Why do directors get more credit than screenwriters?

Why do directors get more credit than screenwriters?

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*rubs head*
*leans back*
BANE?

because they deserve it?

It's like giving credit to the baker that mixed the dough, kneaded the dough and proved the dough rather than the one that put it in the oven and took it out when it was ready

What a terrible example. Both deserve equal praise

They do far more. The screenplay is a relatively rough framework for the director to work with. Basically everything on a movie set is the responsibility of the director at some point.

The true importance of a director versus a screenwriter is something you can only really understand if you've worked on a few films.

Directors are fucking crazy.

The only way to make real kino is being both the writer and director. Otherwise it's fake

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_(filmmaking)

This. Directors are fucking insane. You have to have a special kind of energy to direct

Try to imagine the workload of the director compared to a screenwriter, or anyone else for that matter.

They're there almost every day for the entirety of every take for the entire length of the filming then a good amount next to the editors, sound guys, and composers.

Screenwriters write there shit at home in an indefinite amount of time and might be there on filming as a consultant

hook, line and sinker!

Anyone know of any examples where a screenwriter has said publicly that the director did not do their screenplay justice or something to that effect?

I've been fooled! Curse you, hacker commonly known as Sup Forums!

not directly but that shit happens all the time
in regards to source material mostly

Max landis talks about it on his half in the bag.
Honestly read any screenplay, its dialogue and a lot of really vague descriptions of action. Its the director's job to take that and flesh it out and marry up all the components to create a finished product.

Surely the screenwriter would go over the script with the director though? They wouldn't have vague ideas in their heads

if you have not already gone back to veddit I suggest you head their after reading this

In today's Hollywood it should be producers the most credited since they practically call all the shots regarding creative decisions and they are the ones deciding on the final cut.

Because without the director it's just piece of literature, like a Shakespeare play that you sit and read instead of going to see it put on stage.

Is that why all the movies have started to suck lately? Why do managers and business people think they are creative?

Film is a "directors" medium and television was a "writers" medium.

With an increase of budget and more freedom though television now allows for more of a directors vision where as the massive bloated budget of film means a director has to be reigned in by the studio

It is why television now surpasses film

How horrible!

The same screenplay can result in far different movies based on the director alone.
One sentence can be represented in countless ways visually.

Remeber that film is a visual medium

I am starting to hate the word "producer" because it can mean anything.
From "guy who works the general framework, handles the preproduction"
See: Tom Hanks, Spielberg and Band of Brothers
To: "guy who gave some money to make more money and that's it"
See: Spielberg and Transformers

They do it for maximum profit, Disney know their market so well.

Producer usually means someone who had actual input
Executive producer is the investor

Because you can have a movie without a screenwriter, but you can't have a movie without a director.

What are some good movies with no scripts?

A movie with really shitty story can still be good if the director has some creative ways to do the shots. Just look at Blade Runner. Sup Forums sucks that movie's dick all the fucking time and quotes the ending even though it's cringe tier for plebs.

>friend of mine writes a movie
>it actually comes out
>invites me to the opening
>he cringes the whole time
>ask what happened
>says the director took the script and just made a completely different movie

Shaking my head

Because there are, at most, only two directors working on a movie while there are a good dozen writers tearing the script apart and they all have their own vision.

Tarankino does both.

Scorsese, Hitchcock and Kubrick all took credit for other people's hard work.

Well fuck, I checked LOST because I knew that while it had the name of Abrams attached to it, he fucked off for to direct movies and it was in the hands of other writers, think Lindelof but I can't remember, and here on wiki I see that he is credited indeed as "executive"

That's not what I said.

I said you can have a movie without a screenwrtier; that is someone whose job it is to write scripts. The director can both write a (shitty) script and make the movie, but a screenwriter cannot make a movie unless they have someone whose job it is to direct.

Wong Kar Wai movies
Werner Herzog only uses vague notes

In fact, a consiferadble amount of arthouse directors use minimal screenplays or adhere to the screenplay very loosely.

