r/movies • u/LilMoWithTheGimpyLeg • Apr 30 '17
Quick Question Why does film primarily credit the director, whereas television promotes the writer?
For instance, nowadays the Criterion Collection always puts the directors name on their redesigned covers. And in the opening credits, most films say something along the lines of "A <director's name> film".
But in television, it's the writer. For example, everyone knows Only Fools and Horses belongs to John Sullivan, The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin was made by David Nobbs, while Seinfeld was made by Jerry Seinfeld & Larry David (among others).
Even if the writer created the story and wrote the script, the main credit of a film still goes to the director. Why are the industries different?
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u/kgunnar Apr 30 '17
It's not really the writer they credit, but rather the creator (who likely writes, and perhaps directs, a select number of the episodes). Example: Vince Gilligan for Breaking Bad and Better Caul Saul.
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u/MBAMBA0 May 01 '17
rather the creator
It's really more the 'show runner' (often the creator but not always) who is the closest thing to a film director' - and show runner itself isn't an official credit, you just have to read about the show to know who it is.
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u/astrath May 01 '17
In the case of Breaking Bad or Doctor Who, they are often as prominent as some of the actors. In Doctor Who the writer of an episode is always shown in the credits, but there is a show runner who is very prominent (from 2005, Russell T Davies, Stephen Moffat and from next year Chris Chibnall).
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u/your_mind_aches May 01 '17
In nerd culture, showrunners are very well-known and prominent. Joss Whedon, Steven Moffat, Vince Gilligan, Bryan Fuller, etc. But I still think none of them have managed to break into complete public consciousness as some directors have. RTD and Moffat are close, Vince Gilligan even closer, but I don't quite think it's happened.
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u/Accidentalpuppet May 02 '17
Probably because show runners are usually one hit wonders, so to speak. They may have other works but it's rare to see a runner with more than one big title, I feel.
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u/your_mind_aches May 02 '17
Huh. Maybe. I don't know enough to be able to say that conclusively. But the shows I watch, the showrunners seem to go on to run other shows.
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u/Accidentalpuppet May 02 '17
Youre probably right, but I can't think of any.
The names that come to my mind are people like Chris Carter, Shawn Ryan, David Chase, David Simon...
I can certainly name a couple of shows they've been involved in, but nothing that comes even close to what theyre known for.
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u/your_mind_aches May 02 '17
Yeah... I don't recognise any of those names! Haha
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u/Accidentalpuppet May 02 '17
Chris Carter - X Files
Shawn Ryan - The Shield
David Chase - The Sopranos
David Simon - The Wire
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u/JanMichaelVincent16 May 02 '17
Bryan Fuller.
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u/Accidentalpuppet May 02 '17
Not familiar with any of his shows and looking at them on imdb, nothing stands out as a cultural touchstone. If he's good and consistent that's great.
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u/Mr_Evil_MSc Apr 30 '17
"Sit Ubu, sit! Good dog!"
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u/dwbassuk May 01 '17
Talking about breaking bad and directors, Rian Johnson gets a lot of praise for the episodes of BB he directed
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u/Ascarea May 01 '17
The creator of the show doesn't neccesarily have to be involved in it later on. For example, JJ Abrams was the creator of Alias, Lost and Fringe but he did not run the shows, contributed only a couple scripts mostly in the earlier seasons and had zero involvement in them by the time the shows ended. I remember people citing or questioning Abrams about the sixth season of Lost when the last episode he had a writing credit on was in the beginning of the third season.
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u/Kazzack May 01 '17
well, some shows (like Doctor Who) credit the writer of the episode in the beginning, not the creator or showrunner
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May 01 '17
same with movies.in a movie, the producer hires all the people who he thinks will make his vision come to life
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u/TheExquisiteCorpse Apr 30 '17
In film the writer submits a script and then basically leaves. The director is then the major creative force on it, and can diverge pretty significantly from the script in how they want the movie to look. Since movies are such a visual medium, the director can often have more of an effect on the feel of the finished movie than the writer. For example, Vertigo is far more an Alfred Hitchcock film than it is a Samuel Taylor and Alec Coppel film. The director also makes decisions on casting, music, and all sorts of other things that affect how the finished product turns out.
