Movies have huge credit rolls that tell you everyone involved from the director down to the person who made the cups of tea. But why? I can understand why actors, who need exposure to maintain a career, would want this. But is it important for the person who drove the truck full of props around to be credited for their future prospects?
You don’t see a plaque when you walk into a building listing everyone who laid a brick as part of the construction. I assume there’s a historical reason why the entertainment industry, and only the entertainment industry does this.
Edit: To all those that took my geniune question about what historically lead to this, and turned it into accusations of me being some sort of thoughtless “asshole”, what is even the point of someone trying to contribute to these online communities if you are just going to be made to feel horrible?
Because they worked. They need to be seen.
Have you seen the video of Tom Cruise (still an asshole but) in COVID where he screams at someone on set who don’t have his mask ? He don’t scream on him about money, he screams because his recklessness could endanger the living hood of everyone on the production
Making a movie is a team effort and everyone that say otherwise is an asshole
Tom Cruise also insists on doing literally insane stunts himself when even a relatively minor I jury could delay production for weeks/months putting everyone out of a job…
He freaked out about a mask, because scientology insisted on masks.
Don’t think someone is a good person just because they did a good thing, they may have had other reasons.
Cruise is a horrible excuse for a human, that doesn’t mean he solely does shitty things.
IIRC, Cruise had to basically create his own insurance agency because nobody else would open up a policy for him, due to exactly this reason.
He freaked out about masks because the HSE were in two minds about shutting down film production, and because of Cruise’s unique insurance setup it was effectively the only film in the world shooting at the time, everyone was waiting to see if it would be practical.
Totally an asshole but his point is still valid
Action IS the only thing that matters, the reasons don’t affect others.
Sure, but why not in other industries? I assume at some point this became an issue that was resolved by having comprehensive credits, what was the problem it was seeking to solve?
Just a guess, but in other industries, permanent contracts are the norm, you join an employer with some long term perspective, spend multiple years there, so on your CV there is less than 10 employers, short gigs would mean something went wrong
In movies/theatre/concert there is a lot of short term contract. You’re hired to make sure no one enter a set when filming in a street or to do the electrical installation for a concert. That’s 3 days of work and done, even people who stay for the full movie/tour have a job for 6-12 month rather than 6-12 years. Which makes it harder to keep track of all you did.
Sure you have art worker with regular contract, and regular worker who stack short term contract but the standard way of working are differents (which has also impact on unemployment regulations)
Video games do it as well. Painters, photographers. It’s mostly just companies that take credit for all their workers work and just write “Vizio” on the front of the product.
I also assume if someone was in the industry and was looking for someone to do make-up in their next film, they can say man the make-up was great in movieA, check who did their makeup and see if they are available
At a bare minimum it’s a way for the studios to make workers feel more satisfied without paying them any more money. So why wouldn’t they do it?
It pads out the runtime, making theaters take longer to get the next showing in. That is the reason why everyone doesn’t get a credit. That said studios still seem to squeeze a few credits on screen that are not required.