*considerable

senpai

Hitchcock & Kubrick were autistic af with their artistic liberties though (Psycho, Shining)

Not really. A lot of times the writer wont ever meet anyone from production side of things.

A lot of the stage description in a script isn't much more that "they fight" or something like that. A screen play is pretty condensed, general rule of thumb is that one page should equal a minute of screentime. For a 90 minuite movie you wont have more than a hundred pages, and most of that space is wasted on formatting.

Because of that your not going to waste crucial space on the page for describing things that are the directors job.

No they don't

Screenwriters make the story, directors just tell actors where to stand

Read Tarkovsky's Sculpting in Time for a really great explanation of the difference between the story of the screenplay and the story of the director.

>if the director has some creative ways to do the shots

That's the cinematographer's work not the director's

I like that moustache man, I'll check it out.

The editor is literally the most important part. You can have a great director and screenwriter that works perfectly together in realizing their vision. But a shitty editor will ruin the whole film

Yeah but without a cameraman no one can see the stuff that gets filmed and they would just be staring at a blank screen.

A great editor can also save a film, see Donnie Darko or Jacob's Ladder

I still can't believe it when I see the Jacob's Ladder deleted scenes, it would've been so much more terrible with those in

Deleting scenes isn't the editor's decision retard

Yeah but without the key grip there's no film to shoot

Oh whoops my mistake

Why are there versions called The Director's Cut then, where you get the movie plus the deleted scenes?

Yes they do you dip shit.

Because that's what the director intended originally, the ones choosing to delete scenes are mostly the producers, editors are just doing technical stuff not creative decisions.

You're thinking of books. In movies editors means editing the video.

It's the director's job to keep everything together so they are the most important part. They gave to keep everyone in tune.

That really depends on the director. Some are very much hands-off sit in their chair and do nothing but bark orders, some are their own DPs.

The director is also ultimately responsible for wrangling the tallent.

In the Marx Bros. films, scenes would be written in with (Harpo does something funny).

Cinematographer chooses lens, stocks and says "put the light over there". Director does composition, movement, blocking, decides length and type of shot. Exceptions are rare.

The director sits in with the editor and gives them notes on their cuts. Exceptions are rare.

Scripts outline events, actions ("Dave steps out. Mary enters.") and dialogue. If you try to dictate movement, performance, type of shot, production design, you'll be asked to rewrite it. The note will read like "don't direct the scene". Exceptions are rare.

Because the story and the dialogue are irrelevant

It ain't a novel book, it's a film

>The director is also ultimately responsible for wrangling the tallent.
That's the 1st AD's job.

Oh shit he was only pretending to be retarded
I've been caught with my pants down what a foolish situation I've caused

What about for a movie like the social network?

Shouldn't most of the credit go to sorkin rather than fincher?

Writers are dorks.

Directors are chads.

Why don're more directors screenrite them selves.

All the best do.

This. It's the same reason salesmen and CEOs get paid more than engineers and creatives. The ability to bullshit and manipulate other people beats raw intellect every time.

I felt like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry got overpowered by Kaufman's scripts

I liked the direction of Synedoche vs Eternal Sunshine or Adaptation

I was thinking about this the other day after watching pic related and realizing it was the director's first and best movie by far entirely because of the strength of the script. The main reason is probably because it is much more common and much easier to be a director with a lot of great movies than to be a screenwriter with a lot of great movies. There are very few consistently great and prolific screenwriters with mass appeal.

Fincher worked to cast the right people for the parts and made sure the dialogue wasn't wasted on mediocre performances. He also brought Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross aboard, who also deserve a lot of credit for making the film what it was. Some would give a lot of credit to Fincher's formalism too but his style isn't for me.

Gondry at least tried with his set changes and baby Joel and facial distortion stuff. Jonze put in zero effort formally for both films he worked with Kaufman on.

