accusing me of wanting to ban people for their unpopular views, then proceeds to cheer the fact that I’ve been banned for having unpopular views is priceless and worth keeping up. Craig, in spite of the fact that it’s just Marianne spewing more hateful venom my way, I really hope you keep that one up. It is the quintessence of the mentality I delight in rubbing the wrong way. The overwhelming hypocrisy is delightful, not to mention fucking hilarious.

Karen,

“As for you, Josh O., I’ve noticed that a number of ungenerous remarks over the past few weeks have been directed at your work on this site and I suspect it is precisely because you are a recently Oscar-nominated writer who is also egalitarian enough to reply to anyone who directs their correspondence to you. I think you’ve become a target - that people go “hey, I sniped with !! Josh !! Olsen !! today.” I’ve seen this before with people who are suddenly thrust in the limelight. Strangers will treat you as an object and your conversing with them as a trophy instead of a generous dialogue with a living, breathing, sensitive, and creative human being.”

That’s definitely part of it. No question. Although, I admit, I’ve always gotten under the skin of a certain dreary segment of the online populace.

josh (o):

“You have NEVER presented an argument that directors are the unconditional authors of the finished film.”

at this point i doubt your ability to read posts. or maybe i should doubt your memory, i don’t know. but the fact is, ted has VERY CLEARLY (in this thread and others) presented his argument why he thinks directors are the author of a film.

whether you agree with him or not (and you obviously don’t) is a seperate matter. but he HAS presented his argument …

and several times asked for your counter argument. which you so far have failed to do beyond throwing your toys out of your pram.

on the thread: in regards to the architect analogy that others have bought up - yes, the architect is the author of the building. and i suspect those who posit this question have never worked on a building site. beyond drawing some blue lines on a piece of paper, an architect also comes to the building site at ALL stages of construction and looks over (and approves) EVERY detail of the building, down to putting on little white gloves and inspecting every part of the building for dust (including the tops of doors and so forth) and the building CANNOT be handed over until the architect signs off on all those things.

a screenwriter does (usually) NOT have that kind of power over a production and its delivery, so the comparison is moot.

it is the producer and neither the director nor the screenwriter who puts on the white glove before signing off to the studio.

let’s not mix our comparisons with things we know nothing of, eh?

Craig,

In retrospect, your comment about my history on other boards seems even more churlish than it did the first time I read it.

Do I need to remind you that you e mailed me several times indicating that you thought the action of ONE Writer Action administrator was ridiculous, and that she was a fucked up individual? Now, because it’s convenient to you, you’d have people think that somehow there was a great hue and cry to have me banned from WA, when the truth is the exact opposite. There was one hell of a hue and cry for said administrator to stop her admittedly personal jihad against me by the vast majority of the contributors there. Several of whom - yourself included - avowed that even though I pissed them off sometimes, I still had a distinct voice and something valuable to contribute, certainly moreso than said administrator.

There were a few - the censorship loving Ms. Wibberly, for instance - who remained quiet on the subject, and that’s to be expected. That sort of person will never place a greater value on a principle than on her own personal peeves.

I have never thought that my voice or opinions would be welcomed by everybody, and I resent the unspoken assertion that they should be. But you know it doesn’t take a populist uprising to get booted off an internet forum. It usually takes one very dry, self-important twit in a position of power, and one or two whining assholes. I have found that on WA and at Wordplayer, one person complaining about a poster invariably outweighs dozens of people praising that poster. It seems to be the nature of these things.

You know this to be true, and yet you wrote what you wrote in an attempt to cast the events in a light that is not honest.

Similar to the fact that you allow Marianne to swoop in, post something that contains nothing but insults, and cut my response to her.

I’ll say it again - I don’t mind the behavior or the attitude half as much as I mind the lies about it.

Ted, I really wish you would say something stupid, once in a while. To prove you are actually human.

Oh wait. You co-wrote Shrek. You are human after all!…. See, from my personal, subjective point of view, which I’m sure everyone here is just dying to hear, I thought the movie was flawed. But as the centre of my universe, my opinion IS the objective, rational truth. Even when I change my mind. Which makes no sense, even to me! Especially in the face of box office success and Oscar Glory, which I discount as irrelevant, unless they make me look good.

Now before everyone attacks me once again, I thought Pirates was great, Alladin was great, he’s a great writer, I’ve read every wordplayer column and they are brilliant, yadda yadda - Group hug. Remember to read my comments in a stupid voice of someone you have no respect for. (Batteries not included, all models over 18 years of age, The trademarks, logos, service marks, and trade dress are registered and unregistered Trademarks of Ruairi Robinson Inc. Or others. You may not copy, display, distribute, download, license, modify, publish, re-post, reproduce, reuse, sell, transmit, use to create a derivative work, or otherwise use the content of my post without prior consent, unless for the purposes of parody, satire, spoof, or malicious character assasination)

Wait… my head is hurting again, a thought must be forming… Right now, I’m inclined to blame Andrew Adamson for everything I didn’t like in that film - If I am to use Josh’s arguments. (“the directors mostly suck and will probably screw up the script, so fuck them*”) If I use your own (which I’m lazily and innacurately boiling down to “we’re all in this together - group hug”), do you take the blame? Ok fuck it, I agree with pretty much every argument Ted has made (or else I’m just not clever enough to dispute it), but I still blame Adamson. Some directors are just bad.

Now watch me try and backtrack outta this one! BOOM!!!!

*Did he say this, or am I massaging an earlier paraphrase of something Josh said even further from the truth? I’m too lazy to check.

There’s an old Hollywood anecdote/fable, told by a number of brilliant directors about how it’s easy to direct a film:

You show up on the set the first day, go over to the actors and say, “what do you think?” And the actors go on about their chracters and what they want and what they think they should do and how they think the scene should play.

You nod and say, “ok.”

Then you turn to the Cinematographer and ask, “What do you think?” And the DP says, “I think I start wide, then come in and pick up the two of them over the shoulder, then track with them along the street, etc.”

And you say, “Sounds good to me.” Then, “Let’s do it.” And, “Action.”

The point made is that directing is easy. Being good at it isn’t. I’ve always wanted to try doing that with a stack of blank paper. I suspect it’s harder.

No one in this business, I mean no one, accords writers respect for doing what they do based solely on their job title. Yet nearly everyone gives directors respect for the title alone. I think it’s hard to generalize about either job, but anyone who speaks out against taking the established myths for granted in this area is fighting the good fight.

Back to a much earlier post, which mercifully I didn’t hear much contraversy about (group hug)

“I’d like to see the companies obliged to offer the position of production/set writer to the current writer of employ at the time of greenlight.

I’d like to see a trailer on the set and an office in the prod suite for a writer.

I’d like to see the writer’s name on the slate used before each shot.

I’d like to see the writer meaningfully consulted on marketing.

I’d like to see the writer included at any and all test screenings.

I’d like to see the writer automatically included at table readings.

I’d like the companies to allow the WGA to publish and sell the final scripts of all movies.

That’s just a few off the top of my head.”

Hey Craig - I’d love to hear the rest of these ideas, from the bottom, back, and sides of your head. And how you think the ones that are harder to define could be implemented. Like how to legally enforce “meaningful consultation”…

I know this wasn’t on your list, but I’d imagine writers aren’t automatically invited to do press, maybe because they are the most likely to be disgruntled, and not have nice things to say, when their script was fucked. I mean, judging by this lot here…

Also tell me, what should a director or producer do when the writer screws up? Isn’t it possible some of these protections on a BAD writer might hurt the finished film…? I mean, it’s all about the finished film isn’t it? Not about egos, except my own of course. How does one protect a potentially good movie from a bad writer screwing up my genius artistic directorial vision? What if you want to get a better writer, but you are stuck with the dud?

slightly ot: some other sites have linked back to this thread as some kind of “this is screenwriters being ugly in public”.

i love that. i’m glad of these threads. i especially love threads that josh o is on and the the threads that kevin and josh j argue.

i say, don’t hide it. i say bring it on. i love this.

i remember a few months back john rogers going off on one on a commenter of his and then kind of apologising for it. fuck that. this is what the net is about, right? i get to tell an oscar nominated writer when i think he’s playing the victim and behaving like a baby and the producer of a warren ellis thing gets to blow his top like a normal person. i love it.

HUG IT OUT, BITCHES!

“No one in this business, I mean no one, accords writers respect for doing what they do based solely on their job title. Yet nearly everyone gives directors respect for the title alone. I think it’s hard to generalize about either job, but anyone who speaks out against taking the established myths for granted in this area is fighting the good fight.”

Tell me, does anyone give Uwe Boll or Michael Bay or Brett Ratner AUTOMATIC respect for just being a director…?

I’m not sure myself. I would say no. I don’t think many people in the world who even know who these people are would have much respect for their work at least. I’ve never heard anyone say “I can’t wait for the next Uwe Boll film!” But I imagine it’s hard to actually go about directing a feature film, if nobody on set has any respect for you. I mean, isn’t the whole process a series of choices based on taste and opinion anyway? And with luck, the person directing has the good taste to make the right choices that work in favour of a good story, told well.

Are you talking about respect among Joe Public, or within the industry, or within the actual system of making the film hands on?

As a side note, I did notice Uwe Boll blame the writers before…

J. Turman:

yeah. anecdotes are great.

i’d love to see you on a real fucking set and watch you deal with the insanity. directing is NOTHING like what most people think.

people think it’s like letting people do what they want, or being an administrator, but fuck that, it’s like being the encyclopedia britannica of your production and you sure as shit better know what colour trousers your lead is wearing (for wardrobe) or what the lighting is going to be like (for your gaffer) or why this person is doing whatever (for your actor( (who may or may not have read the script, depending on how big a star they are) and so on and so forth.

the ONE thing that pisses me off about all this screenwriter whinging is this presumption that ONLY the screenwriter has a hard time.

for any screenwriter that says that, i’d LOVE to put them in front of a movie production and see how easy they think it is …

YES, many directors suck. but hey, guess what? so do MANY screenwriters.

i won’t go into authorship (as opposed to autership) as i feel that’s been fully explained here …

J. Turman:

yeah. anecdotes are great.

i’d love to see you on a real fucking set and watch you deal with the insanity. directing is NOTHING like what most people think.

people think it’s like letting people do what they want, or being an administrator, but fuck that, it’s like being the encyclopedia britannica of your production and you sure as shit better know what colour trousers your lead is wearing (for wardrobe) or what the lighting is going to be like (for your gaffer) or why this person is doing whatever (for your actor( (who may or may not have read the script, depending on how big a star they are) and so on and so forth.

the ONE thing that pisses me off about all this screenwriter whinging is this presumption that ONLY the screenwriter has a hard time.

for any screenwriter that says that, i’d LOVE to put them in front of a movie production and see how easy they think it is …

YES, many directors suck. but hey, guess what? so do MANY screenwriters.

i won’t go into authorship (as opposed to autership) as i feel that’s been fully explained here …

oops, sorry. first time i pressed post it gave me an error message.

by all means feel free to delete one.

Ruairi,

Half the time I read your posts, I wonder if I’ve just been thoroughly dissed.

If I have, it’s by a master, and I bow to you.

Mr Abrasive,

As has been mentioned countless times, no one said directing was EASY, it’s only been said that it’s not as difficult as writing a great script. But it’s absolutely work.

Now if you want to take me and put me at the helm of a movie to see how I deal with it, see if I can handle the laod even though I’m at this point just a writer and haven’t yet directed a major film - fine. Do it.

I’ll take that challenge as long as the script is good.

i’ve done both (writing the script and directing) and i have to say … directing is way harder.

maybe.

kinda.

hmmm … but that could just be my general hatred of having to deal with any people anywhere ever that comes into play there …

whereas writing a script - me, a ‘puter and several bottles of whiskey. what’s not to love? ;)

(apart from “me”, obviously) :P

oh, and just as an aside, (josh j) my background is in theatre and with all due respect, directing cinema is a LOT more work (harder?) than directing film.

sayin’.

Josh —

I didn’t duck the question. it’s right there in what you quoted: the architect is the author of design of building that embodies his design. I’ll even add: significant alterations to an architect’s design (and, sometimes, even what might be considered purely cosmetic alterations) cannot be made without the architects approval and permission.

You’re not really going to go to the ol’ “architect : blueprint : building :: screenwriter : screenplay : movie” analogy, are you? ‘Cause that old trope demonstrates a decided lack of knowledge of the amount of work that goes into creating architectural blueprints, and the amount of detail architectural blueprints include that is required to construct a building.

Do you really think I have not considered all of the arguments on this issue? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, I initially held the exact same position that you do, made the same arguments that you have and are going to make, and ultimately, in order to defend the authorial rights of screenwriters, it became necessary to concede that authors other than writers must also be entitled to those same rights?

-

What the hell is going on?!

Has this become Olson’s personal venting and vindication forum? While I agree with his basic POV, I rebuke the way he seems to revel in the attention, answering every schmuck on the board -even the obvious distractors.

Zip has been contributed to solve the core issue: How to empower the screenwriter.

Instead we get Josh fighting off his assailants. Some Irish kid with keyboard diarrhea. And others who think they have to chime in on every single comment posted on this site. To top it all off Craig has withdrawn into his corner…or his frontyard.

Maybe the appeal to steer the debate onto a path of constructive problem-solving has scared him away and driven everyone else (excempt Mr.Elliot) utterly insane.

Sorry, I know it sounds “mean”, but this forum is a farce.

Mr. Abrasive -

If you don’t like people, I can sure see why you would think directing is harder than writing.

I’ve directed theatre - and I’ve been on film sets (not as a director) but one thing I know from being on a film set is that directing cinema AND film is more work than directing a play.

But hey, set me up and I’ll take your Pepsi challenge. I like people and I like the work, hard as it may be.

“Ruairi,

Half the time I read your posts, I wonder if I’ve just been thoroughly dissed.

If I have, it’s by a master, and I bow to you.”

From the writer of One of my favourite films of the last year, I’ll take that as a complement. And yes, I was dissing you, kind of. But respectfully, of course.

I’m reading back on my posts and good lord I wouldn’t want them quoted back to me at an inopportune moment some time in the distant future. because it’s sometimes really fucking hard to make sure the right “tone” is read into what you write. As evidenced when the other Josh missed that I was just kidding around with you (apology accepted by the way, other Josh) or some other fool made the wild insinuation I advocated sexual violence towards animals. I guess that’s what they employ “good” writers for :)

It’s like, once it’s in print, and visible for all to see, (and especially on the internet, where everyone’s opinion’s are, up to a point, equal) you are from that point unable to evolve or adapt your opinion in any way to incorporate the experience you’ve gained or new things you’ve learned. There’s a big Gotcha culture, that says, “But you said 10 years ago while you were drunk that you preferred sony tv’s to panasonic! Know you are saying Panasonic make better flat screens? Flip Flopper! Gotcha! HA!”

I mean, when you write, isn’t that what the second draft is for? It’s a shame we can’t edit our own comments here, so we can weasel out a bit easier. Or refine them.

I appreciate people like yourself who speak honestly from the gut, even if that rubs people up the wrong way sometimes, however, I wonder if there aren’t a couple of things you’ve said here that you would have revised in the second draft…?

Josh:

I definitely have major issues with how Alex Sokoloff administers WA. I think in at least one circumstance, they way they dealt with you was ridiculous.

In at least two other circumstances, I was amazed they didn’t ban you outright.

Point is, I’m not being inconsistent when I say that this isn’t the first place you’ve had issues. I don’t know you well enough to explain why, nor do I really care. I just want discussions in my place to remain civil, because I’m not interested in bludgeoning people. I want to convince people.

I think I’ve been pretty liberal with my definition of “civil” by and by, so as far as this all has gone, I’m satisfied that I haven’t blown it.

