Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Credit where credit's due? (lengthy end credits)

This is topic Credit where credit's due? (lengthy end credits) in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=002870

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 01-14-2004, 02:51 AM:

The increasing length of end credits has now become news in the UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3392435.stm

Hollywood's lengthening film credits

by Michael Osborn
BBC News Online entertainment staff

Return of the King weighs in with epic closing credits
The Lord of the Rings trilogy has reached its climax by setting a new record for having the longest closing credits in Hollywood history.
The Return of the King wraps up with an impressive nine and a half minutes of credits, listing hundreds of names.

This is in stark contrast to the dawn of Hollywood, when silent horror flick Nosferatu mentioned just 16 names in a mere ninety seconds.

The longer the credits creep for, the more time we have to put our coats on and leave the cinema.

But exhaustive on-screen mentions are important to every last person in the film industry.

"The power of the unions has put more and more people on the credits who wouldn't have been there before," says Patrick Fay, credits researcher at the British Film Institute.

NUMBER OF CREDITED NAMES
1922 Nosferatu - 16
1977 Star Wars - 143
1999 The Matrix - 151
2003 LOTR II - 559
2003 Matrix III - 701
Source: Baseline Hollywood

Big name stars often like their vast entourages to be mentioned - Russell Crowe boasted a 17-strong team on the credits of Master and Commander.

The Return Of The King lists oddities such as "compositing inferno artist" on its epic credits, while Mr Fay's personal favourite is "cockroach wrangler".

While Peter Jackson's film may hold the Hollywood credits record, there may be other contenders out there.

"There is a Brazilian fantasy movie which has very long credits. This is a real culture in Brazilian cinema," explains Mr Fay.

"On DVD, previous Lord of the Rings films have had additional credits, so they could be even longer when the Return of the King is released," he adds.

The end credits to Oscar-winning Titanic rolled for seven minutes

While a film credit name-check can be an important career boost to someone in the business, movie-goers rarely take any notice.

We are more likely to want to find out the name of a song on a movie soundtrack than to see who the second dolly grip was.

"People do not care about credits," continues the BFI's Patrick Fay.

"Although The Return Of The King's close is accompanied by some beautiful drawings."

BBC News Online's Stephen Dowling, who reviewed The Return Of The King, said he left the cinema as the credits crept onto the screen.

"I wanted to see daylight after seeing the film. I'd been in the cinema for three hours."

Pixar animations add action to their closing credits
Viewers of Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets were coaxed into watching the credits roll, with the promise of an extra scene on the other side.

Animated favourites from Pixar like Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc have actually made the closing credits experience an enjoyable one.

Aquatic characters in Nemo dart in and out of the credits with amusing and entertaining results.

And A Bug's Life showed insects messing up their lines in a string of outtakes.

Opening credits

Older cinemagoers will remember credits appearing at the beginning of the film.

This trend died out because of television - when viewers could be lost to annoying opening name-checks.

Once Upon A Time In The West had a staggering 14-minute opening credit sequence in 1968 - paling the Lord of the Rings' benchmark into insigificance.

But Patrick Fay does not think Hollywood credits can roll for much longer than 10 minutes - but the "credit creep" could be here to stay.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-14-2004, 03:35 AM:

"Teaser subject title" (hint, read the FAQ)

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 01-14-2004, 04:26 AM:

Sorry Mr Miller sir. [Embarrassed]

I consider myself admonished and promise not to do it again [Frown]

Could you please change the Topic title for me to something more appropriate

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-14-2004, 04:59 AM:

Just pick something you feel is suitable. [Cool]

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-14-2004, 05:22 AM:

Men in Black must be a contender for the longest credit roll - they literally occupy over a reel.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 01-14-2004, 07:01 AM:

A few years ago, I got a feature that was missing the 6-7 minute end credit sequence for the collection. I located, and paid too much money for just the credits to make this film complete.

I for one, scan all of the credits looking for friends names. I've found several.

I used to keep track of MPAA approval certificate numbers, too.

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 01-14-2004, 08:07 AM:

Scary Movie 3 was extremely long too

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 01-14-2004, 08:10 AM:

D'oh! Take pity it's been a really bad week [Confused]

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 01-14-2004, 08:15 AM:

I seem to recall "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" holding the record for some time there.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 01-14-2004, 09:28 AM:

I don't know if its a record or not, but the credits for Independence Day (ID4) were over 10 minutes in legnth.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 01-14-2004, 11:45 AM:

Interesting, but I was talking about the number of names, not the duration of the credit sequence.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 01-14-2004, 11:54 AM:

quote:
...says Patrick Fay, credits researcher at the British Film Institute.