From what I know of Fincher gets very involved with the script in preproduction to the point of almost being another writer. He works with the writer to condense the script into exactly what he needs. This is seen on the making of for Social Network where he is going over the script with sorkin and the actors. Also Fincher is one of those directors who is knowledgeable and gets involved in every aspect of the production. He could easily take over any of the crews job for a movie and do it well, he is that autistic about filmmaking. Plus due to all that shit with Alien 3 he insists on having full control, last edit, and marketing. I would say he is one of the most hardworking and involved directors on a project right now.

>screenwriter writes story
>director visualizes it and brings it to the visual medium known as film

Screenwriters are damn important, but the director is still the most important cog

Go read this

indiewire.com/2016/03/aaron-sorkin-describes-how-david-fincher-directed-the-dense-opening-scene-of-the-social-network-102771/

>Screenwriters are damn important, but the director is still the most important cog

Hollywood is not lacking competent directors at all yet somehow the vast majority of high budget movies are still complete shit. A competent director may be more important than a competent screenwriter, but Hollywood needs good screenplays way more than it needs directors.

A great screenplay can't save a movie that's incompetently shot, acted, and directed
But a bad-mediocre screenplay can be saved by the filmmaking

>Hollywood is not lacking competent directors at all
I disagree. There are not that many good directors getting hollywood backing nowadays.

I'm not talking about outstanding directors, I'm talking about just competent directors. Directors who are competent enough to not completely fuck up a script are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. And a bad screenplay being saved by a director is extremely rare.

>Because without the director it's just piece of literature, like a Shakespeare play that you sit and read instead of going to see it put on stage.

this

But most movies are so blandly directed that even a good script can't save you from becoming bored.
But a good director can take a very bland script and through their direction and the actor's performances elevate the source material. The same script done by two different directors will end up being completely different movies. Look at the myriad of Shakespeare adaptations. Macbeth is a story that gets told again and again and is a great story but some movie iterations are just absolute trash because the direction and performances throw the potential away. Likewise a screenplay that's only okay can be made into a good movie if the director's vision resonates with the audience and provides an energy to it.

It's worth remembering that in most great films, the director and the screenwriter are the same person
So it almost doesn't matter

I can name countless great movies with bland direction. Spielberg/Howard/Eastwood/etc are all bland directors compared to meme directors like Tarantino or Refn. Your shakespeare example doesn't really apply since it's not like they are directing directly from the book. All the screenplays are different and most are probably bad because they tried too hard to be edgy and different with it.

>Spielberg
I disagree
>Tarantino
Tarantino's "style" is stealing scenes from good movies and inserting his dialogue. The rest of the scenes are just horrible flatly lit shots or else closeups of feet. Just look at how garbage Hateful Eight looked while he sold it with the SUPER ULTRAWIDESCREEN SHOT ON FILM bullshit. He shot everything indoors with static lighting and no creative shots.

Also Refn's movies have been only watchable because of their style. The screenplays aside from Bronson have all been trash.

I think a good comparison to this point is in football. Many say Guardiola is a great manager because he has won so many titles, yet he also inherited those teams which were already full of some of the best players in the world. Could he still win and do well with a mediocre or lower team? Or what about someone like Ranieri who had become a laughing stock in the football world but then was able to manage Leicester City to the title not by signing the best players in the world but through tactics.

The best writer-directors are like Guardiola in that they start with a great script they have written. Directors who take over someone elses, more mediocre script is like Ranieri.

Is it a greater accomplishment to make a great movie from a great script or a great movie from a mediocre script?

Only God Forgives and Neon Demon are unwatchable garbage. Drive is one of the rare times a shit script was salvaged by a director.

But what I'm trying to say is that most scripts are pretty by-the-book short stories that are on their own very boring and bland, but because of the director and the other people involved in the production they can be elevated. But a good script can be absolutely ruined by someone who doesn't know what they're doing as a director.

I watch it any time I need to be reminded that a perfect movie is possible.

wow I posed in the wrong thread. Whatever I guess it's an example why directors are important

Like Tarkovsky puts it well in this image.

