A Film By... How does it sit with you?

"No one except the director would have mortgaged their house for the film."
Neil LaBute's agent mortgaged his house to get the money to complete "In the company of men". Maybe it should have been a "a film by Neil Labutte agent".
 
Well, it's giggle-worthy when you consider that it's almost unheard-of for a director to self-finance a studio picture. Particularly considering that even A-list directors probably couldn't leverage their homes to the tune of hundreds of millions of $$$...

Actually, I'm going out on a limb and suggesting that at least within the last twenty years, it *is* unheard-of.
 
Why draw the line at writing? If it's about 'vision' shouldn't we require that the director who wants the 'film by' title also design the lighting and operate the camera? And since Art Direction is a big part of the vision, feel, etc shouldn't the director really have designed the sets, too...?

Talk about arbitrary.

And you neatly excise the Producer's contributions, too. Considering that the Producer frequently hires the director, thereby selecting the form of the vision he wants, and picks the script he wants to develop in the first place, thereby selecting the writer whose story will be told, discounting the 'drivingness' of the producer's 'force' seems unfair.
 
Found reference to why George Lucas quit the DGA, in a book called "George Lucas: Interviews", credited as "by George Lucas and Sally Kline".

Seems Max and I are both kind of right. Here's what it says:
He resigned from the Directors Guild because the guild fined him for placing Irving Kershner's directing credit at the end of The Empire Strikes Back (even though Kershner himself did not object). For Return of the Jedi, Lucas selected Richard Marquand, a little-known British director who does not belong to the American guild.

"The Hollywood unions have been taken over by the same lawyers and accountants who took over the studios", Lucas says angrily. "When the Writers Guild was on strike, I couldn't cross the picket line in my function as a director in order to take care of American Graffiti when the studio was chopping it up. I quit the Directors Guild because the union lawyers were locked in a traditional combat with the studio lawyers. The union doesn't care about its members. It cares about making fancy rules that sound good on paper and are totally impractical. They said Lucasfilm was a personal credit, not a corporate credit. My name is not George Lucasfilm any more than William Fox's name was Twentieth Century-Fox. On that technicality they sued me for $250,000. You can pollute half the Great Lakes and not get that much. When the DGA threatened to fine Kershner $25,000, we paid his fine. I consider it extortion. The day after I settled with the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild called up. At least their fine didn't all go into the business agents' pockets. Two-thirds went to writers."
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So, it wasn't Star Wars at all, it was Empire where the event took place, even though neither film has a director's credit up front. He was sued for not putting the director's name in front of the credits. Apparently they considered the "Lucasfilm Ltd" title card to count as having the director's name up front, but in Empire Lucas wasn't the director, so they SUED HIM $250,000 for that! So he paid Kershner's fine and quit the guild. And he's made the rest of his Star Wars films as "independent films", financing them himself so he isn't beholden to any studio system.
 
Sad Max said:
Why draw the line at writing?
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Because the writer is the one who creates the world. It all starts with the script, and it's been said (although certainly will be disputed) that the writer is the only original artist in a motion picture, and everyone else's work is derivative off of the writer's.

If it's about 'vision' shouldn't we require that the director who wants the 'film by' title also design the lighting and operate the camera? And since Art Direction is a big part of the vision, feel, etc shouldn't the director really have designed the sets, too...?
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They don't design them, but they do approve them to fit within "the vision". The particular set designer or artist who is hired is done so because presumably the director finds their work consistent with the director's vision.

And you neatly excise the Producer's contributions, too. Considering that the Producer frequently hires the director, thereby selecting the form of the vision he wants, and picks the script he wants to develop in the first place, thereby selecting the writer whose story will be told, discounting the 'drivingness' of the producer's 'force' seems unfair.
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Absolutely completely thoroughly agree here. The producer starts it all, manages it all, and brings it all together. The producer is the one who hires the director, and if things aren't going right, the producer is the one who FIRES the director. It is the producer's film.

I'm with you on this one -- I do think the "A film by" credit is rude and dismissive to everyone else who worked on it, but that if there truly is a place where "a film by" belongs, it's with the producer.

(and I'm of course not talking about a line producer, or some fatcat wallet "executive producer", I'm talking about the actual job of producer.)
 
My name is not George Lucasfilm any more than William Fox's name was Twentieth Century-Fox.

:grin:
If it's about 'vision' shouldn't we require that the director who wants the 'film by' title also design the lighting and operate the camera? And since Art Direction is a big part of the vision, feel, etc shouldn't the director really have designed the sets, too...?
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They don't design them, but they do approve them to fit within "the vision". The particular set designer or artist who is hired is done so because presumably the director finds their work consistent with the director's vision.
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If I had a nickel for every time the producer over-ruled the director on sets, etc...I'd have a large pile of nickels.

In my experience directors rarely have final say on Production Designers; again that's producer territory.

While I still detest the 'a film by' credit I am indeed coming around to the view that if anyone should get it, it's the Producer.