The name above has been misspelled in the article. I correspond with Patrick Fahy on a regular basis supplying him with bits of data for him to incorporate into the BFI's Sight & Sound magazine.

FWIW... For the time they were produced, Superman (1978) and The Blues Brothers (1980) had insanely long credits (opening and closing in the case of Superman).

Manny wrote:

quote:
I was talking about the number of names, not the duration of the credit sequence.

Aren't those two things related?!? More names = longer credit roll.

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 01-14-2004, 12:03 PM:

Well, they could make the credits go at about 100fps like they do on regular TV.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-14-2004, 12:37 PM:

The only thing the audiences are usually interested in are:

> The cast
> The songs
> Where the movie was filmed

They could leave the rest off and just put them on the DVD, thereby allowing them to say CONTAINS 10 MINUTES OF FOOTAGE NOT SEEN IN THEATRES! Presto, double the DVD sales with zero production costs. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 01-14-2004, 03:02 PM:

Zero production costs! There's good money in the title making business you know.

quote:
Aren't those two things related?!? More names = longer credit roll.

When the number of names to include gets large, more often than not more names does not equal a longer credit roll as they will often do stupid things like put three names per line for a good chunk of the roll.

quote:
Well, they could make the credits go at about 100fps like they do on regular TV.

Not gonna happen. There have been some films that have tried to do this with unavoidable crappy results. There's only so far you can move a line from frame to frame before the text actually jumps up the screen instead of scrolling. The larger the screen the worse it looks (larger jumps).

Of course if you could physically make the projector go a 100 fps it'd work just dandy. Although you'd be lucky to be able to read more than half of the lines before they scroll off the screen.

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 01-14-2004, 03:50 PM:

I think the credits may have something to due with union demands too and is a fairly recent innovation. Otherwise, I'd have my name listed on several films where I worked as a lighting technician in 1960 ("Cinderfella", "The Man Who Came To Dinner" and the Bonanza and Dennis O'Keefe TV shows).

Well, at lease they make good exit music.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 01-14-2004, 06:33 PM:

I don't mind the end credits running forever, but it's nice if there is some action, especially when the film is scope - enough space to put some action or graphics on the side.

I liked the "pencil test" shots during the LT: BACK IN ACTION end credits.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 01-14-2004, 06:39 PM:

In my neck of the woods, credits are all most a total waste of film stock. Everyone's out the door 30 seconds after they start.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 01-15-2004, 03:56 AM:

i like to play "spot mo". it seems like about half of all hollywood movies have their neg cut by mo henry.

my favorite credit watch was war games. the very last name to appear was my uncle's, the color timer. i had totally forgotten he worked on that one, and i left smiling.

carl

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 01-15-2004, 01:21 PM:

I think we should go back to the days when credits were so short you couldn't get your curtains closed before the screen went dark.

Winners would be the early Disney animateds, followed by more recent classics like "Blazing Saddles". [Big Grin]

Return ALL of the credits to the front of the show. It'll give the customers more time to buy our popcorn!

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 01-15-2004, 01:59 PM:

quote:
i like to play "spot mo". it seems like about half of all hollywood movies have their neg cut by mo henry.

Or practically all helicopters flown in motion pictures are piloted by Robert 'Bobby Z' Zajonc ... [Smile]

-Aaron

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 01-15-2004, 08:26 PM:

RoTK holds the corrent record? Didn't seem that long, mind I haven't just sat and watched it yet. I've been cleaning the theatre whenever the credits were rolling.

Earlier in the year 'Darkness Falls' had very long credits (around the ten minute mark) and you could feel the length when watching.

When do you think the culture of leaving before the credits ended started? I mean presumably at the early years of cinema people sat through the short end credits.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 01-15-2004, 08:58 PM:

In the "early years of cinema", the credits were mostly at the front, and were not nearly so all-inclusive as they are now. If there was a generator operator, honeybucket dumper, sandwich maker or private limo driver in those films, you'd never know it by watching the credits.

Nowadays, it seems the janitors are all individually credited.

The "cast of a thousand extras" aren't mentioned by name... yet... but that's probably coming!...

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 01-15-2004, 08:59 PM:

quote:
he "cast of a thousand extras" aren't mentioned by name... yet... but that's probably coming!...

Have you watched the credits of 'Stuck on You' yet? [Smile]

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 01-15-2004, 09:25 PM:

You know with this new fangled thing called the internet or something like that, they could just post most of the credits on a web page (where changes can be made in the case of a mistake). They can just name the cast show the bonus footage and be done with it.

