WGA screenwriting credit system

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Credits for A Christmas Story. The names joined by "and" means that these three writers each worked separately on their drafts of the screenplay. See explanation below.
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Credits for A Christmas Story. The names joined by "and" means that these three writers each worked separately on their drafts of the screenplay. See explanation below.

In the United States, screenwriting credit for motion pictures and television programs under its jurisdiction is determined by the Writers Guild of America (WGA). The Guild is the final arbiter of who receives credit for writing the screenplay, the original story, or creating the original characters, a privilege it has possessed since 1941. If a production company is a signatory to the Guild's Basic Agreement, it must comply with the Guild's rules.

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[edit] Rationale

Before 1942, it was common for studios, producers, and directors to arbitrarily assign credit to favored writers or to themselves. One of the best known examples of this practice is Citizen Kane (1941). Orson Welles, the star, producer, and director of the film, assigned himself a writing credit in addition to Herman J. Mankiewicz, though Welles did not write the script [citation needed]. Despite Mankiewicz saying Welles was nothing more than "a juvenile delinquent credit stealer", Welles received his only competitive Oscar for the screenplay to Citizen Kane. (Mankiewicz's contract was signed three months before the agreement that gave the Guild control over credit and so he was not protected. Mankiewicz himself was accused of stealing when he was sued by a biographer of William Randolph Hearst for plagiarizing his work and paid a settlement.)

The system is seen as important to writers primarily for reputational purposes. Nearly all sources (e.g. the Internet Movie Database) list only the official credits certified by the WGA and ignore the contributions of others. John Howard Lawson, the first president of the Screen Writers Guild (the former name of the WGA) said "a writer's name is his most cherished possession. It is his creative personality, the symbol of the whole body of his ideas and experience".

The credit system also affects writers' eligibility for membership in the union, which is determined on a point system awarded on what a writer has done, and it affects future income. While all writers, credited or not, are paid for their work at the time, residual income from future exploitation of a film on video, pay-per-view, broadcast television, and the like, usually is paid only to the credited writers.

[edit] Process

Upon completion of a film, the producer must present the proposed credits for screenwriting to the guild. If any of the writers object or if credit is to be assigned to a producer or director of the film who rewrote someone else's screenplay the WGA requires the parties to compile drafts of the screenplays and an account of their work on each. This information is submitted to arbitration by a panel of three members of the Guild, which renders a decision.

The WGA resolutely rejects the auteur theory that only the director is the "author" of a film and so when a "production executive" (a producer or director) claims credit, he or she must meet a higher standard than others to receive credit. A writer must contribute at least one-third of the final screenplay to receive credit. If subsequent writers labor on an original screenplay, they must contribute more than half of the final screenplay to receive credit. If a production executive works on a script, he or she must contribute at least half the final product to receive credit.

Credit can be apportioned for the story, a short treatment of the plot and characters, and the screenplay itself when all writers were not equally involved in the creation of both. A credit might read "Story by John Doe. Screenplay by John Doe & Richard Roe."

Where a team of writers works on a screenplay the names are joined by an ampersand (&) and when two teams of writers work successively on a script, the teams are joined by and. So, a credit reading "John Doe & Richard Roe and Jane Doe & Jane Roe" means that there were two writing teams, John and Richard on one and the two Janes on the other.

Where a film has been based on a previous film, but does not remake it, a "based on characters created by" credit is given, such as on the show Frasier. Every episode gives credits to James Burrows, Glen Charles and Les Charles, the creators of Cheers, the show where the character of Dr. Frasier Crane originated.

Only three writers may be credited for the screenplay if they collaborated and a maximum of three teams of three may be credited no matter how many actually worked on it. For example, Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) had about a dozen writers, as did Hulk (2003). The film adaptation of The Flintstones (1994) supposedly had over sixty writers. Those awarded credit for creating the characters elsewhere and the original story are not included in this limit.

