I love listening to movie commentaries. I also love
Cloudy With A
Chance Of Meatballs. Put the two together and you get one of my
favorite combo's. One of the first things I noticed about the film
(even before watching it with the commentary) was that during the
opening credits there appeared the line:
A
Film By
There was a pause, and then the line finished:
A
Lot Of People
Usually that line is finished by the name of the
director, producer, or production company and to see it presented in
such way was surprising, to say the least. Then, during the
commentary, the directors, Phil
Lord and Chris Miller, spoke directly to that credit, saying that
they could not, in good conscience, put their names there and ignore
all the other people who helped make the movie. While I was in film
school, the instructors forbade us from using any such title on our
student films for very much the same reasons.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people like Steven
Spielberg, Peter
Jackson, Quentin
Tarantino and so on shouldn't be allowed to say, in essence, “I
made this film”. The producers, directors, and production companies
are extremely formative in the film making process. Much like the
captain of a boat steers the ship, even if there are hundreds of
other crewmen on board working hard to make sure the ship sails
aright. However, I found it a very profound act of generosity on the
parts of Phil Lord and Chris Miller to give such credit to their
team.
In the bit of film making I've done since film school,
I've avoided using the credit “A
film by” altogether. Someday I would like to get to the point where
I feel my directorship has grown sufficiently to use such a title,
but for now I'm still learning the ropes. And who knows, even when I
do get to that point I don't know if I'll use it. Film making is such
a team effort, to say that I made a film seems a bit silly. Maybe if
I wrote, directed, produced, shot, edited, acted, etc.
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