Screen Credits Manual - Writers Guild Of America West: Fill & Download for Free

Martin is an executive producer on the show. This gives him considerable say in how the story develops.EDIT: An executive producer MAY have a say in how the story develops. The Writers Guild of America has strict rules about the duties and responsibilities of a writer (See WGA West's Screen Credits Manual). An executive producer credit is one way to get around them.

Q: What do you think about author Robert McKee? I'm Italian filmmaker and I often read books about movies. A book that I read is "Story" by Robert McKee. I didn't know this author and I'm curious to know what do you think about him and about this book.A: I wrote a PhD thesis that critiques his work so it’s hard to give a short answer.Italian cinema is great. Also - interestingly, one of the inspirations for the Top 20 RoI movie American Graffiti (1973) was the Italian film, I, Vitelloni. See my PhD thesis for more.And The Conformist (Italian: Il Conformista) was amazing! They showed it to us in film school (many years ago), just for the lighting. Amazing cinematography. Also - on a dramatic performance level, in that movie, I love the way his hat comes off, whenever he’s emasculated. LOL. - I used (ok, borrowed, stole, paid homage to) that same subliminal-dramatic-symbolic-motif for a character in a feature film that I wrote once. It also gives the actor some `business’ to do (fool around with his removed-foreskin/I mean, hat with his hands).I also used it (that symbolic motif) in a feature film I acted in, recently (where, I mostly wear a baseball-cap onscreen. Except when I’m being emasculated. Anyway - I can’t say more, as that specific film hasn’t been released in cinemas, yet.)Short answer: McKee is great! His books are too. Except, when some of the things in them are: not. Read everything you can by him. Most of it is gold.But - one small reservation - my PhD study (2016) showed, the popular “how to” screenwriting manuals (on average) are about 47% right. On average.ie - Assuming this problem below, is the key problem that all filmmakers face: (and - they do!)StoryAlity #115 – The “Less-Than-One-Percent” Problem – in the Domain of MoviesBut - rather than about 47% right, you kinda need to be 100% right.(Who wants to be in the 70% of movies that lose money?It makes it so much harder - to make your next film. ie Think ahead. Also - if your film actually makes money, then you probably have more money, right? Money’s so useful in filmmaking. Otherwise you have to leverage your creativity.)See my thesis, for the really long story: My PhD Dissertation (free online)ie some of the top 20 RoI movies were made for USD$7k. And made over 70 times their budgets in cinema release! (Most successful Hollywood blockbusters make only 7 or 10 times their budget.) But: 70% of movies lose money.So - yeah. I love McKee, when he’s right. Lots of his ideas are: great!But - not so much, when, he’s not quite right about some things.Some things (theories, claims, hypotheses, guidelines) can be: empirically tested. See: science.I enjoyed his new Dialogue book too. It has a lot of great stuff in it. Buy it. Read it.But, it seems to use the same Methodology as Story (1997).There is a note at the front of the book Story that explains, the example films used in the text are used to support his theories.(But - what about the counterexamples?) ie - This is a classic method for teaching dramatic principles, sure - and it worked for Aristotle. And Aristotle was great too, except when he wasn’t.I say: challenge received wisdom.Prove your theory to me with Big Data and Statistics. Darwin used Big Data (and used his own head as the computer) and solved Evolution. Big Data works better than other kinds of Data like `littler data’.Here is an excerpt from my 2016 PhD thesis:`To his credit, McKee declares a complete absence of systematic methodology in his research up front, in the opening `Notes On The Text’ section of Story (1997/1999):“The hundreds of examples in Story are drawn from a century of film writing and filmmaking around the world. Whenever possible I offer more than one title of the most recently and widely seen works I know. Because it’s impossible to select films everyone has seen and remembers in detail, I’ve leaned towards those readily available on video. But first and foremost, each film has been chosen because it is a clear illustration of the point made in the text.