Hi,
This is my first posting on this forum, so please bear with me.
I am just posting to see whether people think I should credit myself as director, or not, on this short film I am making.
I am currently down as producer, but I am also in the short, so it's difficult to direct the scenes which I am in.
Having said this, I organised the castings, directed at the castings, looked for locations, planned the shots before the filming days and will have join creative control over the shots we use during the editing process. Furthermore, the script I wrote was very specific in terms of direction, even down to pauses, shots, and other creative aspects.
My brother has been directing the actors on the day, but wasn't quite as heavily involved in the other aspects which I have just listed.
I wasn't sure, due to the fact that I haven't been directing the actors on the day, if I should be listed as director, along with my brother, or not.
Any opinions?
It sounds to me like you are the director. That isn't completely uncommon for the director to be in the entire film. Jon Favreau did it with Made for example. If your brother is still contributing to the direction of the film, you may decide to split the directing credit and have "Directed by You and Brother."
Welcome to filmmaking.net!
I see no reason why you can't do what the Coen brothers now do - just as MovieMagicMan suggested. This isn't
a contract issue as it is in pro films where the credit also determines the residual payments - it's a personal
matter. Might be best at this stage to maintain family harmony and list your first name alphabetically.
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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
IF you did all the pre-production and the post-production but your brother did all the production itself as director, I think he is the director.
It looks to me as if you are: Casting Director, Location Manager, Line Producer, and Screenwriter but your brother is the director.
The director normally has yes/no control over all of that stuff but sometimes they don't. Even so all of that is designed so their job, their vision, comes through during Production when the Director really does their job. If you aren't really involved in actual directing during the production stage with actors and everything I find it hard to justify the director title unless you agree to codirector titles with your brother.
One note about being a codirector. If you start as a codirector you will be considered one onward. If you start off as just a single director the director's guild is funky about allowing codirector credits (I believe Robert Rodriguez left the guild over that issue and the result is the odd credit Tarentino got on Sin City).
RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA
RJSchwarz
