Inside Out
By Rebecca Schechter, President, Writers Guild of Canada
Taking Credit
Writers are obsessed with credit. And so we should be. Credit is about money, career, power, respect. But it’s more than that. Credit is about pride. Not the sinful kind, but the kind of pride you feel for your children. Writers kvell (that’s Yiddish for taking delight in someone else’s achievements) over the power of our stories to make people laugh and cry. We love them when they succeed and when they fail. And when our name comes on the screen in whatever form–writer, story editor, producer, consultant–it tells the world: I did that. I helped make that show what it is.
Credit is the trumpet that announces to the world what we’ve accomplished. It doesn’t only feed the ego, it feeds the creative center, nourishes us through the famines we inevitably face as we sit in front of the blank computer screen.
So, what use is a trumpet if no one can hear it? The same use as a credit that no one can read. No use at all.
The screenwriter is protected by the Independent Production Agreement (IPA) which stipulates placement and size of the “written by” credit. Unfortunately, story editors on an episodic series have no such protection. When WGC brought story editors into the IPA, the CFTPA wouldn’t agree to specific credit provisions and that’s where things stand today.
No problem, you might say. The industry standard (set, as always, in the US) is to run story department credits (they’re all called producers nowadays) in single cards over the top of Act 1. Whatever its flaws, Hollywood acknowledges that without the story room you don’t have a series. Most US series are written in-house by the story editors, but even then, scripts are often retooled in the collaborative process that happens in a functioning story room. Even “auteur” showrunners like Aaron Sorkin and David Kelly who often take almost all the “written by” credits on their series, acknowledge the story room up front.
In Canada, we ignore the industry standard–some of the time. Which means we have no standard at all. Indigenous scripted programs currently on air are few and far between, but here’s how some of them credit their story departments: Metropia and Robson Arms list writer/producers and the story department over the top of Act 1, like the Americans do. ReGenesis credits writer/producers and executive story editors in the opening credit sequence after the cast, puts no story department credits over Act 1, and lists the rest of the department in the tail credits. Corner Gas credits writer/producers and executive story editors over Act 1 and leaves the rest of the team in the tail credits. Little Mosque on the Prairie (a show I work on) puts the entire story department–writer/producers and story editors–at the back of the show where only someone with a lightning-quick finger on the pause button has a chance to read them.
Why is upholding a standard important? Because without it, we’re vulnerable. First one series buries the story room in the tail credits. Others decide to follow. Before you know it, writers start losing the ground we’ve had to fight so hard for in this country. Forget our names. Forget giving us respect. Definitely forget giving us creative control. And when all that’s gone, what have you got? Bad programming. Because without credit, creative talent shrivels up and dies, gets a better paying job, goes to law school or moves to LA.
If we can’t rely on producers and broadcasters to understand the importance of the industry standard for story editor credits, then we’ll have to carve it in stone. Next IPA negotiations: 2008.
