Looking at the credit proposals
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) determines who is the credited writer on a feature film. This is a Good Thing. It prevents studios, producers and directors from grabbing undeserved credit. But it makes for a lot of work and controversy within the Guild, because inevitably some writers will not receive credit they believe they deserve. It’s not just a matter of pride and bragging rights. Credits also determine who receives residuals.
For readers unfamiliar with how screen credits work, here’s the briefest introduction.
Let’s say you write a movie, and it gets made. If you were the only writer who worked on it, you get “Written by” credit, both on screen and in advertising.
If another writer was hired to work on the movie, then the two of you attempt to figure out who gets credit, possibly dividing up “Story by” and “Screenplay by” credit. For instance, you might take “Story by” while sharing the “Screenplay by” credit.1
What happens if you and the other writer can’t figure out a fair deal? Arbitration.
The Guild recruits three members (writers) to read all of the relevant drafts and determine who should get credit. Both the arbiters and the participating writers remain anonymous — the drafts are labelled “Writer A,” “Writer B,” etc.
It’s an exhausting and imperfect process, and the source of never-ending conversation among any gathering of more than three working screenwriters.
This week, the joint credits review committee of the WGAw and WGAE sent out three proposals for amending the credits process. They’re very modest, and don’t try to tackle any of the bigger and more controversial topics2
But they’re worth close examination.
1. Arbiter Teleconference In the Case of Non-Unanimous Decisions
The current manual states that each arbiter shall reach his/her decision independently of the other arbiters and that there shall be no conference among the members of the Arbitration Committee. The proposed change would allow for a Guild-hosted teleconference among the arbiters and the Arbitration Consultant in the event the Arbitration Committee is unable to reach a unanimous decision as to the appropriate writing credit. The identities of the arbiters would remain confidential during the teleconference. If a unanimous decision is not reached during the teleconference, the majority decision will be final.
Easy yes. I’ve served on several arbitrations that have resulted in split decisions, and would have greatly appreciated the ability to talk with the other two arbiters about how they reached their decisions and why. Did they notice something I didn’t? Is there something I could point out to them? Generally, these decisions come down to pretty small issues that merit discussion.
Currently, when arbiters are coming up with different credits, it falls on a WGA staffer to talk to each arbiter individually and see there is common ground to be reached. Not only is it inefficient, but it introduces an outside element to the decision.
A telephone conference call maintains the anonymity and autonomy of the process, and should result in better, quicker and more thoughtful decisions.
2. Eliminate Relaxed (“Any Substantial Contribution�) Standard
The current manual states that where a production executive or production executive team makes the requisite contribution to receive screenplay credit, the Arbitration Committee may — but is not obligated to — accord any other writer screenplay credit for “any substantial contribution,â€? without that writer meeting any specific percentage requirement. The proposed change would eliminate the relaxed standard and provide that the normal percentages apply, even where one of the participating writers is a production executive or a production executive team.
Yeah, my eyes glazed over too. It’s difficult to parse. So let’s break it down.
“Production executive” in this case means a producer or director, rather than a studio suit. So the proposal is talking about situations in which one of the participating writers on the project is also the producer or director. For sake of example, let’s call her WRITER B. 3
As the rules stand now, if Writer B gets credit, the arbitration panel may also award credit to any other writer who provides “any substantial contribution,” disregarding the normal percentage requirements.
This is weird.
You’re throwing out all the rules and asking the arbiters to possibly consider awarding credit based on an oxymoron (“any substantial”), without offering guidance as to why the special case exists.
My hunch is that the “any substantial contribution” clause was enacted to thwart a situation in which a writer-director (or writer-producer) rewrites someone else’s script so completely that the original writer would find it impossible to get credit based on real percentages.
Having been on both sides of arbitrations, I can tell you that it’s extremely unlikely for the original writer of a spec script to come out uncredited. But the real question is why this special case only kicks in when one of the writers is also a producer or director — a situation that already requires a higher threshold to receive credit — and why it doesn’t just apply to the original writer, but ANY writer who works on the movie.
It’s a weird, bad, dangerous precedent, and it should be changed. So I vote yes on the proposal.
3. Eliminate 60% Rule for Production Executive Teams
The current manual states that where a subsequent writer is a production executive team (i.e., one or more members of the team is a production executive), the team must contribute “substantially more than 60%� to receive screenplay credit. This rule applies even if one of the team members is not a production executive. The proposed change would reduce the threshold for a production executive team to receive screenplay credit from “substantially more than 60%� to “more than 50%.� The change would bring subsequent production executive teams into line with subsequent production executives who write alone, who are currently subject to a “more than 50%� requirement.
Again, not the easiest paragraph to read, but easy to agree with once you understand it. Let’s take it from the bottom to the top.
Currently, for a Production Executive (really, a writer-director or writer-producer) to receive credit, she must have contributed more than 50%. That’s higher than the threshold for non-production executives, which stands at 33%.
Currently, if a Production Executive is writing as a member of a team (for example, Todd McClever & Sarah Goodwit, of which Goodwit is the director), they need to show that they’ve contributed “substantially more than 60%.”
