Quoting SailorRipley:

Quote:
Behemot is quite right.

As for the 'why' of it in the case of TCM: The Beginning, there are multiple possibilities, but only one result. Probably what happened is this:

Let's say David J. Schow comes and writes a first draft of an original screenplay, either by his choice or because he was asked to by the studio.

The studio then decides that the screenplay sucks and they better find another writer to rewrite it all over again.

The call in a second screenwriter: Sheldon Turner. Turner then scraps off all of the material written by Schow, but he keeps a very basic premise of that first draft. Since Turner has kept the Schow premise in his draft but he also built an entire different plot, both Turner AND Schow will get a 'story by' credit per the Writers Guild Association rules.

After a good bunch of different drafts, Turner ends up with the final draft of the script and Schow is never heard from again. The WGA gives Turner a 'Screenplay by' credit

Thus:
Story by David J. Schow and Sheldon Turner = Original Material by David J. Schow and Sheldon Turner
Screenplay by Sheldon Turner

There are many variations to these, but I hope this can help for future reference.

Exactly right, the WGA works in mysterious ways (even knocking off some writers who SHOULD get credit on scripts).

An interesting one is the tale of X-Men (which had 11 writers, including Ed Solomon, Christopher McQuarrie, Joss Whedon -- two or three lines used; see if you can spot them, James Schamus, John Logan, Tom DeSanto, Bryan Singer, Kevin Brodbin, Laeta Kalogridis, and others).

Final credits as presented in the film/this db:

David Hayter: Screenwriter
Tom DeSanto: Original Material By
Bryan Singer: Original Material By

Still, to this day, people will argue that Hayter did little else than "transcribe" all the rewrite stuff into an always-evolving 'final' draft.

But, I digress, SailorRipley's posts are dead-on.  Was nice to finally get the "solo screenwriter" credit into the rules too, sans OMB.

Another famous one.

Ended up with:





"Gilliam: I went out to LA, met Johnny, Benicio, Laila and Hunter and decided, Yes, let's do this project. I came back to London and got a good friend of mine, Tony Grisoni, to sit down and write this thing. So we basically started from scratch, dived into the book, underlined all the good bits, ignored all the bad bits, tried to assemble this thing. We did it in record time like we’ve done the entire film. The whole thing was to be done as fast and furiously and energetically and crazed as one could, and we managed to write it in 8 days. And then we read it. It was a piece of crap.

"So we rewrote in 2 days and were quite pleased with what we had done. We had to make very quick and definite decisions about what to do and what not to do. The book is so dense. There's so much great stuff in it. There's so much great stuff in it that whatever you do, when you're given enough time, you start realising how much you left out of the book or out of the screenplay. It was very depressing when you realise that you're not able to incorporate all of that book on screen. So we made some very definite decisions and went forward.

"We then went about making this film. Now everybody in the course of making this film has added to that script. Added to what's on that screen. Everybody - the actors, the sound guys… everybody contributes. It's one of the things that I like about making films: it's a collaborative effort. Everybody works. We rehearse, we talk, we argue and the thing eventually becomes the film. But somebody has got to take the credit or the blame for writing it. And Tony and I got that. Universal Pictures submitted it to the Writers Guild, with screenplay by Gilliam and Grisoni. Now there's a very complicated procedure that takes place. It's really long and boring. But here goes. Let's get down to basics here. The Writers Guild of America has a problem with directors who go off and write. If you're a director who writes, you become known in their terms as a "production executive" and you're thrown immediately into arbitration.

"It's a very complex process. But basically, if you happen to be directing a film, you and your co-writer who wasn't a director have to produce significantly more than 50% of the script while any other writers involved only have to produce 30% of the script. So the Writers Guild determined, much to our chagrin, surprise, horror, shock, that we had not written the film. We’d spent a year on this and this was indeed a surprise. That all of us - the actors, the crew had been working on the wrong script. So, on one of the original posters, you’ll see screenplay by Alex Cox.

"Well, we then spent the next couple of months involving lawyers. Universal brought more scripts in to the mix. And at the end of this long, tedious procedure, we had to write a 25 page document which actually took longer to write than the script -- to prove that we had written substantially more than 60% of the film. And in their wisdom or terror or shame, the Writers’ Guild reversed their decision and gave us credit. Now, the surprise was we didn't get put in the second position of the credit, we were put in the first position which apparently has never happened before. So that's the story. And here we are. And I think a lot of other people need to be credited."

Info (c) http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams/home.htm

PS.  If you want to know the exact reason why Cox was fired as a director, watch the "Breakfast with Hunter" documentary.  Hint: Involves animation and waves.

/OT

Thanks for lots of useful input guys - I still feel there are some issues that need to be clarified in the rules, but that's another forum, so I'll leave it at that... 

Sounds like some of our members that are more familiar with silent films need to help with the rules committee getting some of the type of credits like "Scenario" included in the rules.  Not sure what can be done with Uncredited Crew since the current rules don't allow for them.  It's not just silent films many older films from the 1930's don't include all crew members that DVD profiler can possibly profile.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about Scenario, don't know if applies to silent films or not.

Quote:
A scenario (from Italian, that which is pinned to the scenery) is a synthetic description of an event or series of actions and events. In the Commedia dell'arte it was an outline of entrances, exits, and action describing the plot of a play that was literally pinned to the back of the scenery. It is also known as canovaccio or "that which is pinned to the canvas" of which the scenery was constructed.