Credits

Saw There Will be Blood last night in a ghastly Norwich multiplex, struggling through the usual popcorn chompers, chatterers, text-checkers etc... I didn't mind these irritations as much as usual, since the film was riveting; but was, however, downcast by the stampede for the exit the moment Daniel Plainview announced that he was finished.... My friend and I were the only people in the cinema who watched any credits at all, craning our necks round the departing hordes and finally watching alone in an empty auditorium, horribly aware of two impatient cleaners waiting with their black plastic bin liners to clean up before the next screening...

This complete lack of respect for the makers of the film wouldn't depress me so much if it weren't for the fact that most people still speak about directors as if they are the authors. You know the kind of thing: "The Coen Brothers latest...."; "A Scorsese film..." etc. With apologies to all aficionados of Cahiers du Cinema, nothing pisses me off more. Hundreds of people make films, as they do television. This isn't just another writer's whinge - it's a complaint on behalf of everyone who makes visual entertainment. Movies and tv are constructions put together by vast armies of workers. The only way they get recognised is through credits. The only way their work gets publicised is through credits.

I was pleased this morning to hear that Equity have spoken out about the decreasing size and status of credits on television. I know the Writers Guild has done the same in the past. Someone from Equity on Radio Four this morning amusingly likened the loss of credits at the end of a riveting piece of tv as "coitus interruptus". I certainly know when I was knee-deep in Film Studies at the British Film Institute, I was taught by people who believed that the film began with the opening credits and ended with the final ones. Opening and closing titles were to be considered part of the whole, contributing to the atmosphere and the feel of the entire creation. And to me the same is true of television. It's hard to be thrust straight from the denouement of a powerful piece of tv straight into an ad for Cillit Bang or a promotion for what's on after the news.

The BBC claims to be "aware of the problem". Interesting, then, that they do nothing about it. When I started on EastEnders as a script editor, I had an entire screen to myself in the end credits. As a writer, the same. Now the names of the EastEnders creative team gallop past in a tiny corner of the screen, competing with a voice over and countless other visuals for the viewer's attention. Spooks has no credits at all. The production company making the show claims that this is somehow in line with the idea that the drama is about spies, and therefore the anonymity of its creators adds to the clandestine and anonymous atmosphere surrounding it. What utterly depressing piffle.

I'll shut up now. I'd just like to say that this website was created by a brilliant guy called Harry Harrold at Norfolk Creative Network; the photo on the first page of my website was taken by Simon Barber; the other photos were probably taken by my dad; my agent is Meg Davis at MBA, and this blog was written by me, Lilie Ferrari....

Did anyone read that last paragraph....?

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