This doesn’t make sense.
Why should McClever’s presence change anything?
The proposal has it right: if we’re going to set a higher threshold for hyphenates, it needs to be consistent.
The upshot
All three get a “yes” from me.
But make no mistake: they’re very modest improvements. Over the next few years, the real discussion needs to be how to accurately and fairly recognize who wrote on a movie. The current credits system reflects failed attempts at social engineering, penalizing hyphenates and encouraging writers to make Hail-Mary attempts at credit through arbitration, since it’s the only way they’ll see their name on something.
For now, though, the committee deserves a thank you for presenting three proposals for patching glaring holes in the current setup.
- When you see two writers names separated by “and” in the credits, that means they worked independently, as opposed to an ampersand (&), which denotes a writing team like Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel. ↩
- Foremost of these is the Catering Analogy. Currently, the guy who drives the catering truck has his name listed in the end credits of a movie, but a writer who spent months toiling on it gets no mention at all, even though her impact on the final product is much greater. ↩
- For WGA credits, a writing team is treated as a single writer, so the same would apply if it were two writers working together. But note also proposal #3. ↩
Articles
June 12th, 2008 at 11:11 am
John, sorry about this off-topic, but have you written about your Dark Shadows screenplay?! Are you going to? P. S. Celtx 1.0 was released a few days ago.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Thanks for breaking this down John. I’ve seen other people explain the current proposals pretty well, but I didn’t understand what rules they were supplanting. I’m not sure I understand why hyphenates are discouraged by the old rules. Was it to prevent directors and producers from meddling with scripts?
PS – I believe you have a copy and paste problem in paragraph 8. Took me a couple passes to parse.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
@Erik:
Thanks. Fixed.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
John,
Thanks a ton. Just got the proposals in the mail yesterday and was hoping someone would help me make sense of them. Also, for some reason it never dawned on me that credits affect residuals, though of course that would be true.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:55 am
I may be completely wrong, but didn’t George Clooney resign the WGA after they refused to give him a writing credit for his movie “Leatherheads”, because of a situation like one of the above mentioned?
June 13th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Clooney also directed “Leatherheads”, which under WGA rules puts him at a disadvantage creditwise. I think as a director he has to contribute 50% rather than 33%.
On the other hand, Bobby Florsheim and Josh Stolberg didn’t even get a story credit on “Evan Almighty”, even though the project originated with their spec script “The Passion of the Ark”. But Morgan Freeman’s trainer got TWO credits (one as trainer, one as security).
June 13th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I don’t know the specifics of the Clooney situation. But yes, since he directed, the thresholds were higher. And if he was co-writing with another writer, the current rules would have required “substantially more than 60%.”
But again, I don’t know the exact details.
Nor do I know specifics about Evan Almighty, though I recall something about two scripts existing and/or getting combined.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
John, hey this has nothing to do with your posting, but i was running through some older things and came across the blog by Adam Davis about his first couple months in LA trying to find work. I was COMPLETELY impressed and so very glad that i was able to read that because i plan on making the move to LA in a couple months to do that exact thing. The story was great and i truly enjoyed reading it. I was wondering if you could hook me up with Adam’s email address so i can ask him some more questions and just pick his brain a little. Thanks a lot and definitly keep up the good work!
June 13th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Do you think these changes represent a change in how writers perceive hyphenates, even what hyphenates are? Seems like previously they were producers or directors who thought they could write and thus grabbed another credit for themselves, making them the enemy of real writers. Now it seems that more and more its writers taking on those extra roles.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Wow, I never knew about the ‘and’ vs. ‘&’ thing. Very interesting, thanks!
June 14th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Isn’t No. 2 the one that Steven Soderbergh got caught up in with the script for THE UNDERNEATH? It was based on the film CRISS CROSS which was adapted from the novel of the same name by Don Tracy.
Arbitration triggered by the fact that Soderbergh was the director on the project ended up awarded co-writer status to Daniel Fuchs, the screenwriter of the 1949 version of the film, despite the fact that he hadn’t worked on the remake at all.
There does seem to be a need to distinguish between true hyphenates, who have been with the project since blank page status, and those who come in later in the process.
June 16th, 2008 at 1:24 am
When did this come in? Seems a very specific rule. I happened to watch Manhattan last night and it was credited as “Written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman”. I thought they wrote that movie together in the same room.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:29 am
“Flightplan” was credited to Peter A. Dowling AND Billy Ray. To my knowledge – from what I can piece together from the DVD/EPK -, Dowling came up with the idea and wrote the script and Ray rewrote him, but they didn’t work together. However they did agree on the shared credits. If it went to arbitration, perhaps it would have read “Story by Peter A. Dowling, Screenplay by Peter A. Dowling and Billy Ray”. But it didn’t.
I doubt in the near future we will see main credits that read: “Story by Screenwriter 1, Screenplay by Screenwriter 1 and Screenwriter 2, Additional dialogue by…” and then a long list of writers. It would look weird, even though it’s often true. But we might see an Additional Writing credit at the end of the film, in the same font as the stunt guys.