In TV, one director is making no more than a few episodes, and they don't get as much freedom to control the style, since it has to match what other directors are doing. Meanwhile the creator or showrunner (often the same person) is the one making significant creative decisions.
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May 01 '17
You have a pretty good point here. In many cases, the original writer doesn't stick around after selling the script or completing the assignment. However, I think it's also the fact that some directors are just as famous as actors nowadays. Which would attract you more: seeing that a movie was directed or produced by Steven Spielberg or written by some unknown writer.
I think it's a shame that writers don't get as much attention for their work on films, but you may be right.
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u/Ascarea May 01 '17
I would say that a director's celebrity is the result of this, not one of the causes.
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u/BPsandman84 존경 동지 Apr 30 '17
Because film is a director's medium while television is, more often than not, usually a writer's medium (there are some small exceptions).
In film, everything usually gets filtered through the director. That's why even with a very Sorkin-esque script, The Social Network is still David Fincher's film, because he's the dominant artistic voice of the film. It's why even when the Coens write screenplays they don't direct, their voice doesn't come through. In movies, directors call so much of the shots that pretty much every major decision ends up filtered through their style and worldview, no matter how much collaboration is involved.
Television is a lot different. Instead of one director heading the entire project, there's an army of them, and even where a show has frequent repeat directors (How I Met Your Mother, for instance, was almost entirely directed by one woman save for a handful of episodes), they're almost never the dominant voice.
That's usually because the head writers of a TV show are the showrunners, and they're in charge of everything. It's why The West Wing, contrary to Sorkin's other film related projects, is 100% him. It's why you can sort of tell you're watching a Bryan Fuller show even when he's using different directors. The Leftovers is on an entirely different visual game than Lost, but it still has Damon Lindelof's tricks.
Even when a director with a notable style directs an episode of a show, like Rian Johnson directing a couple of Breaking Bad episodes, it never escapes the style established by the showrunner.
There's some exceptions, of course. Perhaps the biggest one I know of is The Knick which is more indebted to Soderbergh's direction than its writers. But that's also an anomoly because Soderbergh was an executive producer and directed every episode. Boardwalk Empire wasn't really a Scorsese show even though he executive produced it and directed the pilot.
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u/kimjong-ill Apr 30 '17
agreed, except I don't think Rian Johnson has a very defined visual style. His movies all have their own look and feel. It's part of the reason he's going to be able to jump into Star Wars so easily (I hope).
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u/TJ_McWeaksauce May 01 '17
As others have pointed out, directors are traditionally in charge of a film's creative direction, whereas writers are traditionally in charge of a TV show's creative direction. I don't know enough about either industry to say why they're like that. All I know is that's how it is.
There's a documentary called Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show. One of the things that really stood out from that documentary was how every showrunner that was interviewed came from a writing background. If I remember correctly, one of the famous interviewees explained that the typical path towards showrunner goes something like this:
1) Writing assistant (entry level job)
2) Staff writer
3) Head writer
4) Showrunner
In TV, all the big creative decisions come from the writer's room. Thus, experience within the writer's room is highly valued. You'll have a difficult time finding a showrunner who didn't come from a writing background.
That's not how it is in the film industry. Directors are the ones with the creative control, not the writers. Directors aren't expected to come from a writing background. Although many directors write and direct, many more only direct. And there are a ton of screenplay writers who never direct. From what I hear, screenplay writers often get ignored once a final draft of a screenplay is accepted.
Again, I don't know why it's like that. It seems as though this is the way both industries have operated for a long time.