The Guild also permits use of pseudonyms if a writer requests one in a timely fashion but has been known to refuse to accept one which makes a statement. For example, screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski wanted to take his name off the Babylon 5 spin-off series Crusade and substitute "Eiben Scrood" ("I been screwed") to protest the changes made by the production company. The WGA refused, however, because "it 'diminished the value' of the show and basically made light of the studio" said Straczynski.[1]

[edit] Examples

Here are some examples of more complicated credits the WGA has approved in recent years.

[edit] Arbitration

The arbitration process has been vocally criticized by some Guild members. However, the Guild has won most lawsuits against it, the WGA membership overwhelmingly rejected changes to the arbitration procedures in 2002, and writer Eric Hughes — who made reform a centerpiece of his campaign for the WGA West presidency — lost the election in 2004.

A chief objection is the secrecy of the process. The identities of the arbiters are secret and so the parties have no way to object to the qualifications or possible biases of their judges. Second, the decision itself is secret, even from the parties to the dispute, so they have no way of knowing why they lost or won credit. Secret decisions also make an appeal impossible and leave no precedent for future disputes. (There is an appeal panel, but it only concerns itself with technical details as to whether the rulebook was followed.)

One criticism of the process often raised concerns existing material, such as a book, being adapted to film. Generally, the first writer to work on such a project will naturally appropriate the most cinematic elements of the story, but other teams subsequently working on the script may take their cues not from the first draft, but, again, from the original text itself. Barry Levinson, the director of Wag the Dog (1998) and a disputant over screenwriting credit for the film (which was adapted from a novel), says:

If a writer creates an idea from scratch, that's one thing. Even if the script is given to other writers and rewritten, that first writer created the seeds of that idea and he or she should get some regard. But for a script from a book, it's different.

Even if little of the initial efforts remain in the final script, the original writer is often awarded credit because he or she was first on the scene.

[edit] Examples of credit conflicts and resolutions

"Just by virtue of being the first guy in the door, you're going to get the credit," says Scott Rosenberg. For example, Miracle (2004), the film about Herb Brooks and the American 1980 Olympic ice hockey team's "Miracle on Ice", was based on a screenplay by Eric Guggenheim, a writer who had never had a screenplay produced. Mike Rich came in, worked with Brooks' family, and labored for over two years on it, leaving nothing of Guggenheim's original except for the historical facts the story was based on. Despite his work, the WGA denied Rich any credit at all. Guggenheim himself was surprised by Rich being cut out completely.

Graham Yost, the credited writer of the film Speed, has stated publicly that "Joss Whedon wrote 98.9 percent of the dialogue...We were very much in sync, it's just that I didn't write the dialogue as well as he did. That was a hard part of the whole Speed thing. It's my name up there, but I didn't write the whole thing. But I fought hard to get that credit, so I'll live with it." Writers are often granted credits for generating overall ideas, setting up story arcs or creating plot points, as would seem to be the case with Speed.

Frank Pierson, formerly WGA president and the current (as of 2005) president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, says "the large majority of credits are still straightforward and uncontested" but "when they go wrong, they go horribly wrong." Phil Alden Robinson says "No one can trust the writing credit. Nobody knows who really wrote the film."

When Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) was adapted for the screen, Alex Cox and Tod Davies did the initial adaptation. Terry Gilliam was brought in to direct and he rewrote it with Tony Grisoni. The Guild initially denied Gilliam and Grisoni any credit at all even though Gilliam claimed nothing of the original adaptation remained in the final film. "As a director, I was automatically deemed a 'production executive' by the Guild and, by definition, discriminated against. But for Tony to go without any credit would be really unfair." After complaints, the Guild did award Gilliam and Grisoni credit in addition to Cox and Davies but Gilliam resigned from the union over the dispute. "It's really a Star Chamber," said Gilliam of the arbitration process, which he claimed took more work than the screenplay itself.

From 1993 to 1997, there were 415 arbitrations, about one-third of all films whose credits were submitted.

[edit] References

When the article focuses on certain films, they are noted in parenthesis after the citation

[edit] See also

For a similar conflict resolution technique in the film directing credit, see Alan Smithee.

[edit] External links

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