As for you calling me a liar, I don’t care, dude. I just deleted another comment calling you much worse, for what it’s worth. Try and keep the mud off my rug, is all I’m saying.

To the rest of you:

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, annoys me more than “that guy” who jumps into an argument on the internet and starts blaming everyone for their stupid arguing and how now everything’s gone to hell in a handbasket because it’s all about arguing and no one’s being constructive…

Gimme a break. It’s called “skimming.” I’ll admit. I’ve started skimming Josh’s comments, because I’m losing interest in his battle royale. But an open forum is an open forum. If people need to argue for a while, then good. We might actually get some gems from the whole thing.

You know, a little sunshine ain’t so bad. Better to let it out than carry it around in our hearts, harboring murderous resentment toward each other.

All I ask is that we not lose sight of the Craig Mazin Punch In The Face Rule.

If you think saying something in person would get you punched in the face, then don’t say it online, okay?

Is it too much for me to hope for that I am the one referred to as the Irish kid with keyboard diarrhea?

My agent often brags proudly that I write like other people pee, which I take to mean that I do every day more than once and not that its yellow and smells like asparagas.

Hmm. Maybe I need a new agent. I’ve been mulling that …

Sadly though, I am not Irish but Dutch, several generations past.

Craig, so a potentially great debate going to shits annoys you less than “some guy’s” plea to have a constructive debate?

johnny …

what the fuck are you on about???

josh o has totally not said anything to me (contrary to your “answering every schmuck on the boarden the obvious distractors.” comment. and i have no doubt that josh and others think i’m a schmuck. maybe even a distractor, although i’d disagree with that myself).

he’s not revelling in the attention - he’s taking time out of his life to discuss this shit with writers pro and non. and even non writers, but fans. for which i think he’s a decent guy. he could be off anywhere else doing anything else, but he chooses to do this with us. awesome. we have something to debate.

as to your assertion that zip has been contributed to the core issue (How to empower the screenwriter), well, much has been contributed. it’s just a matter of sides not agreeing. that’s not to say ideas haven’t been put forth. many have.

how many of those ideas are feasible - or even which side of the ideas are feasible - is a matter for each reader.

josh fighting off his assailants? this isn’t the karate kid - five against one. there are people defending josh’ position. not that i think josh needs help against his assailants. it’s a message board, where he can answer each person if he wants to. not the worlds greatest screenwriter gangbang. he doesn’t have to take us all on.

as for craig not answering - what do you want? for him to give up his career, wife and kids to be here ALL the time??? YOU might have the time do to that, but sadly for you, craig has a life. look at the tim in l.a. - prime doing stuff time. not after work time. not before work time. just daytime with all the things that entails time.

i have no doubt craig will be back and he will read everything and comment and maybe to delete stuff (maybe the bit where i went to call josh o a c* because it’s a different kind of word in the u.s. than it is in the u.k. who knows?)

you don’t sound mean, you sound silly.

and this forum is far from a farce.

maybe you’ve confused it with your own ideas?

and while i’m typing, he replies …

Ted, Question for you. If directors are authors of their films (or co-authors), do you think during production screenwriters should ultimately defer to the director’s vision regarding the screenplay and/or story and then ultimately try to do one’s best to service that vision? It goes without saying this is not a trick question, but I’ll say it anyway. This is not a trick question.

Ruairi —

The credited writers on a movie are included on the press junket, but the studio has the right to exclude them (and the writers also have the right to exclude themselves).

Remember: the purpose of a press junket is to sell the movie as it exists.

That’s why, sometimes, a movie will come out with a big star, and the star will not show up on any talk shows or do interviews related to the movie: for whatever reason, they do not want to help sell it.

(When The Abyss was released, James Cameron was a guest on the David Letterman show, and that was the only talk show appearance made by anyone related to the movie).

-

Hey Joshua, I used my advanced intellect to discern that he was probably referring to me. But he’s twisting things maliciously once again, unless there are multiple johnnies lying around. I’ll have you know I’m an OSCAR NOMINATED Irish kid with verbal Diarrhoea. I’ll not be belittled by anonymous stangers on the internet. As a Director, I feel I should be treated with more respect by you writers*, automatically.

Craig, believe it or not, but within one of last torrents, I actually asked you a couple of (I think) reasonable questions! I know, it’s buried in a landslide, but I’d be interested in your thoughts, since the list I quoted from you was the most PRACTICAL thing I’ve seen here so far. Even if not everyone read them, I think they are worth hearing in more detail…

Btw, johnny, I haven’t noticed you contribute much.

Just saying.

*notice what I did there? I capitalised Director, as a mark or automatic respect, but put writer in lower case. Ha.

so that was my comment you deleted and trust me, it passes the craig mazin rule.

i’d totally say to josh’s face what i said in the deleted comment.

i think it’d come across differently in person than online, but hey - that’s the thing about being online, isn’t it? you can’t really tell the way in which someone says something.

Mr. Abrasive,

What the fuck am I on about? I’m on about having a constructive debate. Kudos to at least 4 A list screenwriters on this thread to take the time and share their thoughts. Shame on the rest for wasting that precious time with abrasive comments and off-topic ramblings.

ruari,

Indeed, I was referring to your earlier posts. The ones were you went on your little bestiality tantrum. Productive contributions? Not imho.

Slainte.

prev. post by Johnny

yeah, i figured it was you …

so … no abrasive comments like calling josh (o) a c

DELETED

Johnny: If you waste some more of your life on this farce to read carefully through every single post again, you’ll notice I didn’t introduce the bestiality theme. I just gave it a gentle nudge (wayyy too far…?), and anyway, I was aiming my verbal diarrhoe at thin air. I don’t think anyone was harmed. Except the thin skinned. It burns thin skin…

i want johnny to be johnny depp.

obviously i don’t want respect.

(i think we’re ready for a new post, now)

wow, that was a fast delete.

Mr. Abrasive, I’ve been on more sets as a producer and writer and worked with more directors and actors than you’ll ever know. I was simply passing on an ancient anecdote from either George Roy Hill or Mike Nichols, some old-timey know-nothing like that. I’m sure you have more wisdom to offer. Your snide personal attack couldn’t have demonstrated more ignorance. Be more bitterly angry.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

that was awesome, j. truly.

the REAL thing i want to know (since obviously have a future telling device) (in which my career is already over, i guess, since you already know how many people i’m going to know) could you at least tell me this: am i going to meet the girl of my dreams and spend my life with her?

just curious.

I never said directing was easy. I don’t think it’s easier than writing at all. Twist the words all you want. My point was that doing anything well is hard. Some things are easier to fake. I’d rather face directing than line-producing/production managing; that shit is as hard as it gets.

“The point made is that directing is easy. Being good at it isn’t. I’ve always wanted to try doing that with a stack of blank paper. I suspect it’s harder.”

Hey, mr. Turman

On the above point, would it be fair to infer that you are suggesting that adapting a novel is easier, since you are not starting from a blank page…? I’ve heard writers say that adapting can be even harder.*

Or am I over analyzing?

btw, are you the J. Turman that co-wrote The Hulk?

*I’m doing a Fox News style “some people say” because I can’t think of any specific examples

Oh, Craig, m’brothah, I am just so loving this. And Josh. Especially Josh. It’s never you, is it? Amazing.

And, as I’m sure you know, your agent’s comment that you write like others urinate is a direct quote from Mozart about himself. Only he said that he wrote music like a cow urinates — constantly and without effort.

I don’t know about your fiction but your posts certainly follow that tack. Plus they also reek like cow piss — with the same anger, superiority and lack of social grace you displayed on WriterAction.

Glad you found somewhere to be happy…

Lotsa luck, Craig and Ted.

up next on artful writer: “so, puppies: cute or what?”

Josh:

“Once again, with the blanket statement as though it’s fact. Here’s what I have a problem with, Kevin - we live in a world where people mindlessly subscribe to all SORTS of stupid ideas without question. That directors are, for the most part, artists is one of them. I have zero tolerance for the mindset that responds as you do. You say my comment is ridiculous, yet you don’t offer any substance. You just expect me to fall back in line with all the other sheep who buy into the notion you’ve also bought into without question.”

Substance? You ask for substance yet you offer none which is truly hysterical. But then sad.

The reason why I believe your comment is ridiculous—and more than a little ignorant—is because you infer that all screenwriters are artists while only some, a small minutea of directors are artists. And what drives me nuts is that you haven’t defined “artist”.

Can an artist be someone with desire and not the skill?

If you answered, NO, then you must realize that there are just as many crappy screenwriters as there are crappy directors. That’s a fact, sister.

If you answered, YES, then you must realize that there are just as many talented screenwriters as there are talented directors. That’s a fact, sweety.

“We automatically operate on the assumption that directors are artists even though very few ever actually do anything to actually earn that sobriquet. Then we turn around and belittle the contributions of actual creators - ie, writers.”

Again, this is only true if the script isn’t a piece of shit. Do you concede that there are cases when a director has to work from a script that would give The Rock diarrhea?

“To somone who doesn’t think much, what I say on the subject IS ridiculous. To someone who stops for a minute and doesn’t just eagerly chow down whatever swill is pumped into his mouth, what YOU say is significantly more ridiculous. Downright foolish, in fact.”

Actually, if anyone stops and thinks about what you have to say on the subject, more than likely they’d wish that Clint Eastwood would visit them in the middle of the night with a needle full of the Gummi Berry Juice. What you have to say on any subject is ultimately useless because it lacks substance and objectivity. You’ve shown that you won’t answer a direct question probably for the same reason that you won’t ever recite the lyrics to a Sigur Ros song.

You lack the necessary knowledge.

I’ve produced enough movies (both on set and on the executive level) to know that Writing and Directing is so insanely difficult, it’s absolutely amazing when it’s done well. Most screenplays suck. Most directors suck. But to promote the idea that the balance of suckitude weighs more on the side of a director is just…stupid.

Joshua J:

I have no idea how you’d fair as a film director. But if you go into it thinking, “at least it’s not as hard as writing”, I’m guessing the movie will not turn out as good as it could be.

I could scroll through a list of things that a director must do and go through in order to deliver what is considered a “good film”. But you know what, I could also scroll through a list of things that a writer must do and go through in order to deliver what is considered a “good film”. My point, they’re both insanely difficult. Equally.

CJ:

I think you’re confusing Joshua J and Josh Olson.

You’re saying it must be assigned because it’s the moral right of a person we can’t even agree exists. Curious.

Don’t know what the moral rights of authors actually are, huh?

One of ‘em is that authorship must be properly attributed. Since movies are works of authorship, there must exist authors of movies. The moral right of attribution demands identifying them.

If you don’t agree that movies have authors — if you’ve reverted back (again) to your position that “no one” is the author of a movie — then it means:

• you are arguing that movies are not works of authorship; or

• you are arguing that authors of movies should not be allowed the moral rights to which all authors are entitled.

You have NEVER presented the argument that directors are unconditional authors of the finished film.

No, but I have presented the argument (in this very thread) that under all conditions, directors are authors of movies; under some conditions, directors may be co-authors with one or more of the following: writers, d.p.s, editors or producers.

What you are claiming I have NEVER argued is that under all conditions, directors are authors of movies and under no conditions are anyone other than directors authors of movies — which is pretty much the antithesis of my position, so: right you are, mate.

It’s the difference between “directors are unconditionally the authors of movies. Conditionally, [others may be co-authors]” (the statement of mine you quoted) and “directors are the unconditional authors of the finished film” (a position that you were (correctly) adamant I had never argued)(and nor will I, until I am of certain mind that it is correct).

You’ve asserted that a film has many authors, and that was a premise I offered many, many moons ago.

Well, no, again: I gave a very narrow field of possible candidates for co-authorship with the director, under some circumstances, but not all circumstances.

Whereas you now seem to be arguing that a movie has many authors, but none of them are entitled to their moral rights as authors.

Which, you know, nice job, Josh: in your wild flailing about to win an argument, you have now taken up the exact same position as financiers of works-made-for-hire.

Curious, indeed.

-

Johnny —

To answer your question about what’s all this got to do with advancing the rights of professional writers:

As Craig said at the end of the article that began this long, long thread:

“Nothing is taboo when it comes to improving the working condition of the professional screenwriter.”

Writers and directors have revenue sharing. In most cases, the WGA and DGA negotiate revenue sharing separately, and whatever one gets, the other gets. That’s our residuals, and the best of our residual fomulae is 2% of 100% of revenue.

However, in one instance only, where the WGA and DGA negotiated together based on the principle that “writers are the authors of the screenplays, directors are the authors of the movies,” we are receiving 50% of revenue — an even split with the financiers (that’s the foreign levies on blank recording media and devices).

Get it?

In the one instance where the writers and directors recognized each other’s authorship as separate but nonetheless equal, we both won a contractual equivalent of authorial rights that are better than anything either group has ever won separately.

Seems like maybe that might just work in regards to anything,

But, first, it requires that writers stop neurotically perceiving screenplays as a lesser achievement than the movie while simultaneously insisting that directors contributions to a movie are virtually non-existent compared to those of screenwriters.

Call it a creative alliance, call it a symbiotic relationship, call it a meeting of equals, it doesn’t really matter.

But the argument that directors have no claim to authorship of a movie is exactly the argument that the studios have always made.

Whose side should writers be on?

-

Ruairi -

Hewing to my middle ground position, I’d say it depends. I personally have found adaptations ‘less difficult’ than originals. But each situation/story presents different kinds of challenges and difficulties. And different people have different skills. Even bad, muddled or voluminous, source material means you have a starting point. I’ve worked from comic book source material maybe five or six times, a series of two dozen pulp adventure novels another time. Five bizarre drawings for an animated series I’m doing now.

One of the more difficult jobs I ever had was a Disney ‘adaptation’ of Buck Rogers. The 1930s short story was little help and I had no interest in the tv series. I thought it would be a breeze and I was wrong. Was Ted’s “Pirates” an adaptation? I’d say not. It was a damn ride. That’s not really source material, that’s a puzzle to solve, and I expect would present more unique challenges incorporating obligatories than a blank page job. It really depends. Pogue and Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’ was an adaptation and a remake, but it is an original and brilliant genre film. I wrote an original in 4 days once, and sold it immediately, watched it get made, and took my name off it. But it was one of the easiest jobs I’ve had. By bias is that I have a lot of respect for the blank page writer WHEN HE’S DONE A GOOD JOB.

Being really good is really hard to do. I think these categories and comparisons here are a bit specious. Not all directing is difficult. I’ve seen idiots do it, and do it to great acclaim and even Oscar nominations. I’ve watched them work first hand, from the set. It demystified the process for me. Not all writing is difficult. Sometimes greatness comes without difficulty. What people don’t realize is that it takes just as much work to make a bad film as a good one.

Not all architects supervise construction. Some merely draw up plans and hand it to the contractor, answer a question or two for clarification. The architect’s job is to make a blueprint and plans. He usually has more power over the finished project than a screenwriter. But not more than a playwright. I think it’s harder to fake it when you’re facing a blank page. A top comedy writer I know thinks it’s much much easier to rewrite than to write an original. But they’re different skills. I’m in a different mindset when I’m writing a first draft than when I’m rewriting. When I’m rewriting, there is a safety net of sorts, the previous draft. I see directing similarly. Not great directing, but how much of what comes out of Hollywood these days is really great work, on its own terms? Do we enshrine a job title like directing purely on principle? And denigrate another on principle, like producing? There are great producers. We should all be lucky enough to work with them. But curse the bad ones because they’re no-talent fuckers.

Ted,

Got it, thanks for the rundown.

Just one question: What does: ?That?s the foreign levies on blank recording media and devices? mean in this context?