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 01-18-2004, 12:04 AM:

quote:
The "cast of a thousand extras" aren't mentioned by name... yet... but that's probably coming!...

A friend of mine was an extra in some foreign, low-budget war film, he was credited as an "Historical Consultant" because only paid extras were credited as extras.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 01-18-2004, 10:20 AM:

quote:
it seems like about half of all hollywood movies have their neg cut by mo henry

Used to be Donah Bassett was the negative cutter of choice.

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 10-29-2016, 03:40 PM:

It has been 4668 days since the last post.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 10-29-2016, 03:40 PM:

New questions, but related:

1. What was the first feature-length sound film to eliminate all credits from the start, and shift them all to the tail end?

I've often heard it was "Star Wars," but that can't be true. According to Wikipedia, "Fantasia" and "Citizen Kane" did it much earlier than "Star Wars." Were there any other examples, even earlier than "Fantasia"?

2. At what point did credits go from being a brief list of key people to something resembling the lengthy crawl that's so commonplace today?

In other words, what was the first movie to have a full-on credit roll at the end? Maybe it will help if I add -- at what point did positions like "clapper loader" and "medic" and "helicopter pilot" and "craft services" start getting screen credit?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-29-2016, 05:28 PM:

Also wondered often wether the completeness of the credits nowadays is just common habit to acknowledge film is groupwork, or wether this is based on hard rules procured, e.g. by unions?

- Carsten

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-29-2016, 09:06 PM:

I think it was the Lord of the Rings extended reissue prints where the end credit crawl went over 20 minutes in length. (I seem to recall it was closer to 30 minutes.) However this is a really good thing, as now everyone knows the gas station attendant's name who permitted one of the crew members to use the restroom without purchasing anything on the drive to the set was Randy Lockhart.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-29-2016, 09:59 PM:

I find the current proliferation of production company credits at the beginning of movies far more annoying. Those credits are of no interest to anyone.

A Moonstruck Production (insert studio logo)
Filibuster Pictures (insert studio logo)
Titular Titles (insert studio logo)
Three On One Productions (insert studio logo)
A Company You've Never Heard Of (insert studio logo)
In Association With The Sharper Image (insert another logo)
(Paramount Logo here)

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-30-2016, 03:14 PM:

quote: Robert E. Allen
Well, at lease they make good exit music.

Remember when we'd get all excited to get a movie that actually had exit music after the fade-out? That was such a great presentation enhancement that I took to recording the title music at the beginning of the film on a reel-to-reel deck that was always wired into the system (back then I never realized that the FBI could come up to the booth and arrest me for copyright infringement [Eek!]

)

I'd play that back in non-sync for exit music (when I was lazy I'd just thread up R1 past the logo (back then there was only ONE studio logo, not 10) and changeover to play RI audio, fading out as necessary.

Nowadays, you've got your exit music on every film, which is really nice -- I don't really care that there is also something on the screen as well. I do see some people stick it out and sit to the end, especially with films that have great scores. Plus, I do have friends who do sound mixing and record scores, so I like to catch their names, but mostly if I like the score, I will sit thru till....I was going to say till the curtains close, but that was then; now that would mean I would be sitting forever in 95% of the cinemas.

I have no problem with listing everyone who worked on a film, within reason. In fact, I think it is a good practice, whether it be mandated by union rules or just because it is something the industry has collectively gravitated to as professional respect for their coworkers.

I do know, for example that everyone who is involved with a movie takes those credit crawls pretty seriously. In fact, one contentious issue that has been going on for some time now, has been the fight for the score recording engineers to get recognized by the Academy for an Oscar category. Right now, only the mixing engineer can receive an Oscar, whereas score recording engineers believe they should be recognized as well; after all, the engineering skills that are required to record an orchestral score require immense talent and artistry and are as important to a motion picture's power-of-the-whole as any other of the most significant and essential elements that make film what it is. I hope the Academy capitulates and creates category, even if it's only a technical one.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 10-30-2016, 05:14 PM:

All I know is that Superman #1 had a LONG list.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-30-2016, 10:17 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
I have no problem with listing everyone who worked on a film, within reason.

THat would be wonderful, but they are starting to list people who were only tangentially involved, like the merchandising people, video game developers, "Production Babies" and so much other nonsense.

One reason Superman was so long was just the pace of those credits. WHOOOOOOOSH one name would go by. Then WHOOOOOSH another name and so on. It was like watching a glacier move.