Back to the days of 'David O. Selznick Presents,' or whatever...

everyone else's work is derivative off of the writer's.
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I'm thinking about Terry Rossio's story re: Godzilla and suspecting that he would vehemently disavow all responsibility for what the director chose to do with his submitted material. The writer only gets to make that claim in proportion to the degree to which the final work is really derived from his submitted script.
 
Sad Max said:
Well, it's giggle-worthy when you consider that it's almost unheard-of for a director to self-finance a studio picture. Particularly considering that even A-list directors probably couldn't leverage their homes to the tune of hundreds of millions of $$$...

Actually, I'm going out on a limb and suggesting that at least within the last twenty years, it *is* unheard-of.
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I wasn't talking about studio pictures or a-list directors. I was speaking directly about the crews and the directors which I worked with and used a budget of around 300k. I never implied a studio film would be self-financed..

Well the director can hire and choose amongst hundreds of potential set designers and cameramen. And from his interviews he can explain his own vision and see which set designer understands and can execute that vision appropriately. That is what I mean by the driving force behind a movies creation.

I didn't excise anything about the producer, but I was speaking about 1 situation where the director is the driving force, thereby it may be legitimate for him to put "a film by" credit.

If you know specific information about a producer being the driving force and hiring the directors in accordance to producer's vision, or just want to hypothesize about it, then I'd probably agree that its not right for the director to take that credit. Is it not directors/writers who put a project together and then go pitch it to find a producer, to realize their vision? Or are producers really out there dreaming and studying films/literature/images/life about stuff and saying to themselves, "I got to make this movie" and then finding a sweet director and crew to help them realize the vision?
 
Kubrick71 said:
Or are producers really out there dreaming and studying films/literature/images/life about stuff and saying to themselves, "I got to make this movie" and then finding a sweet director and crew to help them realize the vision?
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Yes. Very much so.

The kind of producer who would be picked/solicited by a director, is more likely to be not much more than a line producer.

A "real" producer is the driving force, the businessman who options or buys the property (screenplay, novel, videogame rights, whatever) and then assembles a team to make that film. The producer establishes the budget, raises the funds, arranges for a marketing and distribution plan, and hires all the team members (including the director).
 
Damn, if I were doing that I'd never let a director put "a film by" credit hahahaha.

But seriously, I know I can be naive at times (Im not in the industry, infact I've always cringed that it is an industry) but this is an entire paradigm shift for me.

Wow this is interesting.
 
If you were a savvy producer who knew that you could receive a lot more $$$ via enhanced ticket sales attracted by that 'A Film by' line, sure you would. ..wouldn't you?

It's weird and inconsistent because we're sort of talking about independent and low-budget and studio films, and marketing techniques versus production realities as though they were all one big ball of the same thing, which they aren't.

'Industry' has sort of become the default term probably because Shallow money trench where the wicked run rampant and good men die like dogs for no readily apparent reason is just too damn much of a mouthful.
 
And we should consider that we are talking about the USA right now. In Europe the director normally is the driving force. It is the directors film and he is not going to get fired by a producer.
 
Sad Max said:
If you were a savvy producer who knew that you could receive a lot more $$$ via enhanced ticket sales attracted by that 'A Film by' line, sure you would. ..wouldn't you?
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Probably. My responsibility as a producer is to make sure that the investors receive their full investment back, and more. Part of the way to do that is to make sure that you're producing the very most watchable, best film possible. And part is to tap into whatever branding, licensing, or technological edge you can get (such as 3-D, or whatever). If someone could demonstrate to me that "A film by Jack Daniel Stanley" would result in a 10% boost in ticket sales, versus "Directed by Jack Daniel Stanley", then yeah, hey, it's very likely gonna say "A film by Jack Daniel Stanley".

'Industry' has sort of become the default term probably because Shallow money trench where the wicked run rampant and good men die like dogs for no readily apparent reason is just too damn much of a mouthful.
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Well, it's an industry because we in the film industry manufacture a product. We manufacture an entertainment piece. It isn't really all that different from how one manufactures a house -- you hire a writer (architect) to design it, then the producer (general contractor) hires a crew (carpenters, plumbers etc) to build it, and then it's up to the producer to market and sell the finished product.
 
Simon Höfer said:
And we should consider that we are talking about the USA right now. In Europe the director normally is the driving force. It is the directors film and he is not going to get fired by a producer.
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Yes, we're describing the US film industry here.

Europe is different, in large part because Europe has had (or may still have) large film commissions granting money directly to directors, so an active producer is not nearly so integral to the process of getting something made.
 
When I like a movie I find out the director and watch everything he's ever done. And on a smaller scale I'll do this with cinematographers, writers, editors and actors. But this really shows me that I need to look even further and being doing this ESPECIALLY with producers and possibly other creative roles.

I've always thought of the producer as the businessman aspect of filmmaking. That if he wanted to get into the creatives he'd write or direct. Do you think these producers predominantly hire people to give creative ideas or hire them to execute his own creative ideas?

Good point about this being U.S. I actually watch about 80% foreign films and 20% American, which is still really off balance considering how many countries are making films.
 
The credit is ridiculous, plain and simple. Not only do they get the last credit before the movie begins, but they get "A Film by..." as well? Nobody should have more than one credit in a single credits for the exact same position.
 
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