The ongoing argument of writers vs. directors (in general or specifically in regards to authorship) has irked me from the beginning as it seems counter-productive. It is an undeniable fact that both writers and directors play essential parts in the making of a movie. They aren?t enemies, but allies. Which is why I am against the ?Film By? credit as it implies sole authorship and is given exclusively to directors. But I digress. Back to your post:

The idea of accepting authorship for contractual (not artistic!) purposes as ?separate but equal? rings true to me. Admittedly I?m using common sense as I have yet to work for an MBA signatory and hence my knowledge of residuals based on authorship is limited (to having read the WGAw residuals survival guide ? which makes no mention of ?authorship? or the DGA?s role in writers? residuals).

Financially, the instance you refer to seems like the best solution in regards to authorship. My question for you is simple: What happened?

Id est: What prompted the WGA and the DGA to work hand in hand, and can we use this instance as a precedent to draft a general, contractual 50% residual ruling (obviously to be split between writer/s and director) so that it applies to all (WGA) writers?

P.S. I?d go with ?creative alliance? ? worked for Bruckheimer/Simpson.

I think you?re confusing Joshua J and Josh Olson.>

If that’s so my sincere apologies to Josh O., specifically misattributing the self-aggrandizing Mozart quote. But the other stuff stands.

Josh and I are old, battle-weary warriors. And that wasn’t my choice…

Ruari —

There’s things in Shrek that I think, if done the way Terry and I wrote ‘em, would have made the movie better, but there’s also things that were done differently than Terry and I wrote ‘em that did make the movie better, so … trade-offs, eh?

Besides, a man’s retch should exceed his gasp, or what’s a heaving for, and all that.

-

Hardest job on a movie, hands down, no room for debate?

Script supervisor.

-

John (Turman) —

The difference between the architect and the screenwriter is, quite frankly, the work product.

For a screenplay to even come close to the kind of instructional guide for constructing a building that an architect’s blueprints represent, every screenplay would have to include:

• A complete shot list for the entire movie (or storyboards)
• Lighting diagrams
• Lens, film speed and film stock call outs
• Blocking/choreography diagrams
• Set designs (including blueprints, including materials, etc.)
• Costume designs (including patterns, materials, etc.)
• Prop designs (those that are specific to the story, of course)

And that’s probably not all, but its all I can think of off-hand.

That’s why the analogy is specious (beyond the fact that a design for a building and a story & dramatization are simply not equivalent in anyway) : the architect’s blueprints represent every single decision necessary to the construction of the building according to the architect’s design. Sometimes, contractors have to improvise on the site, which is why you need a good, smart contractor — but the architect is creating both the design for the building and its specific expression as a building, even when working in a medium other than construction (if we can refer to construction as a medium, even).

-

Ted,

In your scheme, does the creator of source material count as a possible co-author of a film adapted from his or her work? Doesn’t Geoffrey Eugenides deserve to be considerd an author of the film The Virgin Suicides? Coppola’s script hews incredibly close to Eugenides’s book, in terms of plot, character, structure and language.

The “Written By” credit has always troubled me when applied to adaptations of this type. Shouldn’t “Screenplay By” or “Adapted for the Screen By” be preferred?

cbrown

Cbrown —

Thing to understand about credits:

A screenplay is a dramatization of a story, but is not in-and-of-itself a story (this is a fundamental element of Western dramaturgy, going back to Artistotle’s Poetics).

Anyway, that’s what the credit “Screenplay by” is for: the dramatization. And on any movie, the one writing credit that is always there is “Screenplay by.”

If there’s source material of a “story nature” — that is, is the story dramatized in the screenplay was previously published (or dramatized) in another form, then there’s not story credit on the movie — only “Screenplay by.”

If a story is created specifically for use in a film dramatization, or if its first use (ie, it’s never been published) is as the basis for a film dramatization, then there’s a credit that reads: “Story by.”

If there’s source material of a “non-story nature,” or if there’s source material of a story nature but the story underlying the dramatization is significantly different enough from the story in the source material “as to constitute an original story in its own right,” then there’s a credit that reads: “Screen Story by.”

“Written by” simply means that the same writer or writers received both “Screenplay by” and either “Story by” or “Screen Story by” credit — that is, all the literary material used in the motion picture was created especially for the motion picture, and was created by this people/these people.

All of the credits given are recognition of authorship of the dramatization and underlying story (where applicable) used in the final movie.

-

Kevin

“I have no idea how you’d fair as a film director. But if you go into it thinking, “at least it’s not as hard as writing”, I’m guessing the movie will not turn out as good as it could be.

You didn’t read through my post, evidently. I took the statement made by brother Olson regarding directors (most aren’t artists) which you said was ridiculous, turned it around and made it work for writers (most suck, which you say all the time) - demonstrating that your position was falsely based.

You did not address that central point. Which is, either you believe that most, if not all directors are great artists or they are not.

We know (and you have testified) that most writers are not. I agree with that statement. Why is it so hard to accept the “ridiculous” statement that most directors are not?

And I’ve never said directing was easy, but I will say again and again - it is easier than writing a great script from scratch. Directing plays are far easier than directing film, but that doesn’t make directing a play EASY (at least, directing one WELL) just not the same load of work that directing film may be. I know directing is hard work but I’m up for the challenge. I’m confident I can and would do well, but only time will tell, so we’ll have this conversation again.

I just don’t always know if you’re simply just having a gut reaction to what’s being stated or what. I remember at the beginning of this thread when I stated that William Goldman doesn’t go to set because he blows shots.

Bunch o’ folks jumped on me about that, including yourself. In fact, you stated it was incorrect.

I cited my source, Goldman’s own words in his books*, and left it at that.

No one jumped in to say anything, like how they knew for certain that I am wrong about Goldman and sets, etc. You didn’t cite your source, in other words, in how you knew for certain I was incorrect.

I wonder if you were not just reacting reflexively to what I wrote without thought to whether or not it could actually be true. If so, we’re not going to get any farther down the road with this debate than we did with any of our others and perhap should let it go.

*I’m going to take a stab, without looking it up, that the book Goldman talks about not going to sets is WHICH LIE DID I TELL - he states he blows shots (and lists a couple he blew on Princess Bride) so he stays away - he does mention going to the Absolute Power set because he has a fetish for Clint. Now as I said, I could be wrong and Bill may hang around sets all day. But he wrote that he doesn’t, this was seconded by a person I met who worked at castle rock, so as I mentioned, if I’m wrong about it it’s a well-researched and hard-earned mistake. If you dispute it, at least cite your source.

Damn. You know what?

I just jumped the shark. I pulled an Old Fonzie and jumped the damn shark. Damn.

I’m bringing up old shit that bothered me well nigh over two hundred posts ago, for l’rd knows whatever reason - and I don’t like how it came out, pretty damn peevish and ironically enough, a knee-jerk reaction, to boot - but I said it, can’t take it back and so there it is. Right over the shark.

Methinks the barrage here has gotten to me and I’m gonna step back and watch the pro’s discuss the rest of this particular thread, and this time I mean it. I’ll participate with the next one.

Have at it, fellas - if anyone reading this lives in Miami, I have a couple of plays opening there tomorrow - info on my site (click on me name).

Thanks Ted, Craig and Brother Olson for your insights.

Joshua:

“*I’m going to take a stab, without looking it up, that the book Goldman talks about not going to sets is WHICH LIE DID I TELL - he states he blows shots (and lists a couple he blew on Princess Bride) so he stays away”

You’re not the only one who can be petty. It’s my turn!!

I think you need to go back and read Goldman’s books again. Because he talks about being on set in Butch Cassidy, Masquerade, Harper, The Hot Rock, The Great Waldo Pepper, Marathon Man, The Princess Bride and a A Bridge Too Far. I guessing that he’s on set for most of his films but since he didn’t specifically state all of them like he did in these examples that I got from both of his books, I’ll just state those. Don’t read to literally into his novel. The Princess Bride anecdote is one of those funny self depracating moments that most novelists do the humanize themselves. I’m just taking a wild stab in the dark and guess that he doesn’t always blow shots. But it makes a funny tidbit in the novels.

“You did not address that central point. Which is, either you believe that most, if not all directors are great artists or they are not.”

Um…yes, I did. Right here:

“Most screenplays suck. Most directors suck. But to promote the idea that the balance of suckitude weighs more on the side of a director is just…stupid.”

And here:

“I could scroll through a list of things that a director must do and go through in order to deliver what is considered a “good film”. But you know what, I could also scroll through a list of things that a writer must do and go through in order to deliver what is considered a “good film”. My point, they’re both insanely difficult. Equally.”

Accepting the reality that each profession is equally as hard and be as equally performed shittily is something that I’ve been saying for awhile now.

Abrasive

“people think it’s like letting people do what they want, or being an administrator, but fuck that, it’s like being the encyclopedia britannica of your production and you sure as shit better know what colour trousers your lead is wearing (for wardrobe) or what the lighting is going to be like (for your gaffer) or why this person is doing whatever (for your actor( (who may or may not have read the script, depending on how big a star they are) and so on and so forth.”

So when you say directing is nothing like most people think…. you’re lumping yourself in with most people, apparently. Because directing is nothing like what you describe in that bizarre little litany.

“the ONE thing that pisses me off about all this screenwriter whinging is this presumption that ONLY the screenwriter has a hard time.”

So now we’re measuring creativity by how much physical labor is involved? Bizarre.

Kevin,

“I’ve produced enough movies (both on set and on the executive level) to know that Writing and Directing is so insanely difficult, it’s absolutely amazing when it’s done well. Most screenplays suck. Most directors suck. But to promote the idea that the balance of suckitude weighs more on the side of a director is just…stupid.”

Enough. Seriously. You’re not even trying to get what I’m saying. I’m not saying there aren’t shit writers, or that there aren’t a lot of them. Quality isn’t even the goddam issue. The nature of the job is. And the amount of hard work involved is irrelevant as well. To factor that into the equation is, simply, insane. I don’t care if it took Paddy Chayefsky a week to write Network or a year, and I don’t care if it was easy or hard. It has exactly ZERO bearing on whose creative vision that movie reflects.

Ted,

“One of ‘em is that authorship must be properly attributed. Since movies are works of authorship, there must exist authors of movies. The moral right of attribution demands identifying them.”

Then, as I said here quite some time ago, do it properly. Assign a committee to every project, to watch every aspect of the writing and the pre-production and the production and the post production. Then, when the film is done, have that committee make the determination who the authors are of the film, and proceed accordingly.

Which is, of course, ridiculous. But probably the only accurate way to actually attribute authorship to a film.

Kevin,

“Accepting the reality that each profession is equally as hard and be as equally performed shittily is something that I’ve been saying for awhile now.”

That’s great. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anything to do with the subject.

Josh:

“I’m not saying there aren’t shit writers, or that there aren’t a lot of them. Quality isn’t even the goddam issue. The nature of the job is. And the amount of hard work involved is irrelevant as well. To factor that into the equation is, simply, insane. I don’t care if it took Paddy Chayefsky a week to write Network or a year, and I don’t care if it was easy or hard. It has exactly ZERO bearing on whose creative vision that movie reflects.”

This is actually the most non-sensical thing you’ve said so far. Absolutely nothing, NOTHING you’ve said previously even comes close to this statement. This is the only semi-objective thing you’ve stated so don’t pretend that you have.

In fact, it makes no fucking sense.

“That’s great. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anything to do with the subject.”

And what subject are we talking about?

Anyway, enough of this. Life is too busy at the moment to keep at it for now. In the end, my position remains fairly simple - I am deeply concerned that at least some of the people who represent my rights in the WGA do not perceive the work I do to be as significant as it is… do not perceive ANY of our work to be as significant as it is. When I see a sign of that perception, I comment on it, and I do so vigorously. I truly do not care if that offends people.

In my heart of hearts, I suspect that in the end, none of this shit matters. This stuff will not change by any action of our Guild. They will win some little battles and lose others, and the lot of screenwriters will remain essentially the same. What change comes will come from individuals creating their own situations, and hopefully, the effects of that seeping out into the business. We’re not going to win the “film by” battle through the Guild, frankly. We’re going to win it by shaming people who take it; we’re going to win it by more and more writer/directors making a point of not taking it. And I suspect, in the long run, that’s the only way we’re gonna win ANY of the important battles.

Now I gotta get back to work. I have deadlines to meet, and defenseless, unwed pregnant women to kick around.

Plus, I hear Marianne’s new passion project, Three’s Company: The Motion Picture opens next week, and I need to decide which theater to see it in….

Ted,

I had a question earlier you probably missed: Since directors are authors of their films (or co-authors), do you think during production screenwriters should ultimately defer to the director’s vision regarding the screenplay and/or story and then ultimately try to do one’s best to service that vision?

P.S. I liked your wrinkle on the Browning quote.

Derek -

Good question. Along those lines of some of your earlier posts, what do you do to remain active on a project once your work is done on it? If you’ve been replaced, are there steps you take to remain involved/influential?

• Matt

Ted -

I’ve waited a while to tell you tht you’re only partially correct. Most architects do prepare far more technical documents than a screenplay, but they do so with the assistance of an officeful of specialized help - engineers, surveyors, materials experts. Frank Gehry may have a lot of knowledge but his design work is often vague scratchings on a piece of paper. I suspect he has people who draw and interpret his forms, build models, etc. He supervises this process and this team.

I’ve heard the architect/developer/builder analogy used by seasoned film vets to shorthand the filmmaking process. But it’s only an analogy. Filmmaking is its own unique beast. We both agree that a script is not a finished product but an interim one. It’s a blueprint for a film. And this may have some responsibility for its lack of status as a work of pure authorship, and the denigration of its author as a non-author.

Kevin,

I am really ducking out of this, but your comment is so absolutely lunatic that I have to assume you’ve completely misread what I stated. Or that you’re certifiable. I’d be happy to clarify for you, but not here. I’m tired of this place, and the interminable nits who appear any time I have the audacity to say something that isn’t couched in faux politeness, or doesn’t suck the approved asses. Craig has my e mail address. I happily give him permission to send it to you, and I’ll be happy to clarify my comment for you privately. Seriously.

Kevin,

I am really ducking out of this, but your comment is so absolutely lunatic that I have to assume you’ve completely misread what I stated. Or that you’re certifiable. I’d be happy to clarify for you, but not here. I’m tired of this place, and the interminable nits who appear any time I have the audacity to say something that isn’t couched in faux politeness, or doesn’t suck the approved asses. Craig has my e mail address. I happily give him permission to send it to you, and I’ll be happy to clarify my comment for you privately. Seriously.

Josh,

Ok.

I’ll wait for Craig’s e-mail with your info.

And yeah, some of these threads have gotten so insane we’ve been featured on a shitload of other sites. One site had the title:

Massive Bloodletting.

Manfredi, Here’s what I’d recommend. One, don’t burn bridges when you’re let go. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t express your feelings at the time… in fact, you should. You should talk to the producers or studio people or director and find out exactly why they’re moving on to other writers. They might use double-speak, they might hem and haw, but it’s not that hard to read between the lines. Your reps are good for gleaning the information too… a producer might say to them what they just don’t have the sac to say to your face. There’s no reason to be unprofessional, even when you’re baby is judged critically. At the same time, I think you should make it clear how much you care about your work and the project and the movie it will be. (All of this assumes that you do care about your work and the movie it will be.)

Next, I think you should try to get copies of subsequent submitted drafts (something the WGA could try to make mandatory?). Reps are good for this; contacts with the studio or the producers are good for this. If you kept a good professional relationship with the prod and the studio and the director… they might actually want your opinion on the subsequent drafts. And it’s your turn to give them notes… why sit on your hands? You know the characters better than anyone… probably moreso than the subsequent writer. (And as satisfying as it would be for you if the subsequent writer shit the bed… that’s not going to help your project, and my guess is there are some things that the subsequent writer improved and or exposed in your work that will be clearer to you now that you aren’t so close to it. Recognize the good and the bad.) Now, I can’t predict whether or not anyone will be receptive to your notes, but it’s worth a shot. Like I said before, at least you’ll know you tried. And they’ll know that you are passionate about the work and that you want back on it. But for the love of God, kissing ass and being professional aren’t synonymous.

