Posted by mlc at authorized_proxy6.cogeco.net on February 23, 2004 at 19:20:38:
In Reply to: Yes, it IS all opinion, isn't it? But... posted by Ecstatica on February 23, 2004 at 18:04:56:
: But would you support an obtrusive, "WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY" credit?
I would because the credit implies exactly what the person did. "A film by" is more general.
I'm going to use a really bad example. I was sitting in an university film seminar last year, and the movie for that week was "Psycho". A lot of people were saying things along the lines of, "I love how Hitchcock decided to kill off the main character fifteen minutes in." Of course, someone else wrote the script which was adapted from a book. He had no say into rather or not the character was killed, he just had input into how the killing was presented visually. "A film by" leads to more ambiguities like that.
The issue is not rather or not the persons name is thrust out there for everyone to see, but rather or not it's misleading. And I don't think that no single person has so much control over a feature film that "a film by" is warranted.
I hope I'm articulating myself alright. I have a feeling that I didn't explain that well enough. Sounds alright in my head, at least.