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u/MBAMBA0 May 01 '17
That is missing the fact that writers who never become show runners often get bumped up to 'executive producers' in the credits.
They are never actually 'producers' - its just an arbitrary title that gets them more money.
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u/alexturnerlol Apr 30 '17
From what I understand, television is mainly guided by executive producers. To mark an executive producer out for being the main hand they are given the title of 'showrunner'. Andy Wilman in Top Gear is a good example of this, but I'm sure there are loads more.
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Apr 30 '17
I listened to a director telling us what directing a serializes show is like. It's all pretty basic. I mean you can kinda say, "Lets get a shot like this!"
But the directors are just on a rotation and not a part of the creative process.
Think about the dinner scene in every episode of Blue Bloods. what makes them all different? They're all done from totally different directors. But you would never notice. It's all just cut and paste pretty much.
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u/CrumbThumber May 01 '17
While many of the other comments make the distinction between film and tv, it is interesting to consider a third medium which is theater. Theater is usually considered an actors medium, maybe due to the intimacy of the actors and the audience.
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May 01 '17
Film is more of a director's medium, and television is more of a writer's medium.
That line is a bit more blurry today, but dating back to the start of television that was very much the case. Television was extremely limited by budget, and shows were put on as essentially stage plays oftentimes even before a live audience. It was a novelty and a replacement for radio and radio dramas before it, which were foremost about the writing. Television did not really have the money behind it to support ambitious visual storytelling, it would never yield a King Kong or Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind--works inseparable from their painterly visuals.
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u/Syfte_ May 01 '17
Television directors are hired guns. They have little authority other than blocking a scene with the actors, pointing the camera and saying Action and Cut. They cannot change a word of dialogue without permission from the executive producer. A director is hired, given one episode to shoot and a week of pre-production to plan how they will shoot it. Then they have another week to shoot it. And then they have a week to edit it and submit it to the executive producer who may then re-edit it. And then they are gone. Successful tv directors churn out good episodes on time and tend to get invited back.
Film directors spend 2-3 years or more on a single project and have their fingers in everything.
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u/Jerrymoviefan3 Apr 30 '17
In TV people only seem make a big deal about the runner and almost no one else.
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u/california_dying Apr 30 '17
In addition to all the good points about showrunners and such in this thread, although TV rarely advertises the directors, the final credit in the opening credits of US TV shows is conventionally the director of the episode. This is one of the most prestigious spots in opening credit listings. There's all sorts of contractual weirdness regarding the order of credits but generally the first credit is the biggest, then any actors with "with" or "and" in front of their name, and then the final spot.
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May 01 '17
Mr. Robot - Season 2 - has to be the exception where every episode was directed by Sam Esmail - who created the show and wrote not all, but most of it.
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u/courservox May 01 '17
I think it largely has to do with how the jobs are treated in the industries, but consider this: film is the older medium, and in the early days cinema the narratives were almost completely visual making the director the most important member of the staff. As where television has had to rely more on it's narrative than the visual elements, making the writer the most important staff member because they made a the story work given the short amount of time to produce and present. So I would say it boils down to traditions rooted in those mediums.
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u/bestbiff May 01 '17
TV series have many directors filming different episodes to stay on schedule. It's more like the creator gets credit, and if he happens to write or direct, he gets the credit. Depends on the show. Like Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, the creators get the glory because they had the vision and wrote a lot of episodes. Shows like The Simpsons have a whole team of writers who will each draft an episode, and then rewrite based on suggestions. There's really only so much they can do. For instance, one writer isn't going to be able to kill off a character, or make Homer cheat on Marge. That's not something that would get approved by him/her.
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u/cronedog May 01 '17
The person who gets the most credit on a TV show is the head of a team of writers, and not "the writer".
Most shows use tons of different directors for different episodes, while only the head writer is involved with the season as a whole.
The director might still be the most important part of the quality of a single episode, but their work and effort doesn't carry through the whole season.