Obviously, every case will be different, and you’ll have to gauge their receptivity to you and your desire to keep moving the process forward instead of sideways (or backwards.) Be the squeaky wheel if you have to… the stakes, as I said before, are too high.

Derek —

Since directors are authors of their films (or co-authors), do you think during production screenwriters should ultimately defer to the director’s vision regarding the screenplay and/or story and then ultimately try to do one’s best to service that vision?

Ultimately?

Ultimately, the director will shoot the movie he decides to shoot.

This has nothing to do with creative rights or authorship or whose vision of the movie is qualitatively (or even quantitatively) better.

It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.

Simply put, there are not very many people in the world that a studio is going to trust to spend about $1 million dollars a day.

(Lee Arenberg, who play Pintel in the Pirates movies, says “The acting I do free. It’s the waiting around I get paid for.” That’s true of everyone working on a movie: they’re getting paid for being there, whether there’s something to do or not. The difference between a bunch of loiterers grazing the craft services table and a working crew is the director).

So when the studio does put that trust into one person … after about two weeks or so of shooting, they pretty much have to close their eyes and let the bet ride.

And since on most film shoots, the first part of the schedule is devoted to the action/location stuff — full crew, plus — while sets are being built elsewhere … the footage being shot in that crucial two week-or-so period represents the highest per-day costs and (generally) the least amount of pivotal story & dramatization — the stuff that makes a story & dramatization a specific story & dramatization — relative to other scenes that will be shot later.

So, at the point of no return, if you will, it’s generally impossible to judge what movie the director is actually making.

And if you don’t think every single director doesn’t know this, and plan their shooting schedule in accordance with this …. well, all I can say is: wouldn’t you?

So there’s a point where the writer’s mindset must shift from preserving the vision of the story & dramatization as he wrote it in the last pre-production draft of the screenplay, and to envisioning the best possible story & dramatization that can be assembled from the director’s footage, and writing toward that.

Because, ultimately (that word again), the movie is not going to be made from the writer’s screenplay — it’s going to be made from the director’s footage.

There’s two halves to the writer’s job in Hollywood:

• in development, the writer’s job is to deliver a draft that makes the studio willing to put money toward the movie beyond the cost of drafts.

• in post-development, the writer’s job is to make sure that the footage shot includes (ie, can be assembled into) a story & dramatization that embodies his/her sensibilities at to what makes for good cinematic story & dramatization, no matter what else it includes, and even if it’s not the specific story & dramatization as he first envisioned it.

So that’s the goal. How that goal is achieved is entirely dependent on the specific director and the specific producer, because it’s entirely a function of the three-way relationship between the writer and the director and the producer.

And, the fact is: sometimes, a specific three-way relationship will not be able to achieve the specific writer’s goal. In that instance, the writer has a choice: continue working on a movie that he does not believe will embody his sensibilities as to what makes for good cinematic story & dramatization, or step back.

That is the absolute worst-case scenario, but it serves no good purpose to pretend it cannot happen. And it’s a crime when it does happen, because, let’s face it — and I am speaking for ever writer and aspiring writer on the face of the planet, where say “my,” think “not his, mine” —

— anytime a movie gets made that does not reflect my sensibilities as to what makes for good movies, its a fucking waste of money and a lost opportunity to have made one that does.

Am I wrong?

It’s especially galling when one gets made that could have embodied my (your) sensibilities because they were right there in the goddamn screenplay.

And I can tell you right now: I am absolutely right about that.

But, again: that is the worst case scenario. It’s wrong to go into a situation expecting the worst possible thing to happen, but it’s right to be prepared for it, and be armed with strategies for preventing it from coming to pass.

Those are the strategies that Craig’s been talking about (a three-way relationship where there’s only two people is a lot easier to manage than a three-way relationship where there’s three people, eh?), and what I’ve been talking about (starting out with the point of view that one of the people who is party to three-way relationship is a non-artistic traffic manager who contributes nothing of value to the final movie but nonetheless has almost absolute authority over the footage that is going to be used to make that movie … yeah, probably not gonna result in a particularly productive relationship).

Really, they’re political strategies … and they don’t teach politics in film school.

And … this thing’s too long already, so, Derek, hopefully, I’ve answered your question (and I actually started writing this last night, so I wasn’t ignoring you).

Oh, one more thing, something Craig’s mentioned before, so have I:

Most working writers in the theatrical field have only ever done half the job of writer: the development half.

Whereas, Interestingly, most working writers in the television field have also only done half the job of writer: the post-development half, after a show has been picked up and is already in production. Only those writers who have had pilot development deals have done the, er, well … you see what I mean.

-

Wow. Long, interesting thread. It seems that —

A) History of Violence will be the best script of all-time until (if) one of Josh Olson’s other scripts gets produced. According to Josh, those scripts are even better.

B) Marianne Wibberly worked on Charlie’s Angels 2 not because she loved the show and hoped to turn that love into a good movie, but because she is a hack who only writes for cash.

C) Ben Affleck is a hack. I guess someone else must have wrote his adaptation of Gone Baby Gone, which was pretty damn good. Josh maybe?

Ted,

“Most working writers in the theatrical field have only ever done half the job of writer: the development half.

Whereas, Interestingly, most working writers in the television field have also only done half the job of writer: the post-development half, after a show has been picked up and is already in production. Only those writers who have had pilot development deals have done the, er, well … you see what I mean.”

This is wildly off-topic, but it raises an interesting hypothetical:

If someone could wave a magic wand and decree that feature films would be made according to the power structure that currently exists in most television projects, do you think that would be a benefit or detriment to the industry?

Great, 248 posts later we finally have a civil discussion and some new dude tries to stirr the shit again. Whatever…

Ted,

my question was not a rhetorical one. Can you elaborate on the instance you’ve discribed? Seeing that you suggest its principle be applied to “anything” relating to shared authorship, it be of interest to know the details of this particular deal between the two guilds.

Thanks.

Matt —

Along those lines of some of your earlier posts, what do you do to remain active on a project once your work is done on it? If you’ve been replaced, are there steps you take to remain involved/influential?

If you read my response to Derek, you’ll know that I think writer’s job exists until the point where the movie is locked.

Whether or the writer has to actually be working (to ensure the final movie embodies his story & dramatization sensibilities — that’s dependent (again) on the writer-director-producer relationship.

Same with remaining involved/influential. It is possible, even in the worst case scenario, to remain involved/influential indirectly (through the producer), or to preserve the relationship enough to be consulted during the editing phase … which does to the strategy of stepping back, but in such a way as to say “Hey, I’m doing this for the good of the movie, because that’s the mutual goal of all of us, huh? I’ll make myself available when it comes time to assemble the movie, if there’s problems.” ADR, reshoots, even the choices of what to include in and what to leave out of the final assembly — all of those are opportunities to influence the movie in accordance with your sensibilities.

That last is easier to manage working overscale, obviously; part of it has to do with structuring your deal so as to allow for at least one of the writing periods to be inclusive of post-production, if need be.

-

John (T.) —

I thought I included a reference in my “architect’s blueprints” post to architectural firms as being the most common source for architectural blueprints … I must have edited it out before I posted.

But I think my point still stands: blueprints for constructing buildings are inclusive of far more information necessary to construct a building than “blueprints” for making movies are of information necessary to produce a movie.

It’s not impossible for all of the decisions equivalent to those represented in architectural blueprints could be made before a director is hired — that’s the way it works in television production, pretty much.

But in features, not only are most of those decisions not made until after the director is hired, the director has most of the authority to make those decisions.

Regardless, those decisions are not made at the script level, in either theatrical or television production.

{They are made at that level in television animation, though — at least, it’s not atypical for the “shot list” to be incorporated in the script and created by the writer).

-

You think maybe everyone is getting a bit carried away worrying about disecting analogies for accuracy? I mean, the line between architectural blueprints and screenwriting is… tenuous at best. Oh good lord, someone is going to tell me why I’m wrong now too, aren’t they.

actually, I second Ruairi’s notion. Miracles do happen. We’re in Hollywood after all.

Wow, how empowering to read a blog about empowering screenwriters. Because it has always baffled me just how important the script is and how shockingly dismissive the biz is of the creators of said script. And I’ve been thinking. Thinking that in this digital revolution, where the tools of filmmaking are falling into children’s hands, handing the POWER to make films to the masses…well…we screenwriters are the masses too. We can get these cameras. Heck we have more than enough time (usually spent sleeping in or worrying about the phone not ringing) to learn how to use them. And then imagine, your brilliant script hot off the printer, but rather than sending it to your agent who sends it to a studio who sends it to a director who says “yes” only to make you (the writer) irrelevant, rather instead you keep the script yourself because you feel protective and overly fond of it. And you shoot the damn thing yourself. Maybe it’s not a $100 million blockbuster. But it’s awful damn satisfying (let me tell you from experience). And you’ve just learned something more. And you’ve just become a bit more powerful. Because that director needs to sit and wait for your script to come in the mail. You have it waiting in your head. Waiting for you to shoot it. Yourself. Go for it.

Hey, there’s a pretty good posting about negotiating writer’s contracts on http://jerslater.blogspot.com/

Well worth a read.

Steve (Barr) (hey, dude!) —

If someone could wave a magic wand and decree that feature films would be made according to the power structure that currently exists in most television projects, do you think that would be a benefit or detriment to the industry?

You mean, whereas right now in theatrical post-development (ie, production), the director has the greatest authority/repsonibility for the the money being spent to produce shot footage, it chanced os that the producer has that authority/responsibility?

The fact that many producers in television began as writers should not be confused with the idea that writers have the power in television. Scripts have greater power over the footage that gets produced, because the production/post-production period in television just does not provide enough time to screw around trying to “find” the story and best dramatization of that story; the director must shoot the story & dramatization already decided on, in order hit the release (air) date.

I told you, man: it’s all about the Benjamins.

On the one hand, it would change the power dynamic in the writer-director-producer relationship, but it would not actually change the power of the writer within that dynamic.

But, in truth: i do think that would be a slight improvement, because, on the other hand, it would mean that footage would absolutely include the story & dramatization embodied in the literary material, no matter what else it included — which would per force give writers greater influence over what was definitely going to be shot (bearing in mind: the identity of the person doing the job of “writer” could still be changed).

A real change in regards to writers would be this:

In theatrical development (as in television development), if the producer —

(ie, the production company financing the development that will also decide if the project will move to post-development — anyway)

— if the producer decided that the literary material as written and pronounced “final” by the writer would not move to post-development, the project was abandoned, and the rights in the material reverted to that writer.

This actually would be economically feasible, but it would require theatrical writers to begin accepting much smaller up-front non-returnable fees — about the amount of a minimum option on theatrical literary material.

In other words, it could already be that way, if writers wanted it to be that way.

What I don’t think would be economically feasible is for it to work that way, and for writers to continue getting five-figure up-front fees as minimum.

Yeah: Benjamins.

-

Man, that is some funny shit. The bit on robots is his best work.

Jen:

“You clearly have a message that you want to share with the masses. Why don’t you have a blog of your own?”

Because Josh doesn’t want to be alpha dog. He just doesn’t want anyone else to be alpha dog, either. I hope Craig doesn’t ban him from here. These discussions have been downright riveting and, well… funny as hell.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when it comes to brandishing the torch for writers in this business, I’m thankful as hell to have thoughtful Craig, serial-killer smart Ted AND rude as fuck Josh Olson on our side. It’s going to take all kinds to make any real difference.

But God help us all if Josh has a “film by” epiphany and joins the DGA board.

TO KEVIN:

“Who is the person or people who makes the decisions in selecting shots and creating scenes and arranging them in a specific order so that you can hold a copy of a film in your hands and watch it and come to understand a story through the decisions made in selecting shots and creating scenes and arranging them in a specific order?” — Ted

Thank god you answered this, Kevin. You said the first word that popped into my head in reading the above description:

“Personally, I don�t believe that one person can claim authorship to a film but I�m shocked that no one has brought up a person who�s probably the closest link to the finished film…” — Kevin

I’m all for writers’ rights. I’m down with everything Craig said in his original post — and the subsequent ones, too. But if the argument has simply become the description that Ted’s laid out, then, as a writer I have to echo Kevin, and say: the answer’s the editor.

Uh. What the hell happened to the apostrophes there?

Ted, don’t make me pull Kunstgriff 34 on you…

Well, It’s been entertaining. I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson here. And I’ve learned that in the future, I’m going to have to work much harder to screw the writers over to that “film by” credit, if you guys ever get your act together. Haha, I can now reveal my secret plan to sow the seeds of doubt and confusion, and spread ignorance. Good night, suckers!

Everyone beat me to EDITOR.

Here’s the thing - movies are a collaboration. I worked on a film where a grip came up with a great shot idea that ended up on screen and made that scene a million times better than it had been. Sometimes lighting accidents end up being the thing that makes a scene. An actor comes up with a bit of business that brings a character to life. EVERYONE on the film is important - imagine how bad a film would be if there were no meals?

I think it would be nice of people listened to me when they are about to make a major story mistake. I wish that 22 year old kid who is giving me stupid development notes were working at McDonalds. I wish there were less egos involved in creative decisions and more creativity involved. I could go on-and-on with the wish list, but I also know you have to work inside the system - making crazy demands just ends with you unemployed.

I don’t like that “a film by” thing, but I don’t think the answer is to try to take it away. I think the answer is to add the possibility of a “created by” credit to counteract it. And (to open a huge can of worms) - reserve that credit for original scripts. Use that “adapted by” for the others. These credits are in addition to the “written by” or “screenplay by” or “written for the screen by”. They get an additional credit, we get an additional credit until someone decides it’s all silly.

My theory on how screenwriters can get more power has always been “Date supermodels”. When the public knows who we are, we get more power.

• Bill (available to any single supermodel reading this)

Jayebyrde (good to see you!),

Because Josh doesn’t want to be alpha dog. He just doesn’t want anyone else to be alpha dog, either. I hope Craig doesn’t ban him from here. These discussions have been downright riveting and, well… funny as hell.

I can understand that. But he does have a wealth of knowledge to share about craft and profession of screenwriting. I hope, at the very least, he writes a book about it.

And I also hope Craig does not ban Josh. At least, not for anything in this or the previous thread. Because not only are they educational, but they are entertainment of the highest order.

-Jen (aka Jen Doe—stupid cookies)

Ted,

Would you make any exceptions to the director-as-author rule?

Is Irvin Kershner the author of The Empire Strike Back?

Is Gus Van Sant the author of the ‘98 remake of Psycho?

Is it possible to answer “yes” to both those questions without stripping the word “author” of its power?

I dumbfounded at the idea fulfilling a moral right by declaraing the director as “An Author,” whereas, to many people, it’s been declared that the director is “The Author.”

What good is it to support their right when the whole world is already doing it for them. Shouldn’t we be focusing on the others, namely screenwriters (Yes Ted and Craig, I know you two are doing this, but bringing up directors as an author is a moot point—the DGA and the common man is on your side.

Can’t we just let this go?

Okay. So a day away is a lovely thing. I return to you refreshed and beautiful and sparkly and committed to ignoring hostile gnats who crawl out of the woodwork. Josh’s new rule - I don’t care if you fling shit at me, just have the courtesy to wrap it around a larger point. You think I’m an asshole. Guess what? I KNOW you’re an asshole, so it’s kind of a wash, isn’t it, and your view of me is not news (Addressed to no one in specific, although Wibberly might wanna take notice.)

