Quoting hal9g:

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If the screenplay is based on any material other than an "original" screenplay, as it is in this case, then the material it is based on gets an "Original Material By" credit in DVDP.

Almost true, except in this case it IS based on an "original" screenplay, as the whole point of writing it was to make it into a movie!

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As you yourself stated, the only time we use "Writer" as a credit in DVDP is if the actual credits say either "Writer" or "Written By".

Yes I did - but clearly there is a difference then between "Written by" and "Story by"? So, what is it?

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Would you be making this argument if John and Jane and Joseph Doe had written the story and Sam and Sally Jones had done the screenplay?

Well, yes - I see no difference? Unless, ofcourse, John, Jane and Joseph had written it for publishing, and Sam and Sally had then made the screenplay based on that published book/novel/article/whatever ...

Anyway, I have PM'ed Ken to get his view on this, and preferably add "Story by" to the relevant column in the credits-table in the rules...

I guess the question comes down to is whether or not a "story" is a "screenplay".

A story could really be anything from a general idea/outline to a detailed "story" that is almost like a "screenplay".

IMO a story is not a screenplay and thus gets a OMB credit.

From dictionary.com
"The script for a movie, including descriptions of scenes and some camera directions. "

So a "story by" credit doesn't mean it's a script as defined in the definition above.

OMB has always been Story by. We had a brief discussion on it three years ago and that was the conclusion. Again not perfect but for now. This as amny others, the onl;y real way to get it absolutely correct is through Open Credits.<shivers>

Skip

Quoting DJ Doena:

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One could argue that the story wasmost likely written on a computer 

Or that the screenplay was written on paper, too.   

Yeah, mostly a story is told and i should not have mentioned paper    

The problem is that in this case, the "story by" is referring to the detailed treatment, not intended to be published independently prior to the release of the film in the form of a novel, short story or poem. It gets a separate credit because the writers were not the same. Treatments are the "pitch story" and the screenplay for an original work will always be based upon it.

Some writers can write original sceenplays without developing the story first. Others need to work from a treatment. Either way, they are still original screenplays.

I think original material makes more sense here, but this really should be a whole different category.  I think I argued for thsi when the feature was introduced.

Quoting hal9g:

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Quoting Rander:

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Yes I did - but clearly there is a difference then between "Written by" and "Story by"? So, what is it?

"Written By" means the same person(s) wrote both the story and the screenplay, or there was no story written first but just a screenplay.

But how can you write a screenplay if you have nothing to work from?

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In this case there was a third person involved in the story who was not involved in the screenplay, therefore, the "Written By" credit was not appropriate and in fact was not used by the producers of the film.

"Story By" means just that.  The person(s) wrote a story which was then used to develop a screenplay.

And so, they should get a Writer credit!

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You're making this much harder than it is.

So do you! From what you wrote, there is no difference between Story by and Written by...

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Quoting Rander:

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Quoting hal9g:

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Would you be making this argument if John and Jane and Joseph Doe had written the story and Sam and Sally Jones had done the screenplay?

Well, yes - I see no difference? Unless, ofcourse, John, Jane and Joseph had written it for publishing, and Sam and Sally had then made the screenplay based on that published book/novel/article/whatever ...

You would give all five people a "Written By" credit?

No, John, Jane and Joseph would get "Written by" - Sam and Sally would get "Screenwriter". Unless it was originally published (and so on as I wrote before), then John, Jane and Joseph would get OMB.

Quoting Rander:

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No, John, Jane and Joseph would get "Written by" - Sam and Sally would get "Screenwriter". Unless it was originally published (and so on as I wrote before), then John, Jane and Joseph would get OMB.

There's the whole thing in a nutshell. You want to depend on whether the "original material" was actually published or not to decide what credit you give them in DVD Profiler. We just don't do that. In both cases, we award them "original material by" credits - doesn't matter whether that "original material" was published or not. It may be a book, a story, an earlier screenplay, or even just an "idea" (trust me: I have such credits in my database), it's all "original material by".

Expanding the writer section could theoretically make both sides happy, but it should be thought out very, very carefully. Look at how many years we're now arguing about the exact same thing. Any changes to the section (especially the "notes") should have to be absolutely iron-clad, and preferably fool-proof as well. I'm more than a little bit afraid that tinkering with it might turn things into an even bigger mess. As someone already noted: either we want to be able to track EVERY possible crew job variant, and then we would need some kind of "open credits". If we don't want that, we're sometimes going to HAVE to fit some different credit variations into the available categories. That can be done with the help of a set of clear and concise notes for each category. While I'm not so much against expansion of the writing section - I have asked for 'creator' many times - I think a lot of these debates could simply be fixed by thoroughly editing the "notes" section for the available categories.