Possessory credit

A possessory credit in filmmaking is the use of a film credit which gives primary artistic recognition to a single person - usually (but not always) the film's director. Examples include "A Robert Wise film" (The Sound of Music), "A film by Quentin Tarantino" (Pulp Fiction), and "Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho" (Psycho). Possessory credit is also sometimes used in television programs, for example "Tyler Perry's House of Payne" (Tyler Perry's TBS sitcom House of Payne). Occasionally another word besides "film" is used such as "A Spike Lee Joint" or "A Martin Scorsese Picture".

Although the earliest use of possessory credit dates from 1915's The Birth of a Nation, the use of possessory credits expanded particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. The Writers Guild of America has repeatedly tried to limit possessory credits to writers, but has always been successfully opposed by the Directors Guild of America, leaving directors free to try to negotiate such credits if they wish.^[1]

Video games

Possessory credits also apply infrequently to video games such as American McGee's Alice and games in the Metal Gear series.

References

Sources

• Paul A Baumgarten; Donald C Farber; Mark Fleischer (2002). Producing, financing and distributing film: New York : Limelight Editions, 2002. pp 190