{"id":1522,"date":"2016-10-01T03:05:52","date_gmt":"2016-10-01T03:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/?p=1522"},"modified":"2016-11-28T19:48:25","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T19:48:25","slug":"how-to-get-your-on-screen-credit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/how-to-get-your-on-screen-credit\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Get The On-Screen Credit You Deserve"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week we teamed up with producer and analyst Stephen Follows<\/strong> to look at an interesting question:\u00a0who gets\u00a0included, and excluded, in the final end credits of a movie?<\/p>\n

Stephen started by analyzing the number of IMDb entries\u00a0tagged as “uncredited”. Right away, the numbers jumped out at us:<\/p>\n

\"stephen-follows-uncredited-percentages\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I reached out to colleagues\u00a0about this topic, there was no shortage of horror stories: from news companies that refuse to credit any assistant editors, to TV shows and Oscar nominees that had cut their\u00a0colorists out altogether. (Guys: respect your colorists.) Below, we unpack this issue and explain how to\u00a0avoid becoming another “uncredited” statistic.<\/p>\n

And if\u00a0you don’t know Stephen Follows\u2014think of him as the Nate Silver of the film industry. We\u00a0strongly\u00a0encourage you to check out his site, and\u00a0his\u00a0“Uncredited Credits<\/a>” article\u00a0that\u00a0is\u00a0a companion piece to this one.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0End credits have become\u00a0more inclusive\u2014and a lot\u00a0longer.<\/h2>\n

We’ve come a long way from\u00a0“The Wizard of Oz” (1939), whose end titles\u00a0featured a whopping eleven names, one of them a\u00a0dog.\u00a0It’s not just blockbuster movies, either: ask\u00a0us some time about\u00a0the\u00a0one\u00a0that thanked all 10,003 donors\u00a0by name.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the clearest illustration lies in font sizes. Fewer\u00a0names\u00a0mean more\u00a0space to accommodate\u00a0larger type. With more names,\u00a0point sizes have to\u00a0shrink.<\/p>\n

Witness the\u00a0giant, horsey text of\u00a01980s and 90s actions movies alongside\u00a0their contemporary peers. Here’s a snapshot of three decades:<\/p>\n

\"Left<\/a><\/p>\n

Left to right: “FACE\/OFF” (1997), “300” (2006), and “Deadpool” (2016). Images are to scale. Click to enlarge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

2. But very few on-screen credits are actually guaranteed.<\/h2>\n

Some unions and\u00a0guilds have explicit\u00a0rules governing\u00a0on-screen credits. These\u00a0generally affect above-the-line and key crew positions. The DGA, for example, spells out\u00a0specific<\/a> requirements around\u00a0the\u00a0Unit Production Manager, as well as\u00a0First and Second Assistant Director positions.<\/p>\n

But these are the exception. Below the line, virtually everything is a courtesy\u2014common practice, but a courtesy nonetheless.\u00a0Digital Imaging Technicians (DITs) report that\u00a0\u201cEvery start work packet makes it very clear that on-screen credit is at the producer’s discretion<\/em>\u201d. Considering that the DIT is a fairly critical on-set role, most\u00a0other crew positions can hardly expect to fare better.<\/p>\n

3. Post production has a visibility problem.<\/h2>\n

Why\u00a0should a\u00a0Production Office PA receive a\u00a0credit, but not a\u00a0Post Production PA?<\/p>\n

Post production is often invisible: the\u00a0Office\u00a0PA is employed directly by production, gets\u00a0listed on call sheets, and has personally\u00a0interacted with producers. The\u00a0Post PA on the other hand is employed by a third-party vendor, doesn’t show up on\u00a0call sheets, and is therefore easier to\u00a0overlook.<\/p>\n

Bias against post production crops up in other areas.\u00a0One\u00a0media\u00a0services company we spoke with offered both production and post production gear rental. The manager in charge of the former was credited 100% of the time; the manager in charge of the latter (Unity, AVIDs, decks) was only credited about 50% of the time.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u201cThere is no room\u201d is a poor excuse.<\/h2>\n

A common excuse for withholding credit\u00a0is that there is just “not enough room.”<\/p>\n

So we\u00a0decided to run\u00a0some numbers against that\u00a0claim.<\/p>\n

Quick background: Endcrawl<\/a> has thousands of active projects, and nearly\u00a0a thousand completed feature film projects. We can confidently state that\u00a0our service has created more end\u00a0credits\u00a0sequences\u00a0than any other single company has over that past several\u00a0years. And\u00a0there are no more than a\u00a0handful of companies that have made more than we have, in total, during\u00a0their entire existence.<\/p>\n

So our data set is pretty solid.<\/p>\n

That in mind:<\/p>\n