Ultimately a director and the others involved will make or break a screenplay, as they are responsible for the translation from paper to projector, and can ruin it if they don't have the proper tools or vision to do it.

Isn't the ADs job is to be the director's bitch. They're the gophers of production.

What a stage manager is in theater, a 1st AD is in film. Making sure people are where they need to be and that everything is on time is their job. Production Assistants are gophers.

No one involved in a film is allowed to talk shit about it, they sign a contract. That's why in all the interview rounds actors are like 'it was an amazing experience.' They're not allowed to say anything negative about it.

Most screenwriters get shafted because the director (and producer and anyone) thinks he knows best and wants it to be more his. Usually his input is shit because the screenwriter can spend years on a screenplay.

Screenwriters should get more credit but they're not attention whores and 'players.' Some famous studio mogul once said screenwriters have all the power in hollywood and we should never let them know it.

yes I agree most scripts are boring and bland which is why Hollywood needs more good screenwriters more than it needs more Refns. It is easy for a boring/bland Ron Howard to make a great movie from an exceptional script whereas a Refn turning a shit script into something watchable is way more rare which is why Drive is a meme movie.

But most directors are bland AND most screenwriters are bland. Just look at what the most successful/big-budgeted movies out there look like. They're horrible, riddled with excessive cutting, flat shots, static and boring lighting and no sense of style whatsoever.

The ideal is to have a visionary director combined with a good screenplay. And I never said Refn was good. His style has some neat stuff sometimes but overall its still very mechanical like Kubrick's. His slow-zoom shots lack the tension that someone doing the same kind of shot like Villenueve accomplishes. He's a B-movie Kubrick imitator but with an obsession with Jodorowsky. I'd even say an over-hyped trash director like Fincher has better general filmmaking than Refn.

Ultimately the film is in the hands of the director. But it can be crippled by a bad script. Look at Prometheus. Competently-shot and built because of Scott who I still am on the fence of calling a good director but the movie is almost crippled by the horrendous screenplay. But it's Scott's filmmaking that makes it bearable.

A screenplay is just a written story. The film has to be built.

A screenwriter sits in his comfy home, wakes up at 11 AM, sips on coffee while he sits at his computer and types up nice fantasies from his imagination.

A director secures financing, assembles and micro-manages a large cast and crew, and gets everyone working their asses off to turn the writer's fantasy into a temporary reality in front of the camera

There'd be no movie without the screenplay, but the director's job is objectively more difficult on every level, fleshes out words on the page with visuals and music and performances. The screenplay is just ONE piece of the puzzle, the director's job is to put the puzzle together

there are far more good movies with bland directors and great screenplays than good movies with great directors and bland screenplays. I guess you could make an argument that a truly great director could salvage any screenplay but that is not what usually happens in reality.

Every Sergio Leone movie has a fairly by-the-books screenplay that is elevated by his direction.

still a huge outlier compared to the number of boring directors making great movies from great screenplays. also his style is trivial to replicate nowadays.

People assume it's easy to replicate something after it's been invented, but even so a lot of the imitation spaghetti westerns that came out after Leone lacked his panache and operatic feel. I mean look at how many people imitate Bay's style and just flat-out get it wrong. It's deeper than just replicating the framing or syncing the music, there's parallax and depth and lenses and the speed and angle and other things that makes perfect mimickry hard for most filmmakers, but they think "Well I can do that, anyone can do that" when in reality it's very hard to correctly copy a style.

Can you name some examples of boring directors making great movies? Specifically the titles of the movies?

>Can you name some examples of boring directors making great movies? Specifically the titles of the movies?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture

>Silence of the Lambs beat out JFK

What the fuck

In this thread: People who are proud to be ignorant.

>It is why television now surpasses film

Jesus it's kind of depressing when you look at the oscar nominees in a list like this. It's 90% mediocre movies made by boring directors with mediocre screenplays. Just bland directors making bland shit.