The Writers Guild of America (WGA) determines who is the credited writer on a feature film. This is a Good Thing. It prevents studios, producers and directors from grabbing undeserved credit. But it makes for a lot of work and controversy within the Guild, because inevitably some writers will not receive credit they believe they deserve. It’s not just a matter of pride and bragging rights. Credits also determine who receives residuals.

For readers unfamiliar with how screen credits work, here’s the briefest introduction.

Let’s say you write a movie, and it gets made. If you were the only writer who worked on it, you get “Written by” credit, both on screen and in advertising.

If another writer was hired to work on the movie, then the two of you attempt to figure out who gets credit, possibly dividing up “Story by” and “Screenplay by” credit. For instance, you might take “Story by” while sharing the “Screenplay by” credit.¹

What happens if you and the other writer can’t figure out a fair deal? Arbitration.

The Guild recruits three members (writers) to read all of the relevant drafts and determine who should get credit. Both the arbiters and the participating writers remain anonymous — the drafts are labelled “Writer A,” “Writer B,” etc.

It’s an exhausting and imperfect process, and the source of never-ending conversation among any gathering of more than three working screenwriters.

This week, the joint credits review committee of the WGAw and WGAE sent out three proposals for amending the credits process. They’re very modest, and don’t try to tackle any of the bigger and more controversial topics²

But they’re worth close examination.

1. Arbiter Teleconference In the Case of Non-Unanimous Decisions
The current manual states that each arbiter shall reach his/her decision independently of the other arbiters and that there shall be no conference among the members of the Arbitration Committee. The proposed change would allow for a Guild-hosted teleconference among the arbiters and the Arbitration Consultant in the event the Arbitration Committee is unable to reach a unanimous decision as to the appropriate writing credit. The identities of the arbiters would remain confidential during the teleconference. If a unanimous decision is not reached during the teleconference, the majority decision will be final.

Easy yes. I’ve served on several arbitrations that have resulted in split decisions, and would have greatly appreciated the ability to talk with the other two arbiters about how they reached their decisions and why. Did they notice something I didn’t? Is there something I could point out to them? Generally, these decisions come down to pretty small issues that merit discussion.

Currently, when arbiters are coming up with different credits, it falls on a WGA staffer to talk to each arbiter individually and see there is common ground to be reached. Not only is it inefficient, but it introduces an outside element to the decision.

A telephone conference call maintains the anonymity and autonomy of the process, and should result in better, quicker and more thoughtful decisions.

2. Eliminate Relaxed (“Any Substantial Contribution”) Standard
The current manual states that where a production executive or production executive team makes the requisite contribution to receive screenplay credit, the Arbitration Committee may — but is not obligated to — accord any other writer screenplay credit for “any substantial contribution,” without that writer meeting any specific percentage requirement. The proposed change would eliminate the relaxed standard and provide that the normal percentages apply, even where one of the participating writers is a production executive or a production executive team.

Yeah, my eyes glazed over too. It’s difficult to parse. So let’s break it down.

“Production executive” in this case means a producer or director, rather than a studio suit. So the proposal is talking about situations in which one of the participating writers on the project is also the producer or director. For sake of example, let’s call her WRITER B. ³

As the rules stand now, if Writer B gets credit, the arbitration panel may also award credit to any other writer who provides “any substantial contribution,” disregarding the normal percentage requirements.

This is weird.

You’re throwing out all the rules and asking the arbiters to possibly consider awarding credit based on an oxymoron (”any substantial”), without offering guidance as to why the special case exists.

My hunch is that the “any substantial contribution” clause was enacted to thwart a situation in which a writer-director (or writer-producer) rewrites someone else’s script so completely that the original writer would find it impossible to get credit based on real percentages.

Having been on both sides of arbitrations, I can tell you that it’s extremely unlikely for the original writer of a spec script to come out uncredited. But the real question is why this special case only kicks in when one of the writers is also a producer or director — a situation that already requires a higher threshold to receive credit — and why it doesn’t just apply to the original writer, but ANY writer who works on the movie.

It’s a weird, bad, dangerous precedent, and it should be changed. So I vote yes on the proposal.

3. Eliminate 60% Rule for Production Executive Teams
The current manual states that where a subsequent writer is a production executive team (i.e., one or more members of the team is a production executive), the team must contribute “substantially more than 60%” to receive screenplay credit. This rule applies even if one of the team members is not a production executive. The proposed change would reduce the threshold for a production executive team to receive screenplay credit from “substantially more than 60%” to “more than 50%.” The change would bring subsequent production executive teams into line with subsequent production executives who write alone, who are currently subject to a “more than 50%” requirement.

Again, not the easiest paragraph to read, but easy to agree with once you understand it. Let’s take it from the bottom to the top.

Currently, for a Production Executive (really, a writer-director or writer-producer) to receive credit, she must have contributed more than 50%. That’s higher than the threshold for non-production executives, which stands at 33%.

Currently, if a Production Executive is writing as a member of a team (for example, Todd McClever & Sarah Goodwit, of which Goodwit is the director), they need to show that they’ve contributed “substantially more than 60%.”

This doesn’t make sense.

Why should McClever’s presence change anything?

The proposal has it right: if we’re going to set a higher threshold for hyphenates, it needs to be consistent.

The upshot

All three get a “yes” from me.

But make no mistake: they’re very modest improvements. Over the next few years, the real discussion needs to be how to accurately and fairly recognize who wrote on a movie. The current credits system reflects failed attempts at social engineering, penalizing hyphenates and encouraging writers to make Hail-Mary attempts at credit through arbitration, since it’s the only way they’ll see their name on something.

For now, though, the committee deserves a thank you for presenting three proposals for patching glaring holes in the current setup.

1. When you see two writers names separated by “and” in the credits, that means they worked independently, as opposed to an ampersand (&), which denotes a writing team like Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel. ↩
2. Foremost of these is the Catering Analogy. Currently, the guy who drives the catering truck has his name listed in the end credits of a movie, but a writer who spent months toiling on it gets no mention at all, even though her impact on the final product is much greater. ↩
3. For WGA credits, a writing team is treated as a single writer, so the same would apply if it were two writers working together. But note also proposal #3. ↩