But if you saw that one of the writers on “Crimson Tide” or “The Rock” was Quentin Tarantino (and I believe he worked on both those films), wouldn’t you assume he wrote all the best lines?
June 16th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Thanks for this inside look, John. Credits are certainly one of the more mystifying parts of the writing business and I love learning more about how they work (even if I end up more confused in the process).
This mishigas is clearly one of the reasons that the possessory credit still eludes writers — after all, there’s only ever one director (or two in rare cases), but five or six credited writers is not unusual. But, of course, you could also say that both these issues are symptomatic of the regard with which the rest of Hollywood holds writers. If the original writer were deemed as integral to the project as the director, the vast majority of produced films would have only one credited writer or writing team, and it would be easy to assign possessory credit in the same manner as is used for directors.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
People assume QT wrote all the best lines in “Crimson Tide” anyway, and they’re wrong, as he, to his credit, will tell you. The current system doesn’t just devalue the work of the dis-credited writers, it devalues the work of the credited writers as well, since those writers who get de-credited get to take advantage of the widespread dissatisfaction with the current system and go around town taking credit for all the best lines coughJossWhedoncouch.
No one is well served by the current system. It’s based on the screwed-up outdated idea that collaborative artwork in inherently inferior to the work of a “lone genius”. That’s not true, and I think that the cultural underpinnings behind that assumption have fallen away.
The WGA is the only union that spends most of its time and denying its own members credit for their hard work. It’s crazy.
Give every writer credit. Bring back the “Additional Dialog By” credit.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Um, one of those coughs become a couch. Whoops.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:09 am
I really enjoyed this breakdown, I’m a member of the WGAE, but I’m a member due to my journalism work rather than screen writing so this doesn’t really directly apply to me, but it was interesting none the less.
I do have an unrelated question, that you may or may not know the answer to. You used the correct capitalization for the two branches in your acronyms (WGAw and WGAE) but I’ve never really been able to find an answer too why the two have such different capitalization schemes for the cardinal directions in their name. Why does the WGAE use a capitol E and the WGAw use a lower case w?
Finally, I’d also like to thank you for all of your coverage of the strike last year. I really enjoyed reading it, though never really felt like I had much to contribute in comments.
June 18th, 2008 at 6:24 am
As a film editor, I’m curious: is WGA arbitration based upon the final shooting script of the film, or the final cut of the film?
June 21st, 2008 at 2:10 am
Frank Reynolds asks a good question. Also, will there be any moves to address the Director’s ‘by’ credit at the beginning of all moves? Its fine for Writer/Directors but for Directors its misleading. The Screenwriter should at the very least be co-credited with the Director in such a manner, no?
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Thanks to John for doing such a good job of explaining our gobbledegook.
Frank asks:
Essentially, the final cut of the film. Credit is for the “final script,” and that’s defined as the script as shown on the screen. If it’s in the movie the audience sees in theaters, it’s in the final script. If it’s not, it ain’t.
Andre Gayle asks:
Not likely. This issue is at the genesis of the great DGA-WGA rift, and when the WGA successfully negotiated to get rid of the possessory credit, the DGA then threatened to strike unless it was restored, which it was.
Ultimately, we have to negotiate big credit issues with the companies. In my opinion, the “film by” credit is ensconced. I don’t like the credit, and I didn’t even take it when I was the director and sole writer. However, fighting this credit has cost us more in possible unity with the DGA than it’s earned us in prestige.
And the credit’s still there.
Just my .02 on that.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Craig, your answer to Frank raises a question for me. Imagine a situation where there are two screenwriters. Writer A creates a solid but unspectacular script. Writer B is brought in and dramatically expands the script, creating new and important characters, fully developing the theme, adding major new plot elements, essentially transforming the screenplay.
Writer B is clearly responsible for a good 60% of the new version. The director shoots this second version, resulting in a 3-hour epic. The studio edits it down to 90 minutes and releases the short version. The edited version cuts out so much of Writer B’s work that Writer B gets no credit, and no residuals. Later, for whatever reason, the studio decides to release a “director’s cut” and puts out the three-hour version. Let’s say that re-release makes solid art-house grosses and sells a ton of DVDs.
You know where I’m going. In this case, is there any way Writer B can get the appropriate screen credit on the expanded version of the film, and get those deserved residuals?
August 5th, 2008 at 10:41 am
To respond to Scott’s comment –
Clooney also directed “Leatherheads”, which under WGA rules puts him at a disadvantage creditwise. I think as a director he has to contribute 50% rather than 33%.
– Leatherheads was an original screenplay, so Clooney would have had to prove a 50% contribution whether or not he was the director. (In an original screenplay, any subsequent writer has to prove 50%, only the original writer must contribute 33%.)
And to answer Frank’s question –
is WGA arbitration based upon the final shooting script of the film, or the final cut of the film?
– the WGA arbitration is based on the final shooting script. If requested by a writer or the studio, a “cutting continuity script” can be submitted for reference and not attributed to any writer. However, in most cases, a cutting continuity script is not given to the arbiters.