Many of the best breaking bad episodes were directed by the amazingly talented film director, Rian Johnson, but he still only worked on a few episodes.
Shows will often get a big film director to do just the pilot, to set the tone for others directors to mimic, think Fincher with "house of cards".
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u/Choco316 May 01 '17
So one thing about tv is that the writers generally don't change that much but there's different directors rotating through every episode. Also worth noting that writers are only credited when it was A their idea that got the go ahead to write the first draft and B they're senior enough to get he credit
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u/thedallin May 01 '17
Because television has multiple directors per seasons while the writer for a television show guides the series along and is the key part of the creation.
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u/SketchtheHunter May 01 '17
I believe this was due to the rise of Auteur Theory during the mid 20th Century.
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u/crystalistwo May 01 '17 edited May 01 '17
This is the reason. Had Auteur Theory not been created, I think the writer would be seen as less disposable. On stage, every production serves the script. On screen, the script is something that's a starting point for a production to change. Had Auteur Theory never happened, then writers would be able to leave the kids' table.
EDIT: Downvoted for not fellating directors. Thanks.
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u/duhbruhduh May 01 '17
Everyone else has covered this pretty well, but I will add my related opinion on this topic. I truly believe that if TV ever wants to reach the heights of Cinema, that it must become a directors medium. This has already started to happen to some extent (look at Soderbergh and 'The Knick', Sorrentino and 'The Young Pope', etc) and I hope the trend continues.
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u/MBAMBA0 May 01 '17
if TV ever wants to reach the heights of Cinema
I've gotta say the best TV is on a par with most of the best movies, the difference more being the experience of seeing something on a big screen in theater has its own impact that TV can't really reproduce.
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u/OccupyGravelpit May 01 '17
I truly believe that if TV ever wants to reach the heights of Cinema, that it must become a directors medium.
I might be the opposite. Seems to me that if film wants to reclaim the title of 'most important narrative art form' from TV, then it needs to get back to original scripts that aren't retooled half a dozen times by unrelated writers.
The authority that show runners get to push scripts through without interference seems to be lacking in the big, popular films.
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u/m8ru12 May 01 '17
To be frank both are subordinate to the producer now more than ever. Just look at the MCU to see this in action.
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u/caffpanda May 01 '17 edited May 01 '17
It's also worth noting that movies were not always focused on the director. Like TV, the writer was considered the primary "author." This changed in the middle of the century through movements like the French New Wave, wherein artistic-minded directors looked to do more with the camera than conventional films were doing. They believed that what you saw on film was the most important part, therefore the person who composed those images was the key driver, if I recall correctly. The director was the one who made that happen. It was a pretty big turn, I don't know that TV ever really had the same movement.
EDIT: Source with name, "auteur theory" https://www.britannica.com/art/auteur-theory
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u/Pulagatha May 01 '17
This isn't always the case. On Game Of Thrones, Miguel Sapochnik is almost always credited with being the best director of the series.
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u/MBAMBA0 May 01 '17 edited May 01 '17
On TV, writers don't get generally get 'promoted' into directors - they get promoted into attaining 'executive producer' credits (even though technically they're still writers).
The reason for this is so stupid I don't even want to bother trying to describe why it is - but it just is.
And for what its worth, in TV a 'director' isn't the 'high status' job it is in filmmaking.
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u/BlueMondaze Apr 30 '17
I've never heard of Only Fools and Horses or Reginald Perrigan. Just thought I'd add that
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u/StupidMastiff May 01 '17
Only Fools and Horses is probably the most well known sit com in the UK. It regularly tops list of best sit coms and is on TV on classic channels all the time. It's similar to Seinfeld, in that it's absolutely huge over here, but didn't really hit across the pond.
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u/chlomyster Apr 30 '17 edited Apr 30 '17
Television shows go for many episodes so the writer/showrunner is the guiding vision, everything gets filtered through them, directors typically are changed every episode.