Also - and my last comment on the subject - while I think Craig’s been incredibly disingenuous - scratch that, outright dishonest - in his claims of non-partisan editing, he has in no way indicated any interest or desire to ban me from here. I’m happy to see him badmouthed all over the place… but only for shit he deserves. As a forum moderator, he’s as close to a mensch as I’ve ever seen. (Something about that job turns even the most decent folk into unspeakable fascists, which is yet another reason I’d never run one of these things. I fully acknowledge my potential for becoming the beast.)

So….

I have yet to see Ted claim that the director is THE author of a movie, but I see several people trying to disabuse him of the notion. In the end, I think the only real difference between us is I don’t agree that authorship MUST be attributed to a film. I think it’s absolutely impossible to do it in any real way without going to the insane extremes I described yesterday.

The notion has also come up - Kevin’s posts reek of it - that somehow the amount of labor one does on a film can be equated with creativity, that difficulty is something we must factor into it. That’s just plain nuts. It doesn’t matter one whit how much time or effort one expends on a creative effort. When we start seriously thinking that that matters, we might as well all pack up and go home. If Biff hands in a perfect script for a great movie that he wrote in a week, and it takes Boff five years of intensive labor to make it into that movie, Biff’s is still the primary creative vision. Labor doesn’t enter into it.

Ted,

A couple of small things - I’m sure Lee Arenberg says that he gets paid to wait, but it’s one of Michael Caine’s most famous quotes, and it’s at least 25 years old. (PS: I worked with Lee a zillion years ago. His first movie was my second, and I’m sure he’s as happy not thinking about that turd as I am. I smile every time I see him in something. A great presence.)

Second - you write: “The difference between a bunch of loiterers grazing the craft services table and a working crew is the director”

Um…. with respect…. No. The difference between a bunch of loiterers grazing the craft services table and a working crew is the FIRST ASSISTANT director.

It CAN be the director. I’ve certainly been around a couple who race around trying to pump up the crew, but that’s not a very intelligent use of their time or energy, and it’s most definitely NOT the job.

But it does go to one of my major points here. A director CAN, if he/she chooses, do all sorts of things. They can inject all manner of creativity into the process. BUT THEY DON’T HAVE TO. It’s not the job description.

The best director in the world can do his job without doing anything remotely creative. He can sit in his chair and say “Okay” to every shot his DP comes up with, every choice his actors make, and every cut his editor suggests. If he’s fortunate enough to have a great script, a great crew and a great cast, the end result can be a great movie. If the guy secretly can’t direct, you may never know it.

The worst writer in the world still has to create something. And if he can’t write, you’re gonna know it.

If we have to attribute authorship to a film, if we have to have some kind of blanket definition, then surely the person who has to create something from nothing has a better claim than the person who creates something from something. Or we need to redefine “create” as well….

Bill,

You wrote:

“I don’t like that “a film by” thing, but I don’t think the answer is to try to take it away. I think the answer is to add the possibility of a “created by” credit to counteract it. And (to open a huge can of worms) - reserve that credit for original scripts. Use that “adapted by” for the others. These credits are in addition to the “written by” or “screenplay by” or “written for the screen by”. They get an additional credit, we get an additional credit until someone decides it’s all silly.”

Again, all the “solutions” open up even more cans of worms. I think we have a system that works, at least in terms of credits (Power is another thing altogether, but straighten out the rest and that’ll come.) You write it, you get a writing credit. You direct it, you get a directing credit. You adapt it, the credits reflect that. The “film by” credit serves no purpose, adds no new information (Except, perhaps, nodding towards the egomania of the director, or their adherence to antiquated and thoroughly disputed crackpot theories).

But if you start going into more subjective questions, it gets difficult. I’ve done a lot of adaptations. History was one extreme, this Dennis Lehane project is another. On History, I took the title and the premise of a story to tell a very different one, one that ended up being one of the most personal and orginal things I’d ever written. On the Lehane project, I am acting in complete service to the vision of a great writer. I’ve made huge changes, mostly in expanding an 11 page story into a feature, but every step was done with the goal of maintaining the tone and intent and vision of the author. Based on his response, I succeeded. When I direct the film, that will be the same goal. (And yes - we can get into subtle variations and disputes - it won’t really be HIS vision, it will be my attempt to show you what his story did to me. No question that I’m a major creative force in the thing. But it’s his story, and in my mind, at least, OUR movie. And all he did was sit down one rainy night and write an absolutely amazing story. Lazy bastard.)

In the case of the Lehane project, I see my job as more translator than anything else. On History, I was the primary storyteller. Two VERY different approaches, but I get the same exact credit on both. Which is fine, because the only other option is coming up with some oversight committee that reads the book, reads the script and decides how original the work is, and comes up with a credit to reflect it:

“2/3 screenplay and 1/3 adaptation by Bilbo Jenks” or “Adaptation except for the scene in the mall which came from his own life by Hellacious Jackson.”

It’s art. It’s sloppy and messy, and we’ll never be able to come up with a system that accurately reflects precisely who did what and how. That’s okay. We just need to get to a place where writers are at LEAST as respected and empowered as directors.

PS: Did we meet briefly a couple weeks ago? I SUCK with names.

Hey Josh. Obviously, your position is pretty clear on this whole “film by” thing, but I want to put a scenario to you, and tell me what you think is reasonable in this case… I’ve tried to make the fictional story as objective as possible, because I don’t want to take sides on this, and I don’t want people misinterpreting my analogy.

So say Genius directing visionary BIFF comes up with a fantastic idea for a story, out of thin air, and gets shifty-eyed screenwriter BOFF to write it. Biff comes up with the plot, the names of the characters, what happens in most of the scenes, and bunch of the dialog, and Boff sits at a keyboard and types up the thing, as directed. Biff says “No no no, what were you thinking, that’s all wrong, change this, this, this, this, this this, that, those, these, and them…” using his skills at being a genius. So anyway, a few months later, we have finished script, “written” by Boff, but molded, and sculpted, and orchestrated, by Biff. Using his genius creative directorial vision. Then Biff goes and storyboards the thing, produces the thing, directs the thing, edits the thing, and does all the fucking visual effects himself in his goddamn basement, not because he’s cheap, but because he hates delegating so much that he can’t trust his “vision” to a bunch of nerds at Digital Doman to fuck up.

So the film is made, but after all his hard work, he is a refused a “film by” credit, thanks to lobbying by “evil” screenwriters. (I forgot to mention this story is set in the future) The experience making the film has so scarred him, that now he’s a broken man. I mean, the poor guy, sitting in his old wheelchair in a “cyber” home, rocking back and forth, drooling. And all he ever really wanted was to have his name in the credits, as his Directors guild fought so hard to keep. Nobody sheds a tear for poor Biff any more.

Would you begruge poor biff the “film by” credit? I mean, look at him. He’s just soiled himself.

This story ends with the life slipping away from Biff’s eyes, while the evil screenwriter Boff cackles cruelly as he molests Biff’s infant granddaughter. The bastard.

……………..

“The best director in the world can do his job without doing anything remotely creative. He can sit in his chair and say “Okay” to every shot his DP comes up with, every choice his actors make, and every cut his editor suggests.”

—this doesn’t dound like the best director in the world, to me.

“If we have to attribute authorship to a film, if we have to have some kind of blanket definition, then surely the person who has to create something from nothing has a better claim than the person who creates something from something. Or we need to redefine “create” as well…”

It seems to me, and my position is not set in stone here, that’s it should NOT be possible for a director for hire to have the “Film By” credit, but it should be automatic for writer/directors (or at least easy to negotiate) …and for any other combination of duties (director/producer or director/cinematographer or director/editor or director/cinematographer/storyboard artist/producer/editor, but not writer, a film by credit should still be plausible, but need to be negotiated depending on the circumstance. (maybe everyone involved should be polled to see if they think he did enough to deserve it? dunno, just a thought at the top of my head)

It may be absurd, it may be impractical, it may not accurately reflect the collaberative process of filmmaking, but you gotta admit, that having your name up there in the credits as “a film by” looks cool.

I think there were questions in there. If you have the patience to find them, I’d appreciate your feedback :)

while I think Craig’s been incredibly disingenuous - scratch that, outright dishonest - in his claims of non-partisan editing, he has in no way indicated any interest or desire to ban me from here. I’m happy to see him badmouthed all over the place… but only for shit he deserves. As a forum moderator, he’s as close to a mensch as I’ve ever seen.

I…what? You…huh? I’m, but…

…thanks? I think?

Josh Olson said: “I have yet to see Ted claim that the director is THE author of a movie, but I see several people trying to disabuse him of the notion. In the end, I think the only real difference between us is I don’t agree that authorship MUST be attributed to a film. I think it’s absolutely impossible to do it in any real way without going to the insane extremes I described yesterday.”

Josh, I agree with you that the concept of there being a “single” (writer or director) or even a “dual” (writer and director) author of a film is silly. However, Ted does have a point that it MUST be attributed to a film. Here’s the logic.

Please note ahead of time, when I refer to “author” I am referring to the legal term. When I refer to “moral rights” or “droit moral” I am refering to the legal terms. I don’t intend these to be subjective words that have to do with personal beliefs and values.

If no creative party (whether it be director, writer, actor, etc.) claims authorship of the film, then the author of the film is the company who financed the production (as the contracts generally state). I’m not saying this is right. I’m saying that legally this would be the situation.

If the company who financed the production is considered the “author”, then the company is theoretically entitled to all rights, protections, and financial entitlements that “authors” are given by all counries that have copyright law, droit moral, or follow the Berne convention.

To NOT lay a claim to authorship at all is a bad choice for writers (even if they feel that a film has no real author). It removes rights that they would otherwise be entitled to (and currently receive in many countries). It potentially removes financial obligations that the writers are entitled to due to various international laws, national laws, WGA negotiations, and standard practices.

To lay claim to SOLE authorship will put writers in a direct fight with the DGA. The argument being that the WGA and DGA would fight over which side gets to claim sole authorship, and the financing entities will be able to play the two guilds off each other, giving both sides less creative and financial rights than if the two sides worked together.

This is a basic Prisoner’s Dilemma problem. If they each claim sole authorship for their members, the WGA and DGA will probably get a worse deal than if they claimed joint co-authorship. This allows the two parties to work together to state “we are the co-authors of the film, and are thus entitled to these benefits.”

And I think this is ultimately the core of the argument. The question comes down to…

Are you willing to compromise your stance on legal authorship (whether it be writer as single-author or films having no author) in order to get closer to the creative rights and financial benefits you feel you deserve?

(Also keep in mind, by writing films at all and agreeing to be treated as an employee writing a “work for hire” on a spec you sell, you are already compromising basic authorship beliefs for financial reward.)

• keith

“The notion has also come up - Kevin’s posts reek of it - that somehow the amount of labor one does on a film can be equated with creativity, that difficulty is something we must factor into it. That’s just plain nuts. It doesn’t matter one whit how much time or effort one expends on a creative effort.”

Yeah, I agree that would be nuts. I’m glad I never said that. Or even intimated it. In fact, in earlier and different topic posts, I specifically argued that the amount of time someone works on a project has nothing to do with the quality (Joshua James & Derek Haas should remember this and I believe I was making that point to some guy named Daniel L.)

Labor has nothing to do with quality.

Admitedly, I’m losing the thread of the initial disagreement but am I correct in assuming that you think that the amount of great writers far exceed the amount of great directors—and that a “great” director really can’t be great without a great script? If that’s the case, I reject that notion because there a lot of cases where the script really wasn’t all that great but the creative insight from the director really makes the movie into something good. The director may not have sat down and wrote down his creative insights in script form but it was his insights and fixes that made the movie good. Are you rejecting this notion that this has or could happen?

Ruairi states it best when he says:

“The best director in the world can do his job without doing anything remotely creative. He can sit in his chair and say “Okay” to every shot his DP comes up with, every choice his actors make, and every cut his editor suggests.”

—this doesn’t sound like the best director in the world, to me.

I officially hate the word “Great”.

Johnny —

Sorry, I thought I had answered your question about the foreign levies deal. Here’s a link to an article Craig wrote on the topic that’s tell you all ever wanted to know: http://artfulwriter.com/archives/2005/06/foreign_levies.html

-

Josh:

The post where I specifically addressed that labor had nothing to do with quality was in the article The Myth of the First Matyr…I mean…Writer. http://artfulwriter.com/archives/2005/12/themythof_the.html

It all started with this post: Posted by: Daniel Landry at December 18, 2005 09:42 AM

Posted by: Kevin Arbouet at December 18, 2005 08:35 PM

And I quote (uh…myself):

“To reiterate:

Time spent writing has NOTHING to do with quality, talent, or difficulty.”

Reagan, not Ruari, wrote:

Would you make any exceptions to the director-as-author rule? Is Irvin Kershner the author of The Empire Strike Back? Is Gus Van Sant the author of the ‘98 remake of Psycho?

I think the reason Van Sant remade Psycho in the way he did was to prove that any specific movie is determined by the specific individual who acts as director.

Consider: the only difference between the two specific movies was the director and the decisions made by the director independent of the contributions of any other individual who might have claim to authorship (as I have used that term throughout this thread). Particularly relevant to this thread: it was the same screenplay, and what minor differences there were between the two texts were permitted and created by the sole writer of both.

However, since Van Sant might have tanked the experiment (intentionally or unconsciously, doesn’t matter), I discount it as evidence, one way or the other.

But Irving Kircshner absolutely is entitled to authorship of The Empire Strikes Back. Whether or not George Lucas has equal claim to authorship, I can argue either way. That’s kind of why I keep asking:

Given that “director,” “writer,” “editor,” etc. are simply shorthand labels to refer to individuals who make contributions of a specific nature to a motion picture:

What reasoned argument(s) can be made against directors having claim to authorship of a motion picture?

What reasoned argument(s) can be made for individuals other than the director having claim to the authorship of a motion picture, and what is the nature of those authorial contributions?

-

Ruairi,

You completely make my point. Every situation is different. There are a million variables. If there was a problem, if there was a gaping hole, if people walked out of movies saying, “Yes, but I wonder who the film was BY?” I’d see the need. My point is there is no need for ANYONE to take it, because it doesn’t communicate anything specific. The director already has a credit. The writer already has a credit. If any of these people requires another credit, they should do another job. Then it will say “Directed and Edited by” or somesuch.

Point being, why give someone two credits for the same job? What purpose is served? “A film by” doesn’t tell you anything more than “Directed by.” It doesn’t mean “He directed it AND he cooked the food at the wrap party.” At best, it means “He directed it, and he either consciously or thoughtlessly wants to take credit for everything.”

Kevin

“but am I correct in assuming that you think that the amount of great writers far exceed the amount of great directors”

No. That’s yet another of your radical misreadings of my comments here. I never suggested any such thing. What I’ve said is that BY DEFINITION writing MUST be a creative endeavor, while directing doesn’t have to be. The JOB of a writer is to create something out of nothing. Even if he does it very badly, he has to bring something resembling creativity to it. A director only has to marshall his forces. It is a director’s choice whether or not he imposes any kind of true creativity onto the project. It’s not a neccessity.

I also said the vast majority of directors only do that. I have no doubt that many of them believe that what they do is as creative as writing a script, but that is - of course - a completely absurd delusion. The BEST directors are as creative as writers. But one can direct a fairly decent - perhaps even great - movie without ever making a genuinely creative decision, beyond the one to attach yourself to this great script.

“and that a “great” director really can’t be great without a great script? If that’s the case, I reject that notion because there a lot of cases where the script really wasn’t all that great but the creative insight from the director really makes the movie into something good. “

I have, in two decades of thinking about it, come up with one movie where I truly believe the director’s choices improved a script. I’m sure I could come up with one or two more. But on the whole, if you value narrative filmmaking, you can’t come up with more than a handful.

