Screen credits, the ampersand, and arbitration

What do the different screen credits mean?

Each names a different contribution. The Writers Guild's Screen Credits Manual defines a story as writing "distinct from screenplay and consisting of basic narrative, idea, theme or outline indicating character development and action."¹

A screenplay is defined separately. It consists of "individual scenes and full dialogue, together with such prior treatment, basic adaptation, continuity, scenario, and dialogue as shall be used in, and represent substantial contributions to the final script."¹

The combined form follows from those two. "Written by" is used where the same writer or writers are entitled to both the story credit and the screenplay credit.¹

"Screen Story by" covers a narrower case. It applies where a writer takes from source material "only a springboard, a characterization, an incident, or some equally limited contribution, creating a substantially new and different story from the source material."¹

Why do some credits use "and" and others use an ampersand?

The two are not interchangeable, and the difference is written into the rules. Where writers perform services as a team, the manual requires that writing credit to the team be designated with an ampersand between the names of the team members.¹ That holds even where the team formed for a single project.¹

The word carries the other meaning. Where "and" appears between writers' names, the manual states, it "indicates that the writers did their work separately, one usually rewriting the other."¹ Two names joined that way describe a sequence rather than a partnership.

A single typographical character therefore records whether two people wrote together or one followed the other. Getting it wrong in a document a production reads is a substantive error rather than a style question, and it is exactly the kind of thing a copyedit is for.

How much does a later writer have to contribute?

More than the first one did, and the manual gives figures. On an original screenplay, "any subsequent writer or writing team must contribute 50% to the final shooting script."¹

The first writer works to a lower threshold on the same kind of material. That writer "shall be entitled to screenplay credit if such writer's work represents a contribution of more than 33% to the final shooting script."¹

Non-original screenplays use the lower figure throughout. Any writer, including a production executive, whose work represents a contribution of more than 33 percent to the final shooting script is entitled to screenplay credit.¹

Those thresholds explain a pattern writers notice and rarely have described to them. A rewrite on someone else's original screenplay is credited on harder terms than the same amount of work on an adaptation.

How many writers can share a credit?

Two, with a narrow exception. The manual states that screen credit for screenplay "will not be shared by more than two writers."¹ Three writers, or writers constituting three writing teams, may be named in unusual cases and solely as the result of arbitration.¹

A writing team counts as one of the two. That is why the ampersand matters to the arithmetic as well as to the record.

The consequence for a film that employed nine writers is that most of them will not appear. The rule exists to keep the credit meaningful rather than to distribute recognition, and it is the reason arbitration exists at all.

Story credits are counted separately from screenplay credits. A writer excluded from one may still appear in the other, which is part of why the credit forms are defined individually.

Who decides, and what does a writer submit?

The Guild administers the process rather than the studio, and it starts with a form. The production company sends a Notice of Tentative Writing Credits to all participating writers and to the Guild as soon as practicable after principal photography is finished.² The Guild's own guide calls it "one of the most important documents a writer will receive."²

The clock on it is short. Credits become final twelve business days from the date the notice is sent unless a writer protests, and seven business days where an emergency exists.²

Where a protest is filed, the writer prepares a statement setting out the claim. The Guild's guidance asks that it cover three things: the credit sought, what the applicable rules require for it, and the evidence. That third element it describes as "specific examples of contributions you made in your literary material that have been retained in the final shooting script."³

What can an editor do with an arbitration statement?

Work on its clarity, its order, and its accuracy of reference, inside a length the Guild itself has named. Its guidance states that "three to five pages should be sufficient to make your case for credit."³ A statement running fourteen pages is usually one that has not decided what it is arguing.

Consistency of naming is the recurring fault. Drafts referred to as the June draft, the second draft, and the yellow pages within one document are hard to follow, and the arbiters are working from files with their own labels.

The guidance also names what to leave out, which is development history and personal conflict.³ A statement written in frustration reads as frustration, and cutting that material removes nothing from the claim it makes.

Does any of this apply outside the Guild?

The manual governs pictures made under the Guild's agreement. Independent productions outside that framework set credits by contract, which means the terms are negotiable and the definitions are whatever the agreement says they are. None of the thresholds quoted above carries over on its own.

Writers working outside the Guild often borrow the Guild's vocabulary without its rules, so a contract using "Written by" may or may not carry the meaning quoted above. Where the contract defines its terms, the contract's definitions apply, and where it does not, the ambiguity is the writer's problem to notice before signing.

Every document a client sends us is treated in confidence. Drafts, deal memos, and arbitration statements are held on the same terms as anything else.

What we do not do

Advise on whether a credit claim is likely to succeed, calculate a percentage contribution, interpret the Guild's agreement, or represent a writer in a proceeding. Those are matters for the Guild, for a writer's agent or attorney, and for the arbiters.

Reporting what a published manual says, as this page does, is a different act from applying it to a set of drafts. The manual and the procedures guide are available in full from the Guild, and the notes below point at the editions every quotation here was taken from.

The work that is ours sits inside the statement rather than around it. It produces a document of the length the Guild asks for, organized so an arbiter can follow it, naming drafts the same way from the first page to the last.