Thought of the Day 11.18.09

I know in advance that I’m likely to be accused of reading too much into things with today’s observation, and that’s probably a fair criticism. Nevertheless, the other day we were watching a movie, and it suddenly struck me as quite odd that every last little contribution to the motion picture needs to be named in the credits.

A car doesn’t typically come with a brochure in the glove box telling me the names of all the engineers, accountants, and line workers who made it. The computer I’m writing this thought on was produced by the collaboration of innumerable people, most of whom will forever remain anonymous to me. And the same is true of most everything we own or enjoy, including most art other than movies. So why the distinction?

Perhaps one might say it’s merely easier to give credit here than in other endeavors, but I don’t think that’s the reason. To me, it’s arrogance. “Our work matters more than yours does. Look, we even have an awards show.” But this pride belies a tragedy.

See, the line worker who assembled my car long ago learned how to take joy in merely knowing his work makes other people’s lives better. The understudy to the assistant third foley, unfortunately, needs to see his name on that screen in order to feel significant.
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4 comments:

Unknown said...

You expected it - here it is (all in fun of course).

Having had a VERY brief experience working in the movie industry I can say I have a problem with your analogy.

Where a person working in an auto manufacturing facility has some sense of permanence in his job, coming in every day, doing a day's work and getting a day's pay, people in the movie industry don't.

After a movie is over, they're basically "unemployed" until they sign onto their next movie.

In the case of an auto worker, if they move on to a new job, the new employer can simply call up the old employer to verify employment but how can you verify employment for a completed movie? Who can you call? I may be wrong on this but I don't think there is one, aside from credits. Credits act as a resume for the people involved, as a way to prove their "employment history".

In college I took a class on running sound equipment and my teacher would regularly say "You're only as good as your last gig." And I think this is the intended point with credits.

All that said, I think many people in the industry can take it as a mark of pride to have their name attached to something famous and seen by millions. But the same can be true perhaps of any industry. I think the awards shows you mention are a greater example of this than the credits are. Even though one could argue that they encourage directors and actors to aspire to a greater quality standard for the sake of the award. And even the auto industry has awards but they aren't as big a media event.

There is relevance to the point you make about arrogance, and by way of example movie credits show how easy it can be. I'd personally be more worried of becoming prideful in a different industry, such as an auto worker, where it doesn't appear to ever be a problem. As I have heard said many times over, we are weakest where we think we are stongest - because we don't think we need to be careful in our strengths.

November 18, 2009 at 8:51 AM
Andrew Tallman said...

My very favorite part of your comment is the very first line. As you said, I anticipated something like this, but what I most love about people who listen to my show and/or comment on this blog is the charity even in disagreement!

I actually think it would be cool for a car to come with a list of the names of the people who made it.

Also, why didn't movies in the past have this practice of listing everyone? And do they really list everyone (such as marketing and promotions people), or only those who contributed to the production of the piece?

I know in radio we have this tradition of telling people who else is on the air or working on the broadcast, and even so I always feel weird omitting all the people who make our on-air jobs possible.

November 18, 2009 at 12:34 PM
Unknown said...

"why didn't movies in the past have this practice of listing everyone?"

Well, like I mentioned I had VERY little exposure to the industry. I have a coupe of friends who are more into it than I am but I doubt they know for sure why it wasn't done in the past. So I'm left to speculate why.

My best guess would be that it cost too much. Technology has improved dramatically in the past few years and I wouldn't be surprised if the labor to add a name to the credits made it too expensive to add every name, so they only added the top names. Now with everything being computerized its very little effort to add a bunch of names. As it is, I have yet to see a movie where each unpaid extra is credited by name. Normally it's something like "Thanks to the extras" if even that. But maybe some day even extras will be named in the credits.

I have heard rumors too that placement order in the credits is part of the contract negotiations, which wouldn't surprise me but I can't really say for sure. Most of my experience is from reading the actual credits. I have noticed that when a separate business entity does work for the movie they credit the business, not each involved employee of the business (such as crediting "Industrial Light and Magic" instead of everyone who works for ILM).

My guess would be that if you work on a movie directly (as opposed to working on it through an associated business like ILM) you get credited directly.

And I too think it would be interesting to see a list of names responsible for the manufacture of something. Although each name would have virtually no significance to me - since they too would "forever remain anonymous to me" it would be entertaining to see how many people were actually involved. But my skeptical side says it would eventually get misused by sue-happy people who want to name everyone for some wrong committed against them because they failed to use the product properly or with common sense.

Lastly, I was sitting here thinking about your last comment - "I always feel weird omitting all the people who make our on-air jobs possible." I was thinking about how would I handle that. I started with listing everyone I could think of and ending with "and lots more I can't remember" but that seemed an injustice to those unnamed people when I named others. As if to say the named people were more important. I thought it seemed unfair though that the only reason some weren't named was because of my failing memory. My mental picture is those very award shows where the award winner struggles in a 30 second window to remember everyone he wanted to personally thank, and I think I'd feel like that every time I wanted to verbally list the "credits". So that train of thought got me to wondering - would it be better to say something like "Don't thank me, thank God and everyone He used to make it happen"? Even if it was something as simple as dinner? Seems to me that its only fair that if I can't name everyone I'll just stick to the most important. And Creator/created feels like a good divider for importance to me, not to mention it helps keep me in the right mindset for who deserves the credit - something I have a hard enough time with already.

November 18, 2009 at 3:41 PM
cliffmeister2000 said...

Hi, Andrew.

A couple of thoughts on the credits for a movie...

1. Recognition is cheaper than money. All those credits were negotiated.
2. Those credits are the 3rd assistant foley artist's resume for the next job.
3. Hollywood is notorious for insecurity, while this is a relatively new phenomenon for the auto industry.

I often watch all of the credits, because I like to see who did the music, and it is always the last thing credited. Fast forward helps at home, not at the theatre. :-)

It is interesting also, that when the credits were short, they were shown at the beginning of the movie. Now that they are a production of their own (some movies credit the person who did the credits)and are shown at the end, almost no one sees them (unless they are waiting for the song credits).

God Bless,

Cliff

November 19, 2009 at 6:48 AM

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