Ruairi, I’ve figured it out. BIFF is George Lucas.

Directors are often authors the way Mark Kostabi was an ‘artist’. It was his name on the finished painting, but he didn’t physically paint it or often even plan its design, he just made executive decisions to suit his taste and judgment that a team of his employees then executed. (writers aren’t employed by the director, they’re employed by a third party, just like the director)

Usually, the director doesn’t write the narrative, he doesn’t light or expose the film, he doesn’t physically ‘do’ anything. Though all these things may be done at his direction. Perhaps a film is not a work of authorship at all, and the entire debate arose from issues of money and power, exclusive of creativity. What if it’s a pure commerce issue that we’re trying to solve with creative analysis? How do you define primary creativity? It’s been tried. There are lawyers who describe their job as creative. I tend to agree with Josh, that starting with blankness and making something, seems to have more creative primacy than taking something someone else made, and making something else from it - but acknowledging there are weaknesses in that argument too. Creativity is soemtimes defined as making something novel from pre-existing elements. Most Directors don’t really make something novel, the film is not a ‘new and different’ creative work than the script it is based on. It’s the work translated to another medium.

Since Europe does and the United States does not recognize moral rights in a work, perhaps no American film should have the “Film By” credit reflecting authorship. Problem solved. No more “a film by Bret Ratner”.

“What is the reasoned argument(s) for individuals other than the director having claim to the authorship of a motion picture, and what is the nature of those authorial contributions?”

Ted, I’ll play your game. I’ll even steal a couple of your first moves.

As per Ted’s previous example: “Joe has a vision for a film. He gets a camera, some actors and, directing their performances, expresses his vision for a film directly into the medium of film. Then he assembles the footage in the way he judges best reflects his vision, and pronounces it finished.

Joe is the author of the motion picture.”

In this example, the tasks Joe performed that give him a claim to authorship are the following:

• Creating and fully-describing the dialog, setting, and action of a sequence of scenes to create a story. (In this case, the does this process directly with the actors, but it could be put into an intermediary product: the screenplay.) We can call the job title that embodies this duty the screenwriter.
• Directing the performance and staging of the scenario. This requires creative choices, and actual physical implementation. This is the director
• Selecting the shots that will be used to tell the story (creative) and actually lighting and shooting the footage (work of hands). On a standard film, this would be the cinematographer.
• Assembling the footage created by the efforts of the writer, director, and cinematographer. Creative decisions can be made with regards to story, pacing, character depiction. They are solidified into the final product, the finished film. This position would be called the editor.

I think those are the easy positions that can lay claim to “co-authorship,” as they are the basic splitting off of authorial duties that a single-author would have on a film. With a second level of abstraction, I think it would be relatively easy to also argue “co-authorship” for the Production Designer and the Composer.

However, I don’t think all these “co-authors” are of equal merit. The director DOES (or at least has the ability to) oversee the creative and physical work done by the Cinematographer and Editor. An argument could be made that they are still operating under his creative control, and that he is making the final creative decisions (and in some cases is also doing the physical labor). This is less true for the Writer.

Ultimately, I think the practical solution for writers is to get the DGA on board with the concept of co-authorship. If they don’t, maybe one day the editor’s will wise up and do it instead.

• keith

‘If a movie has a plurality of contributors, there is no legitimate author of the work, unless each contributor relinquishes, commissions, or licenceses their right to claim authorship.’

Hobbes, LEVIATHAN, 1651

Well, I’m making up the part about Hobbes’ prescience on the creation of movies, but the principle of right to authorship remains valid; in principle, this is what JO is saying: I do not relinquish my right of authorship to the director of a movie I wrote (which, by the way, means his claim to movie authorship is equally invalid, unless the director - and everone else who contributes to the effort - would like to tranfer their right of authorship to Josh).

The issue is if the Guild wants to formally relinquish members’ right to claim authorship in exchange for an economic gain. Which is another way of saying: can the WGA be bought off?

Sans such an agreement, sans remittal of rights, any single person’s claim of movie authorship is invalid.

lt

Josh:

“It is a director’s choice whether or not he imposes any kind of true creativity onto the project. It’s not a neccessity.”

Okay. So are you saying that the same can’t be said for a screenwriter?

“I have, in two decades of thinking about it, come up with one movie where I truly believe the director’s choices improved a script. I’m sure I could come up with one or two more. But on the whole, if you value narrative filmmaking, you can’t come up with more than a handful.”

You’ve been thinking about this for the last 20 years and all you can come up with is a handful? You must have some big ass hands.

“The BEST directors are as creative as writers. But one can direct a fairly decent - perhaps even great - movie without ever making a genuinely creative decision, beyond the one to attach yourself to this great script.”

Okay, I’m desperately trying to make sure I understand where you’re coming from so could you define “creative” as you see it?

Josh, Dang, limiting the list to 20 years conveniently clips out Alien, Bladerunner, Dr Strangelove, The Shining, 2001, Once Upon a Time in the West and Taxi “Fucking” Driver. Off the top of my head. Might you be suggesting those films aren’t as good as their scripts? why limit it to 20 years anyway? did modern films start in 1986, with Aliens. (which is better as a movie, than it’s script) Not that I’m saying the scripts for those films aren’t fucking amazing either…

“Ruari wrote:

Would you make any exceptions to the director-as-author rule? Is Irvin Kershner the author of The Empire Strike Back? Is Gus Van Sant the author of the ‘98 remake of Psycho?”

Hey Ted, I didn’t actually write that, but, as a director, I don’t mind taking credit for other people’s work. So thanks for answering :)

Bill —

If an editor is assembling shot footage in accordance with his/her own ideas and sensibilities so as to make material his/her non-material (ie, intellectual) concept of the final motion picture, then there is no question that is an authorial contribution.

In some cases, editors in the Hollywood film and tv industry do that, but in most cases, they are working to make material someone else’s non-material concept of the final motion picture.

So, like I said: Conditionally, the editor may be a co-author of the motion picture.

-

“Usually, the director doesn’t write the narrative, he doesn’t light or expose the film, he doesn’t physically ‘do’ anything. “

Just because you don’t physically “do” something, manually, yourself, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve credit for how it turned out if you tell them exactly WHAT to do. If I tell the DOP to move a light 3 feet left and rotate it 15 degrees anticlockwise to get a shadow cast at the angle I prefer, are you telling me, that just because I don’t manually, physically do it myself, with my own hands, that my taking credit for how it looks is somwhow greedy? I mean, if the DOP gets a steadycam operator in to do a shot, does that mean the steadycam operator should take all the credit?

Josh, I guess my point, or a point, is that the authorship, is, in my opinion mostly deserved by the person that has the most creative control over the finished film. So if it follows the script to the letter, then the writer deserves the film by credit. But everyone knows that the whole point of a line, a scene, or a story can be completely reversed or negated by HOW it’s told. And that depends on who is calling the shots… if the producer is demanding a giant spider in the 3rd act, then he deserves all the credit in the world for that fantastic idea.

For example, I’ve revisited the end scene from a history of violence to put my unique authorial stamp on it. I’m sure you’ll be kicking yourself when you read this.

“Tom Stall sits at the table. Everyone looks all awkward and shit, but his retarded daughter breaks the ice and smiles, and passes some asparagus, so everything will be ok.

Tom smiles back.

The camera tilts down, to reveal that Tom Stall has a massive boner, protruding from his pants.

The end.”

Now obviously this is how the movie SHOULD have ended, and I’m astonished and dissapointed you didn’t think of it, but the point is that, as a director, I could have shot the scene this way, without changing a single word of the shooting script, Making Tom Stall into a paedophile out of the blue at the end of History of violence, not only would have added the signature Shockaroo twist that the film so desperately craved, but could have been done without even changing a single word of dialogue in the screenplay.and not only would the film have won loads more oscars, (including best screenplay for me, which I think would be completely deserved even if I followed the rest of the script to the letter) but the whole point of the movie could have been reversed, or negated, simply by the way it was shot, edited, or indeed directed. These are creative choices Josh, they have to be. Sitting on your ass going “ok, ok yeah cool, ok” is not making creative choices, and not doing the job. They “can” be lazy, stupid and half-assed if they want to, in the same way a writer can hand in a piece of shit he’s written.

And to back up my argument, I’m going to quote some guy off the IMDB forums saying “The ending of History of Violence Sucked. I didn’t Get it.” See that proves I’m right. You know it’s true. And even though I really liked the ending of the film, I’m going to argue against it, just to score a cheap point. God Dammit.

“Ruairi, I’ve figured it out. BIFF is George Lucas.”

Nah, the story was FICTION mate. Unfortunately I can’t actually predict the future. If it turns out to be true, and it’s about me, then stay away from my granddaughter. Wierdo.

Anyway, I dunno, this whole collaborative art thing is bollocks. It’s only true till there’s a difference of opinion, then it’s instantly revealed as what it really is - a heirarchy.

This has been a very interesting and informative thread.

I’ve been trying hard to understand how Josh Olson arrives at his conlusions but find it hard going.

If he’s saying that screenwriters should be assigned the authorship of films and directors should be “devalued” to the status of interpretive artists then I disagree with him.

But I’m not sure he’s saying that anymore.

I honestly have been trying to understand Josh’s theory of authorship. Legally speaking directors are authors of films but Josh either thinks that the law is wrong or irrelevant. He clearly has some basic assumptions but he doesn’t really explain what they are. Or maybe I’m just really dense.

Here are some thoughts about what I think he is thinking.

The law talks about authored works; Josh talks about created works. I think this is key to understanding Josh. Here’s my explanation:

The screenwriter starts with nothing but fragments, bunch of ideas floating around in his/her head. He generates more fragments and brings order to all this raw material — not just any order, he creates a unified work that is specifically designed for filmmaking purposes. Directors also start with raw material. Except in their case it doesn’t consist of fragments, it’s an already finished work of authorship. Namely, a script. All directors have to do is go by the script (because everything of importance is in there) and do their administrative or interpretive jobs and a film will eventually take form.

So in Josh’s view screenwriters are genuine authors because they create something from nothing (a view I fundamentally disagree with: nothing is ever created from nothing, but that is kind of beside the point). But directors cannot be regarded as authors (creators) because they do not make films from nothing.

I don’t agree with this view — but that’s not saying that I think it’s completely invalid. It sort of depends how you choose to look at things.

My problem with Josh’s stance is that is so utterly unhelpful and unrealistic, a total dead end.

Say there’d be this spontainous revolutionary shift in perception in the world. Writers would be considered the authors of films and directors relegated to the status of interpretive artists. Or considered administrators primarily, or whatever. And it would go on from there.

Would this serve the interests of writers in the long run? Does “devaluing” directors empower writers? Personally I don’t think so.

Kevin,

““It is a director’s choice whether or not he imposes any kind of true creativity onto the project. It’s not a neccessity.”

Okay. So are you saying that the same can’t be said for a screenwriter?”

I don’t need to say it. It’s obviously the case. A director can show up, fall asleep on the chair, and wake up and find a day’s work has been done. A writer cannot.

Here’s why I get frustrated. I’m not speaking about wild, artistic interpretations here. I’m speaking of the nuts and bolts of the specific, fact-based jobs. Director, by definition, do not have to create anything. Writers, by definition do.

Seriously, Kevin, if you want to keep arguing that point, I’m not interested. It’s axiomatic. It’s like arguing about where the sun sets.

“Legally speaking directors are authors of films…”

Where has this been established?

lt

Ruairi,

“Josh, Dang, limiting the list to 20 years conveniently clips out Alien, Bladerunner, Dr Strangelove, The Shining, 2001, Once Upon a Time in the West and Taxi “Fucking” Driver. Off the top of my head. Might you be suggesting those films aren’t as good as their scripts? “

Absolutely.

Ruairi,

“Josh, I guess my point, or a point, is that the authorship, is, in my opinion mostly deserved by the person that has the most creative control over the finished film.”

And how would you possibly be able to come to such a determination with anything resembling accuracy?

Anna,

I’ve stated it very clearly many times. I do not think you can accord an individual the status of “author” of a motion picture. It is not my intention to be helpful or unhelpful, it is simply to be accurate. The legal question is one thing, and it’s obviously as complicated as hell. But the ethical one is quite simple.

So, for the record -

You cannot assign authorship to a movie.

If you find you must, if your brain will turn to chowder at the notion of living in a world without “Film By” credits, without authorship being attributed to someone on every movie, then give it to the writer.

But that’s only slightly less idiotic than giving it to the director.

“Does “devaluing” directors empower writers? Personally I don’t think so.”

Ah, you’re a Glass Is Half Empty girl, I see.

If valuing writers means devaluing directors, then so be it. And I know some people see it that way. Directors are over-valued at the expense of writers. What’s the solution?

“And how would you possibly be able to come to such a determination with anything resembling accuracy? “

Josh: Well that’s where the whole heirarchy thing comes in. Your boss can tell you what to do. Hence, creative Control. Control. You do what you are told. They are the boss. Whether they invoke the write to fuck you is another matter, isn’t it? I’m no expert here of course, so I reserve the right to backtrack and weasel out of what I’m saying at any point…

For example, if I had really directed a History of Violence, we might have had a conversation similar to this:

     Josh

Are you fucking nuts? You are seriously giving Tom an erection, at the climax of the story? You fucking asshole, you are ruining my script. Fuck you! I hope you all are raped, in public, by a specially trained Giraffe!

      Me

Me, boss. Boner, Stays.

Cut to: The Oscars

       Jesus

And the winner of “Best film ever made in the history of the world, ever” goes to Ruairi Robinson, who valiantly struggled to fix a mediocre script.

        Me

Thank you very much. I did it all myself. I’d like to thank my Cast, my agent, my director of photography, the editor, the script supervisor, the key grip, the best boy, the caterers, and my dog. Did I forget anyone? No I think that’s the lot.

Josh:

Okay. Well now I’m TOTALLY clear on every single one of your points. And I TOTALLY understand your position regarding Directors.

Just do me one small favor:

PLEASE DON’T DIRECT ANYTHING.

And I would ask the same favor to anyone who conversely believes the same to be true of a Writer.

By the way, let’s just say I accept your definitions: Writers create, Directors don’t.

So…who gives a fuck?

Meaning, if there’s no assertion of quality to a creation…who gives a fuck? A writer can create. Yeah, well my niece can create a piece of shit in her diaper, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good or useful.

“Josh, Dang, limiting the list to 20 years conveniently clips out Alien, Bladerunner, Dr Strangelove, The Shining, 2001, Once Upon a Time in the West and Taxi “Fucking” Driver. Off the top of my head. Might you be suggesting those films aren’t as good as their scripts?“

Absolutely.

Hmmm. I wonder if this is could be a subjective opinion…

“Josh, Dang, limiting the list to 20 years conveniently clips out Alien, Bladerunner, Dr Strangelove, The Shining, 2001, Once Upon a Time in the West and Taxi “Fucking” Driver. Off the top of my head. Might you be suggesting those films aren’t as good as their scripts? “

Absolutely.”

Are you kidding me? You think Alien is inferior to… Star Beast?

I mean, you aren’t really saying that, are you? Please god, I respect you a lot, man, but please, don’t say things like that just to win an argument, Have you read the scripts for each and every one of those films btw, or are you just saying this as a general rule?

I promise I won’t make fun of you if you backtrack a little bit on this one. This in NOT, Kevin, just a matter of subjective opinion. On the Earth, in this particular universe, there is no objective, or subjective, or scientific, or rational, or irrational way I can accept any claim from any human being that a script called Star Beast is superior to the film called Alien.

It’s just not possible. It’s not even plausible.

Josh. Please. Tell me you are just joking, or just winding me up. Ok you got me, I missed the joke - you were kidding, right?

…right?

Ok, I’ll accept what you say, if, and only if, you admit that your favourite film is “Ninja Kids Phantom Force”.

