The Daily Telegraph of August 17 published an essay on screen credits by director John Boorman, taken from Projections 6 Film Makers On Film Making. It seems he is fed up with all the jobs that have to be given credit for making the film and the fancy titles chosen to represent their contribution. He considers that because of this credits now have little value. I think I agree with him.
The credits, now have to be on the end, they are so long, an audience wouldn't put up with them if they were at the start, and they seem to get longer with every new production.
I don't want to be a killjoy but I think it's quite ridiculous when long lists of assistants and trainees are given screen credits. It took many years of learning and working before most of today's senior technicians had their name on screen. They had to be responsible for their department.
Long end credits defeat their object. Very few movie goers stay to watch who did what. It's fair to say that if you see people watching end credits they are relatives of someone who worked on the film.
I've also noticed recently that feature films shown on TV often no longer have technical credits on the end. They go from cast credits seemlessly to record company credits and logos of Dolby, Board of Review etc.
Sound people should start campaigning for sound credits to be up front like they used to be. At least Production Mixer, Supervising Sound Editor and Rerecording Mixer should be there.
BOB ALLEN
Thanks for Newsletter No 18, interesting as always, especially the editorial 'Beef about BAFTA' which is most certainly justified. The programme was even more of an insult to technicians than usual. As the editorial rightly says 'there is an audience with an interest in the Film and TV crafts' but such interests are poorly served by the BBC and ITV, with the rare exception of Channel 4 (eg Barry Norman broadcast around midnight)
On the subject of recognition for the contribution made to productions by technicians it seems that Sound technicians are increasingly badly served by their production credits. Time was when the production and rerecording mixers were given equal credit with the camera operators, assistant directors and sometimes editors, usually at the front of the picture. Now it seems that only in the majority of French productions is it quite regular to see sound mixers given equal credit to that for designers. lighting cameramen, editors and other key personnel.
Now on British and American productions it is hard to find the credit for the production mixer amongst those such as given to the driver for the assistant cashier. The unfortunate rerecording mixers are treated even worse and if not altogether ignored they may be lucky enough to be included, as an after thought, somewhere right at the end where mention is made of the record company who has issued the CD of the film's music. As if such treatment was not insulting enough I have yet to see any credit where a sound mixer's name is followed by AMPS in the same way as is given to members of other associations such as BSC. American producers are not known for generosity with credits and are equally disdainful of everything to do with sound but at least they always put CAS after the names of Cinema Audio Society members.