“(McKee, Story, 1999, Notes on the Text - bold emphasis mine).McKee (1997) like Aristotle explicitly selectively chooses his movie/ screenplay/ story examples, to illustrate his key points - regardless of whether the movies examined were successful, in terms of their artistic and creative `benefit/cost ratio’.In general, the doxa (the screenwriting orthodoxy) uses examples of “exemplary” or “classic” movies, and studies their screenplays, with works such as Chinatown (1974) and Casablanca (1942) being cited frequently in the doxa, by Nash & Oakey, McKee, Field, Truby and other popular screenplay manual authors.However Chinatown (1974) was written by a very experienced and credited movie screenwriter (Robert Towne) on commission, after pitching it as a screen idea to producer Robert Evans instead of taking the writing job of adapting Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby.[159]Meanwhile Casablanca (1942) was a producer-driven screen idea, written on commission, by experienced contracted studio writers, including the Epstein twins - and was also largely inspired by the movie Algiers (1938) combined with the adaptation of the unproduced play Everybody Comes To Rick’s (1940) (Harmetz, 1993).Such classic movies as Casablanca (1942) and Chinatown (1974) thus have unique trajectories from screen idea to movie - that is not at all typical for screen ideas created by most novice or mid-career screenwriters - and also ignores the accrued social, cultural and symbolic capital - and the achieved position within the screenwriting field - of Robert Towne, the Epstein twins, and the other relevant screenwriters.As such while the screenplays of such classic movies may well be viewed as exemplary, such works - if presented as spec screenplays - seem unlikely to be selected in a contemporary movie industry context.The Writer’s Guild of America (West) website notes that in the 1980s when a screenplay of Casablanca (1942) with the title and character names changed was submitted to movie studios, most of them rejected it (WGA-West, 2016, online).160Thus as Dennett (2001) notes: culture evolves.Similarly Simonton (2004) notes that disciplinary zeitgeist evolves (Simonton, 2004, pp. 91-92).[161]′ ……………….(Velikovsky PhD thesis 2016, pp 100–101)See: My PhD Dissertation (free online) for more. Or, not.And see: Creative Practice Theory (…What is it?)Here’s some PhD blog-info, if you want some more details:From: An Index of Posts on this PhD-Blog (New to the site? Start Here!)A brief Literature Review:StoryAlity #27 – Narratology since Plato – A brief Literature ReviewStoryAlity #28 – Screenwriting Manuals since 1911Some Problems in the existing Literature on Film Screenwriting (or: `Defects of the present view’):StoryAlity #29 – Why Aristotle’s ‘Poetics’ is so very wrongStoryAlity #30 – Abandon Aristotle..?!StoryAlity #31 – Which Screenplay `Guru’ Books To Read?StoryAlity #32 – On McKee’s `methodology’ in `Story’ (1997)StoryAlity #33 – McKee’s two (unfortunate) examples of “bad” film stories in `Story’ (1997)StoryAlity #34 – Screenplay `paradigms’, or screenplay `syntagms’?StoryAlity #35 – What do 8 screenplay `Gurus’ say about Screenplay Structure?StoryAlity #36 – On Empirical vs. Non-Empirical Film Story ResearchMore Detail On Method – and MethodologyStoryAlity #37 – On Method: The StoryAlity Film Story Study – the Data SourceStoryAlity #38 – On The StoryAlity screenplay study MethodologyStoryAlity #39 – More On The StoryAlity Movie Story Study MethodologyStoryAlity #40 – Is Screenwriting in a `pre-Science’ state?On Scientific Paradigms, and on Free Will, and on `Agency and Structure’.StoryAlity #41 – On Scientific Paradigms – and Screenwriting `Paradigms‘StoryAlity #42 – On Free Will – and ScreenwritingStoryAlity #43 – On `Agency and Structure’ in ScreenwritingStoryAlity #43B – The `Creative Practice Theory’ online Agent-Based ModelStoryAlity #43C – Creative Practice Theory – The GameOn Cultural Evolution – and MemesStoryAlity #44 – Biological Evolution, Cultural Evolution, and Creativity: FilmStoryAlity #45 – On Movie Memes and Memetics (and: How Memes Work)StoryAlity #45B – On Tracking Memes in The Meme PoolStoryAlity #46 – On Mayans, Memes, Creativity, Darwin and DawkinsStoryAlity #47 – Why are some Screenplays/Films more `viral’ Memes?StoryAlity #47B – More on Memes & Film (and: 3 solved problems in Memetics?)On Holons and HolarchiesStoryAlity #48 – On Film Holon-Partons and Holarchies – and How Holarchies WorkStoryAlity #49 – On Movie Screenplays, Viral Memes, and Cultural EvolutionAnd here’s a new Encyclopedia article I wrote:StoryAlity#144 – The structure of the meme, the unit of culture (Encyc of InfoSci & Tech 2017)It came out next month.(It’s now June, and the Encyclopedia officially launches, in July 2017. So, if you read it now, you’re probably already ahead of the game.)Anyway McKee has been helpful to a great many filmmakers/writers. So, buy and read everything by him. - He’s great. (Except, on the few occasions, when, he’s not.)Also, check out the movie `Adaptation ‘(Jonze & Kaufman 2002), there’s a hilarious spoof of McKee in there… He even consulted on the movie! Ironically it deliberately disproves many of his own dramatic theories, but - that’s also kind of the joke… Anyway yeah - he’s great. Read all his stuff.Hope that helps…??