“I promise I won’t make fun of you if you backtrack a little bit on this one. This in NOT, Kevin, just a matter of subjective opinion. On the Earth, in this particular universe, there is no objective, or subjective, or scientific, or rational, or irrational way I can accept any claim from any human being that a script called Star Beast is superior to the film called Alien.”

Dammit! You made me laugh out loud. I hate that! I don’t want to laugh when I’m reading a blog. I want to hate. Hate, hate, hate! And argue.

Star Beast…dammit!

Ruairi —

I assume Josh meant that Alien-the-screenplay is better than Alien-the-film. You’re referring to an early script that was rewritten to become Alien-the-script.

Lee:

““Legally speaking directors are authors of films…” Where has this been established?”

My wording is pretty clumsy but I’m mainly referring to the tax on blank recording media (which Craig has often mentioned).

I’m not going to explain how this tax came to be (in Europe), just say that conditions arose that neccessiated that the authorship of audiovisual works be determined.

In most or all countries courts of arbitration decided on this matter. A special branch of Law deals with the rights of authors so the different court decisions turned out to be similar (I think):

Writers and Directors are the main authors, so to speak, of films but others also have (minor) claims to authorship: composers, cinematographers, editors and production designers.

The US came to this game late. Instead of leaving the decision to a court of arbitration (or spend millions on lawyers and battling it out in the courts), the WGA, DGA and the producers’ alliance (AMPPA ?) simply decided on the matter amongst themselves. If I remember this correctly they decided to split film authorship 40% 40% and 20%.

In my mind film directors are authors and I think they are generally perceived to be authors (by the general public). They’re co-authors but a co-author is still an author.

Ruairi —

I assume Josh meant that Alien-the-screenplay is better than Alien-the-film. You’re referring to an early script that was rewritten to become Alien-the-script.

Obviously.

But if Josh had his way (“Nobody rewrites me, dammit”) then the film would have been called Star Beast, and he might be blaming the director. But you’ll have to ask him, because I don’t want to put (any more) words in his mouth.

I’ll just refer to what Josh said earlier:

“Yes”… “Ruairi”…”I”… “apologise”… “and”… “agree”… “with”… “everything”… “you”… “say”… “How”… “could”… “I”… “have”… “been”… “such”… “a”… “fool”

See, no argument from Josh!

I’ve been following this discussion, interestingly enough, from another blog post that described this whole argument as “massive bloodletting.” It’s been very educational, and I’ve seen a lot of good points from all sides. Even from you, Josh.

But what I can’t fathom, and what seems to sink the credibility of your whole position, is your core argument that directing is an “art-optional” administrative position, and that the act of writing is infinitely more artistic than that of direction. This is the basis from which you devalue the position of the authorship of directors, and the basis from which you promote the idea of elevating the respect and authority of screenwriters — which, interestingly enough, after dozens of posts, you have not provided specific goals or strategies for writers to pursue, besides waving the bloody shirt of the “A film by” credit numerous times.

I’m still trying to figure out why you perceive directors to be such an enemy to writers, and why they seem to be the obstacles for the advancement of writers as a group. It’s as simple as this: a good director values his or her partnership with the screenwriter, and will take the opportunity to collaborate with them in order to make as good a film as possible. A bad director doesn’t. And the good directors aren’t the ones grasping for “A film by” credit as some sort of brass ring.

It’s not like advancement of the director’s interests on a film is intrinsically harmful to the writer. But this sentiment seems to underlie all your arguments, because you seem to grasp for the credit on all the constituent parts of a finished film the same way you accuse directors of grabbing the “A film by” credit. Because it boils down to this, a point you seem to continually disagree with:

A screenplay is not a movie.

A screenplay consists of: Plot, Characterization, and Dialogue. Those are huge components of a finished film, and that’s why the writer should be a huge creative stakeholder in the final film, and why a good director collaborates well with the writer.

But that’s not all a film consists of.

A film consists of: Everything a screenplay has, PLUS: shot choices, color palette choices, staging choices, performance choices, production design choices, editing choices, sound design choices, and musical choices.

You might notice a bit of word repetition there; it’s there because it spells out the primary artistic responsibility of a director: choosing the way in which a story is told. And if you choose to devalue the power of how shot sizes and color and pacing and performance and background sound affect the audience, then I can see how you can minimize the role of the director in a film production. If you give the same exact script. and the same exact cast and crew, to ten different directors, would you get ten of the same movie? That’s the definition of artistry.

The audience doesn’t read the screenplay. They do, however, see and hear all the things listed above.

And this is why I think your position on the artistry of directors is so maddeningly stupid. A director who says yes uncritically to the choices presented to him is still an artist - he’s just an incredibly bad one. A good director has a vision and rationale for making creative choices that help the tell the story in the way that will best affect the audience. Just in the same way that a screenwriter who regurgitates hackneyed cliche and tin-ear dialogue is an artist, just a bad one. And a screenwriter who brings a unique perspective and creates rich, well-developed plot is an artist, and a good one (like yourself, Josh, regardless of the illogic of your position.)

Which brings us back to the whole point of this post, and this blog: giving writers a creative voice on the film, not just the screenplay. The reason why the director usually has sole control (to a point) over the above choices that go into the final film is simply a combination of tradition and territoriality. Again, a good director knows that a good writer knows the story better than anyone else, and will have insightful things to say during the production, and knows that shutting them out is just shooting themselves in the foot. And again, the bad directors don’t.

And so Craig’s whole mission is to help writers figure out a way to be able to collaborate with the director on how to tell the story. But what I gather from your posts, is that you want the creative authority from creating the screenplay to automatically translate into respect and authority from the results of the specific choices that went into making the finished film, WITHOUT actually contributing to those choices. Now, how is that different in spirit from the directors who want to claim the “A film by” credit?

Kevin,

Good God almighty. Is English your primary language?

“By the way, let’s just say I accept your definitions: Writers create, Directors don’t.”

Read carefully:

I

NEVER

SAID

THAT

My position, by the way, is pretty much the same as that no-talent hack Francis Ford Coppolla’s. Good thing he never directed.

You do not understand the difference between a subjective statement and an objective one. I’m sorry, but it’s like talking to someone who’s incapable of holding any thought in his head for more than ten seconds. I have said it all extremely clearly in my previous posts. I will repeat myself if I am unclear, and I will revisit my statements if they warrant it. What I will NOT do is keep repeating myself until you finally grasp what it is that I’m saying.

And newsflash - I HAVE directed, thanks, and it’s gone pretty well. Doing it again, as a matter of fact.

Fuck.

Last time, Kevin. If it’s still a mystery to you, I have no solution for you.

I have directed. I have written. When my back’s to a wall as a director, I can fall back on just shooting what’s written. When my back’s to a wall as a writer, I have no choice but to FUCKING CREATE SOMETHING OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH.

How the bloody blue fuck can you not grasp the difference? They are as clear as day to any creature capable of independent, sentient thought.

And I am well and truly done responding to you until you get it.

Lee —

That directors are authors/first copyright holder of movies is by no means settled law worldwide, but it is for the member countries of the EU and a number of other countries — about 40 total, out of 192 or 193 (depends if you count Taiwan as an independent nation). Some of the EU members recognize directors as co-authors, but first copyright ownership still goes to the director.

Canada does not recognize any individual as the author of a movie (Josh’s dream country!) but first copyright ownership goes to the producer (or, at least, that was the case in 2003, when a debate was raging over whether Canadian copyright law should be amended to name an individual as author and, if so, who?)(Canada’s copyright law is unique in that it’s a synthesis of both English common law tradition and French).

There’s also a couple that recognize the individual(s) who finance the production of a movie and bring all the contributors together (ie, an actual producer) as the author/first copyright owner — Australia, for instance (another debate going on there, by the way).

Japan recognizes directors as authors entitled to moral rights, but not economic rights (ie, copyright).

In Argentina, since 2004, directors, producers and screenwriters and sometimes composers are recognized as co-authors/first copyright owners.

-

Ruairi,

“Are you kidding me? You think Alien is inferior to… Star Beast?”

Uh…. what?

What I said was the script for Alien is better than the movie. How you go from that to “Star Beast is better than Alien” is a leap of logic only Kevin Arbouet could make.

Tom,

“I assume Josh meant that Alien-the-screenplay is better than Alien-the-film. You’re referring to an early script that was rewritten to become Alien-the-script.”

Ah. Thanks.

It’s still a very bizarre leap to make.

The script for Alien, by the way, is an amazing piece of work. It was the first script I ever read where I really got how important it is to be spare. It’s like haiku. Bloody beautiful. The film’s great, as well (Fucking DUH!!)

Oscar,

“But what I can’t fathom, and what seems to sink the credibility of your whole position, is your core argument that directing is an “art-optional” administrative position, and that the act of writing is infinitely more artistic than that of direction.”

God. Writers are so fucking whipped.

Directing IS an “art-optiomnal” administrative decision. That some (or many, or most, or even ALL) of them choose to opt for an “artistic” approach doesn’t change the requirements of the job one iota. A director who chooses to be truly creative is rising above the physical requirements of the job. A writer who chooses to create something from nothing is doing the baseline job.

“This is the basis from which you devalue the position of the authorship of directors, and the basis from which you promote the idea of elevating the respect and authority of screenwriters”

Again - pussy whipped. I’m not remotely concerned with devaluing directors. What I AM concerned with is properly valuing writers. Sadly, because directors have taken power that should belong to writers, that amounts to devaluing them. Not my problem if some perceive it that way.

“I’m still trying to figure out why you perceive directors to be such an enemy to writers”

And I’M still trying to figure out why anyone would perceive what I’m saying as hostile to directors. When a director takes a film by credit on a movie he didn’t write (or edit, or produce, or score, or shoot), you don’t see that as hostile to writers, or editors, or producers or composers or editors. But a writer says what I’ve said, and I’m hostile to directors. I have fallen into Bizarro World.

I repeat - It blows my mind how fucking whipped writers are.

Seriously. I can’t wait to get to that place where I just direct, so I can start anally raping writers and tatooing my name on their asses. You think what I do to unwed mothers is harsh? Sheeit.

“’s as simple as this: a good director values his or her partnership with the screenwriter, and will take the opportunity to collaborate with them in order to make as good a film as possible. A bad director doesn’t. And the good directors aren’t the ones grasping for “A film by” credit as some sort of brass ring.”

I absolutely agree - to such an extent that I think it’s insane that it even needs to be said - with the first part of that. However, there are plenty of very fine directors taking the credit because it’s simply how they’ve been raised. They don’t know any better.

“It’s not like advancement of the director’s interests on a film is intrinsically harmful to the writer. But this sentiment seems to underlie all your arguments,”

Because taking authorship of something you did not author is intrinsically harmful to the other authors.

“A screenplay consists of: Plot, Characterization, and Dialogue. “

I know the stuff we write here is written quickly, and often we go back and go, “Oh, shit. I should have made that clearer.” So understand - I have no idea who you are or what you do or how good you are at it. But if you’re a screenwriter, and you think that’s all a screenplay consists of, I humbly submit that you ain’t much of a screenwriter.

“A director who says yes uncritically to the choices presented to him is still an artist - he’s just an incredibly bad one. “

Sure. But he’s still not creating something from nothing. On that front, the two jobs are radically different. He CAN, but he doesn’t have to. A writer HAS TO.

Writers have to create. Directors do not.

If that statement causes you difficulty, if it makes you froth at the mouth, or think I’m some kind of radical nutbar, we live in different universes. Mine is based on fact. Your is based on having sucked at a poisonous tit for so long that simple truths elude you, and your problems go way beyond convincing some frothing asshole on an internet message board that he should suck from that same tit.

Josh O:

So it’s mainly the “Film by” credit that irks you?

I would be sorry to see it go, seriously. First off, noone is fooled by it. Film audiences are not stupid, they know perfectly well that films aren’t authored by one individual.

And directors don’t get Film by credit automatically, do they? I thought they had to negotiate with producers to get it. In the US, that is.

It IS a vanity credit and/or a type of marketing ploy.

It seems to me (but I may be wrong) that you see the Film by credit chiefly in fairly low budget “art”films by writer/directors.

OR in American major motion pictures where the director is some sought-after big shot director.

“Directors are over-valued at the expense of writers. What’s the solution?”

I really can’t provide any solutions (but thanks for asking). But in his original post Craig suggest several relatively minor Union demands that he thinks might increase the value of writers (in increments) at least in the eyes of the industry. But they haven’t gotten discussed much.

Josh: obviously I was making an Arbouetian leap for dramatic purposes :)

But the script became better… under suggestions from the producer (who himself rewrote it) and under control of… The Director. It didn’t happen in a vacuum. Unless it actually was written in a vacuum, and nobody told me. And yes, the script is great. But not as good as the finished film. And I hear Dan O’Bannon wasn’t very happy to be rewritten either. Josh, you say you have a “no other writers/rewrites” clause in your contract, if I recall correctly, and if this was the case then, well, we would have been stuck with Star Beast.

For one thing, the script didn’t have the greatest creature design, in the history of the world, ever, written into it. Even though it did turn into man-in-suit just at the very end… But just thinking about all this makes me want to punch everyone involved in Alien Versus Predator. Rahhh!!!! I don’t know who to blame the most!

(And Kevin, I jest, of course… but it is a cool sounding term!)

“I have directed. I have written. When my back’s to a wall as a director, I can fall back on just shooting what’s written. When my back’s to a wall as a writer, I have no choice but to FUCKING CREATE SOMETHING OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH.”

You aren’t totally out in the cold though. You could ask other people for suggestions, friends, bartenders, other writers, hookers… The same way the director will ask you for suggestions if for some reason that scene with 300,000 extras isn’t shootable on a budget of 50 quid… And you can always reread the source novel if you are adapting from it. There’s usually a few good pointers there. (yes, I am being a smarmy git here.)

I mean, you could argue, accurately, and successfully, that visual effects artists create something out of nothing too. So you aren’t the only one. For example, Cave Trolls don’t really exist, hard as it may be to accept.

Josh,

You nicely bring up the issue of what exactly the screenwriter creates IN A FILM, and what he doesn’t.

” ‘A screenplay consists of: Plot, Characterization, and Dialogue.’

I know the stuff we write here is written quickly, and often we go back and go, ‘Oh, shit. I should have made that clearer.’ So understand - I have no idea who you are or what you do or how good you are at it. But if you’re a screenwriter, and you think that’s all a screenplay consists of, I humbly submit that you ain’t much of a screenwriter.”

What, precisely, might I be missing?

When a director shoots the barest of scenes, what do they take from it?

Who’s in it (the characters), what happens (the plot), and what people say (the dialogue). Sure, through style, the screenwriter can convey a general atmosphere of how he imagines the story that he’s telling, and through little details in the action he can generally flesh out the world and the characters.

But the problem is you can’t show generalities on the screen. Everything that ends up in the film is a specific choice that was made by someone on the crew, influenced or guided by the director; i.e. something was created THAT WAS NOT WRITTEN IN THE SCRIPT.

And when you create those things, you create the the mood of the film, the tone of the film, even the themes that the film communicates.

But back to what I’m missing from the script; I’m guessing it includes what you’ve said previously:

“I design visuals, I edit, I cast, and sometimes I even score, and I do it all on the page.”

Which is true, although I’m sure a lot of editors, casting directors, and composers would take umbrage with that statement.

I’m fine with it though, and I’m sure you do all of that, because that’s part of writing. But the fact remains that all of that remains inside your head. It’s all general, because if you were specific and explicit about all those things the script would be unreadable.

It’s why I can easily understand why you hold the belief that most films cannot be better than their screenplays makes. Because when you write and read a script, you imagine an idealized version of the performances, an idealized version of the visual world, an idealized version of the soundscape. And when you watch the film, of course it’s never any of those things. And why?

