Power Play: Credit the Writer or the Director?

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

--Abraham Lincoln

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It’s generally accepted within the entertainment industry that when someone holds a gun to your head and issues demands, he is committing robbery. When you do the same, you’re exercising leverage.

There’s a bit of irony, then, in the Writers Guild of America’s efforts, as part of new contract negotiations, to reduce wholesale use of the possessory--or “a film by”--credit for movie directors, given the back seat TV directors occupy relative to writer-producer auteurs in prime-time television.

Indeed, to someone unfamiliar with the rituals of television, the role reversal from film would be not unlike visiting the “Planet of the Apes.” In episodic television, after all, many directors are guns for hire, flitting from project to project under the stewardship of executive producers who oversee the writing and put their creative stamp on every phase of a program.

At the same time, rights the WGA would like to see extended to its members in movies often aren’t afforded directors in television. While writers lobby to be welcomed at film publicity junkets, for example, directors are seldom trotted out to meet the press when networks preview new TV series.

The industry term affixed to top writers, “show runner,” leaves little doubt as to who is in charge. And while you don’t see “A series by” David E. Kelley or Steven Bochco plastered above the title, the WGA’s basic television agreement stipulates that only writers are eligible to receive a “created by” credit.

When the Writers Guild doles out its annual awards this Sunday, the most powerful creative talent in television will be on display; by contrast, TV directors occupy a secondary tier to their movie brethren at the Directors Guild of America’s annual back-patting exercise the following week, which is seen as a major prelude to the Oscars.

This disparity is easy to understand. A movie is a singular enterprise, while television must be replicated week after week. Once the series prototype has been shot, the episodic television director is primarily charged with executing a writer’s vision within the guidelines of that particular series.

It’s the difference, in essence, between designing the rail system and simply insuring the trains run on time.

Mark Tinker, a director and executive producer on “NYPD Blue,” notes that TV is a more collaborative medium than film, one that requires freelance directors to operate from an existing template.

“We’re not looking to have a guy bring a totally different look to a show,” he said. “We’re looking for people who flow with the river, not against it.”

Both Tinker and Bill D’Elia, a director and executive producer on Kelley’s “Ally McBeal” and before that “Chicago Hope,” stressed that television’s finest programs do take the director’s viewpoint into account. And while the executive producer has ultimate authority over the final cut, directors still play a vital role.

“The guys that are able to work within the tone that’s established, and bring something new to the party, are the guys who work again and again in episodic television,” D’Elia said. “The better shows are not just looking for somebody to crank it out.”

Nevertheless, it’s indisputable that the adhesive holding together a hit TV series--what allows the quality level to remain high from episode to episode--flows from writers whose control includes passing each script through their word processors, whether it’s Kelley, “The West Wing’s” Aaron Sorkin or David Chase on “The Sopranos.”

As a result, directors face a delicate balancing act bringing their input to the process, perhaps even more so in situation comedies.

“The vast majority of half-hour directors are traffic cops, and their job is to not make waves so they can be asked back for the next episode,” said director David Lee, part of the creative trio responsible for “Frasier.”

“Ultimately, somebody’s got to be the boss,” Lee said, citing the hat he has worn as executive producer, “but that doesn’t mean that the director has got to be dismissed.”

None of this is to suggest writers are out of line in their attempt to garner greater respect in feature films, where the underlying arrogance of the possessory credit speaks for itself. As Steve Martin mused in a piece for the WGA magazine, “What if someone watching in Oklahoma sees the film and there’s no ‘A film by . . . ‘ credit? He sees the ‘Directed by . . . ‘ credit and wonders, ‘Yes, but who made the film? Whose film is it in the existential sense? . . . Frank Capra didn’t have the ‘A film by . . . ‘ credit, and he’s practically forgotten.”

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Todd Holland, an Emmy winner for directing Fox’s “Malcolm in the Middle,” suggests that if the goal was fairness, both “A film by” in movies and “created by” in television would be jettisoned.

“I think it’s equally insulting to all the myriad creative minds that bring a [TV series] pilot to fruition to claim that ‘created by’ credit only for the writer,” he said, citing the importance of series prototypes in setting a program’s look and feel.

In both TV and film, the weaker party really just wants to be kept in the loop and have his or her contribution recognized. Under the Directors Guild of America’s basic television agreement, directors are told, “At all times, you have the right to be consulted about every creative decision.” As tepid as that sounds, it essentially summarizes the consideration writers are asking related to films.

In case anyone is tempted to pause here and ask why any thinking person should remotely care, let us stress no one needs to hold bake sales for anyone involved. The money is terrific and the perks swell, even when the parking space is positioned a little farther from the stage entrance.

The noteworthy point is that when armed with a big stick, writers are as prone to wield it as anyone else, largely because the prevailing attitude is you shove somebody around not because they deserve it--or even necessarily because doing so benefits you--but rather because you can.

Networks thus play hardball with talent, sometimes arbitrarily so, until the producers of “ER” or stars of “Friends” saunter in with a network’s fortunes hanging in the balance, causing cobwebbed vaults to fly open and disgorge their loot. Agents don’t return phone calls from marginal clients but fall over themselves--yes, the big gift basket--to court the anointed few on network and studio wish lists.

From the middle of the action, one could easily overlook how such behavior can transform an arcane dispute about credits or artistic respect into a crusade--and how the preoccupation with power, down to those annual lists of who has it, exacerbates this myopia. Heck, it was even reported recently that people in Hollywood sometimes lie to get what they want.

As Holland observed regarding possessory credits: “Nobody wants to talk about ‘fair.’ A fair agreement is the one you can negotiate.”

In other words, it’s all about leverage. Or as former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman once observed: “Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.”

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Brian Lowry’s column appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached at [email protected].