Because someone else did all the things you did in your head, and made them a reality, and did them differently from what you expected. That’s also known as directing.

You know what some trained actors do with their script once they start prepping for a scene?

They cross out all the action and stage directions. Because they’ll figure out their own characterizations, or what actions they’ll take; or they’ll discuss with the director what exactly he or she wants to come through in the scene.

The most visible legacy of the screenwriter on a finished film is through the dialogue and plot, which are obviously the most important thing to a film. But they’re not the only things, and to mistake what the screenplay provides for a film for the totality of what a film is, well, that’s a huge error.

And as for the issue of directors, well, the “non-artist” directors, not creating anything?

The protagonist’s house? It might be described on the page, but it doesn’t exist until the director chooses the location or has it built.

That bit of improvised action or dialogue from the actor? It’s created when the director puts it into the cut of the movie.

The way the movie looks so cold and metallic? It doesn’t look that way until the director talks to the cinematographer and production designer and makes it that way.

Even the “non-artist” directors, the ones out of time with their backs to the walls just shooting the script, the ones who are just traffic wardens just doing the baseline work, are artists and creators.

Take a two-person dialogue scene in a small room. The director, because he hasn’t put any thought into understanding the story and is pressed for time, shoots the whole scene in a medium two-shot, because the cinematographer suggested it. He didn’t even talk to the production designers, let alone the actors. And afterwards, the editor plops the scene in the movie, and the director gives his okay after a cursory view of the cut.

Guess what? That scene becomes part of a movie, an artistic work, and the scene affects the audience in a specific way. Yes, the director made a series of cursory, thoughtless choices, but it’s still an artistic choice. This isn’t like a novel, where the type of font or how the dust jacket looks doesn’t really have a bearing on the artistic quality of the material. In a movie, how the story is told is just as important as what the story is, and again, if you refuse to acknowledge the artistic value in all these non-scripted elements, and if you refuse to acknowledge that even the worst and mindless of directors have affected the films they’ve worked on, well..

I know, in the end, this discussion of the director as artist or creator is all semantics and philosophy, and quibbling over the nature of art. The chances of you budging from your position are nil. And yeah, if you’re arguing from a whole other set of axioms that others don’t share, then obviously there will be a whole set of disagreements.

But what does this whole thing mean? I agree, the whole “A film by” credit is utterly stupid - I would never take it, and I wouldn’t miss it if it were abolished.

But what if it were? Would people suddenly stop seeing the director as the driving creative force on a film (again, a distinct entity from a script?) The general audience couldn’t give two-tenths of a shit about credits, and changing the credit isn’t going to suddenly sway the industry into forgetting that directors do all the things I’ve said they do.

The thing is, after reading through all these posts, I’ve gotten a general sense of what Craig and Ted, and what a lot of other writers specifically want that would improve their lot. But what do you want? Aside from abolishing the “A film by” credit, and a general “acknowledgement and respect” owed to writers, I have no idea what you want. I know, from your comments that a film is almost all of the time worse than its script, that you feel that writes can do something specific to make the finished film better. But you’ve only talked about that in generalities. And, like I’ve mentioned, you can’t see generalities. You have to be specific.

Wow, quote mishap. For clarity’s sake, what I wrote earlier was:

“A screenplay consists of: Plot, Characterization, and Dialogue.”

And Josh’s reply was:

“I know the stuff we write here is written quickly, and often we go back and go, ‘Oh, shit. I should have made that clearer.’ So understand - I have no idea who you are or what you do or how good you are at it. But if you’re a screenwriter, and you think that’s all a screenplay consists of, I humbly submit that you ain’t much of a screenwriter.”

Oscar,

Here’s the frustrating thing about these discussions. In essence, I want to talk about how lovely the sky is, and then I start hearing from people who don’t want to argue that the sky isn’t beautiful - they want to argue that there is no sky to begin with.

You - like Kevin - seem deadset on behaving as though you do not understand the difference between creating something from nothing, and implementing a plan that has been presented before you. As well worded as your posts are, your position is, simply, untenable, and arguing it debases both of us. Me, because doing so grants your position a viability it simply does not have; and you, because pretending not to understand that difference makes it hard to take you seriously.

We cannot even begin to discuss larger issues until the basics are clear to everyone. That there are writers who are so invested in clapping their hands over their ears and eyes about the nature of what we do and what everyone else does is, frankly, depressing.

As for my lot, my lot is grand, and getting better every day. I’m not concerned for my lot here. My issue was - and remains - that some of the people who are vested with looking out for lot perceive us the same way the people who would keep us down do, and that they have support from other writers.

I understand how we are perceived in the business, and I understand what the reality of our position is as well. Having a clear-eyed view of both helps. Perceiving yourself the same way way you are perceived, without regard for the truth is a sure fire recipe for a nice cushy job in Massa’s house. And that’s really all some people want, so who am I to argue?

Everybody seems to be ignoring one vital factor and fact: There are not two but five major creative forces that amalgamate in the making of any given movie:

Writer

Director

Cinematographer

Editor

Composer

I propose that an individual has to perform at least 3 of these positions to merit the FILM BY credit. E.g.: Cameron and Arbouret get it. Spielberg and Olson don’t.

How’s that?

Johnny,

“I propose that an individual has to perform at least 3 of these positions to merit the FILM BY credit”

Why? Why not 2? Or 4? Or all 5? There are two enormous problems with your argument. The smaller is that you start from the assumption that the “Film By” credit is neccessary, and the larger is that you’ve left out one enormous category, one so huge, it boggles the mind.

Good luck making them there movies without any of them there ACTORS.

Josh,

I fullheartedly agree with your implication that the FILM BY credit is NOT neccesary. However, I also think - and I know people will slaughter me for this - the war in iraq is not necessary.

Point being, I live in the real world. There are wars for oil. And FILM BY credits for directors.

What sucks about the FILM BY credit are three things:

1) It implies sole authorship, 2) ONLY directors get it, and 3) 1+2 enforces the director’s power position.

Implementing the condition that a director has to at least fulfill two other duties from the above list means:

The lazy ass directors you speak of will no longer be able to get the credit!

They may be able to fake directing, but not scoring (or any of the other three crafts).

Hence the FILM BY credit slowly disappears from our screens. And is reserved for the true greats who deserve it.

And YES…I think some filmmakers deserve the FILM BY credit, e.g. JAMES CAMERON.

P.S. NOTHING is easier than faking acting….Thus I didn’t want to go there.

Johnny,

“NOTHING is easier than faking acting”

Forgive me if my girlfriend kills you if she ever meets you.

Beyond that, the issue isn’t which is easiest to do badly. Even if it were, I’d say that faking acting is harder than faking directing - at least fake actors have to show up on set.

The world is full of shitty movies saved by great performances.

This discussion is pretty much exhausted but ..

Josh O said:

“When a director takes a film by credit on a movie he didnÕt write (or edit, or produce, or score, or shoot), you donÕt see that as hostile to writers, or editors, or producers or composers or editors.

Hostile? I’ve never composed film music, admittedly, but I have been a production designer (a creative job) in two feature films. I think they both carried the “A film by” credit, I’m not sure, I never even noticed because noone attaches much meaning to this credit.

The beauty of being a production designer is that you’re only responsible for the production design. The director is responsible for the frigging film. If my sets are great and his film happens to suck my sets are still great. Same goes for composers, DoPs etc etc.

Of course things are radically different when it comes to writers (because they are co-responsible for the frigging film, for one thing).

Due to the practice of serial-rewrites and complex/imperfect credit arbitration guidelines writers may end up getting credit for scripts they mostly did not write.

Personally I would find it very difficult, bordering on downright offensive, to take credit for something I didn’t do. But writers have to put up with this (though they do get compensated somewhat, I mean financially).

Authors have a Right — not god given but man given — to be recognized as such, and authored works accordingly correctly attributed. I think this right is pretty elementary stuff but the nature of the film industry seems to be such that it is unenforcable. At least when it comes to writers.

This is an importand and very difficult issue and Josh Olson does not address it.

Josh,

I could come up with a slew of jokes about acting - girlfriends - and faking it. But I won’t! In all honesty, I have great respect for you, and for actors. Good actors!

See, I kept the list to artists who stay “behind the camera”, but fine, include actors. Another category I left out are PRODUCERS and ART DIRECTORS. Be my guest, include them, too. Let’s make the condition to merit the “possessory credit” 5 out of 7. Or 6/7. Or 7/7! Seriously.

Point is, you wanna get FILM BY, you gotta do more than direct (cause that’s just too damn easy).

“The world is full of shitty movies saved by great performances.”

But not shitty scripts saved by good directors, right? That almost never happens. What was your one example btw? You never said…

“Due to the practice of serial-rewrites and complex/imperfect credit arbitration guidelines writers may end up getting credit for scripts they mostly did not write.” This seems to me to be the most important, and one of the most absurd issues that writers have to deal with. It’s something I just can’t fathom. This is a WGA arbitration issue right? I mean, what kind of person is such an idiot, they give a credit to someone that did not one single word in a finished script. Surely it can’t be THAT hard to figure out…?

“This is an importand and very difficult issue and Josh Olson does not address it.”

Why, is it his duty to address issues you find important? Why single him out? Has anyone else really addressed it? seems like a strange thing to say (unless I’m reading in an accusatory tone that ain’t there)

Anyway, Fuck this. I’m tired. I have loads of work to do tomorrow. Goodnight.

R.

One last thing, Josh.

Those movies I listed, would you rather read the script again, or watch the movie.

Be honest.

Josh,

I’m sorry that you won’t engage any of my points about directors, but I pretty much knew that was going to happen, and I understand why you believe what you believe. At this point, it feels almost like debating religious dogma.

But what I’d be really interested in reading about is your opinion about the relationship between scripts and the quality of the finished films.

Let’s ignore all issues of film authorship and the like - let’s say, for the purposes of this question, we agree about those things.

You’ve mentioned that you believe the number of films that are better than their scripts are extremely, extremely low. Again, let’s agree that’s true.

The question is, then - whose problem is it? I think the thing that all writers and directors can agree on is that we want to make the best damn movie possible.

Is it that directors, individually or as a group, can’t make the best movie envisioned by the script?

Is it the system of film production as it stands that throws a wrench in the works?

What can screenwriters, individually or as a guild, do to improve the quality of the movies that are made from their scripts?

Certainly, your statement is certainly a bold and incendiary one, and you must have thoughts of what can be done. Because a system that churns out products that continually fall short of their potential is a system begging for change.

And I hope this isn’t just some Platonic bullshit with scripts as the ideal form that can never be realized by earthbound movies. Because, of course, people don’t read screenplays, they watch movies.

Anna,

“Authors have a Right — not god given but man given — to be recognized as such, and authored works accordingly correctly attributed. I think this right is pretty elementary stuff but the nature of the film industry seems to be such that it is unenforcable. At least when it comes to writers.

This is an importand and very difficult issue and Josh Olson does not address it.”

Um…. Excuse me, but I think it’s about the only thing I HAVE addressed here with any regularity… It’s going to remain unenforcable as long as writers argue for granting directors authorial power. Once some writers stop being such sheep about it and acknolwedge the true importance of what they do, we’ll have made a first step in the right direction.

“But not shitty scripts saved by good directors, right? That almost never happens.”

I agree. All the great direction in the world can’t cover up for lack of solid, intelligent narrative.

” What was your one example btw? You never said…”

And I won’t. If we’re ever sitting in a bar somewhere over a beer, ask me again.

talk about beer…let’s all go to cat&fiddle.

Anna: “This is an importand and very difficult issue and Josh Olson does not address it.”

Ruairi: Why, is it his duty to address issues you find important?

No, I’ don’t think it’s his duty. Secondly, this issue is of importance to American screenwriters, I should think. It´s not of importance to me personally. I´m not an American screenwriter. I’m merely a participant in this discussion.

It´s just that Josh goes on and on about the lot of screenwriters and how they are shortchanged in every possible way and manner and denied what´s rightfully theirs. Yet he doesn’t seem to bothered by this rewrite issue.

I´m forever trying to make sense of Josh.

Anna,

in Josh’s defense: this is not the ASK OLSON ANYTHING! forum. The topic of “authorship” and “film by” credit is one that has crystalized from this debate. “Rewrites” is not.

Part of the meta-problem of this board is that aspiring screenwriters keep throwing new questions at the working screenwriters for sake of opportunity, thereby defusing the central issues and bringing the debate off course.

Let’s get back to the main topic at hand: Who is right, Craig or Josh?

ahright. (no, it’s not a typo on “alright”)

josh (o)

i totally think you’re wrong (or not so much wrong as misguided) about pretty much everything you’ve said in here and i’ve called you stuff that craig deleted my posts for (which nullifies your childish “craig deletes me but lets others abuse me” credo, but there you go, you’re wrong, like i said) and i’d totally argue with you about your responses (to me) about what i’ve said here, but, to be fair, that whole story is way too much typing for me.

(a writer who hates typing? oh, i can’t be a real writer then, huh? [if you don’t think it, some fucker does.] as a writer, i can’t even be arsed to put capital letters at the start of sentences on this message board. life is too short.)

but shit, dude, if you’re ever in london (the one in england, not ontario) hit me up and i’ll take you to some good pubs (that’s “bars” in yankee speak) and chat you to about this shit. or politics. or girls. or whatever. (and call you THAT word - to your face - that craig won’t let me) and hang out.

i don’t agree with what you’ve been saying, but - as i’ve said before - i fucking love your style. (i don’t know if my saying that earlier got deleted, but there you go …)

of course, you might take this internet shit the way you see it rather than the way others take it, but the beer offer is there.

Josh:

“Um…. Excuse me, but I think it’s about the only thing I HAVE addressed here with any regularity… It’s going to remain unenforcable as long as writers argue for granting directors authorial power.”

It’s entirely possible that writers argue for granting directors authorial powers, I don’t know and I don´t care.

Seems to me that the people who come up with the money are the only ones who are in the position to actually grant power (rather than merely arguing for granting power).

You should be targeting producers rather than directors. But that — of course — is just my personal opinion.

And I’m going to bed. It’s 03:18.

johnny:

when i did mine, i did all five.

would josh (o) give me “film by” crdit?

no.

josh has his view point that no one gets the film by credit and nothing anyone says is going to change that.

just like he said the script for taxi driver was better than the film.

it wasn’t. seriously. but you’ll never convince josh otherwise.

there you go.

on that script point, i guess EVERY time josh reads a script, the movie in his head is better than the movie that he sees.

which really means that josh should be directing.

not as a writer/director, but as someone who sees the awesomeness in EVERY script, before those loser directors fuck them up.

Josh:

Holy shit.

Do you even read what you fucking write? Here’s what you said at Posted by: Josh Olson at June 1, 2006 03:06 PM:

“By the way, let’s just say I accept your definitions: Writers create, Directors don’t.”

Read carefully:

I

NEVER

SAID

THAT

Ok. Now here’s what you said at Posted by: Josh Olson at June 1, 2006 03:33 PM

“Writers have to create. Directors do not.”

That’s fucking insane. Even for you.

How in the world is someone supposed to have an intelligent discussion with you when you make believe that you don’t say certain things, refute it, and then repeat less than a half an hour later?!

You attack the objectivity of other writers—Uncle Tom inferences galore—but you are so goddamn dense that you don’t realize that you are coming off as the David Dukes of screenwriters. Your incredible and again, INCORRECT bias towards Directors is astounding.

And like I said before, I’ll say it again in case you missed it:

YOUR DEFINITION OF A DIRECTOR AND A WRITER DOESN’T MEAN SHIT BECAUSE IT DOESN’T MEAN THERE IS ANY QUALITY TO THE CREATION OF SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING.

WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT THE CREATION OF SOMET