Producers want less credit

Film-makers in Hollywood are attempting to stop people gaining "bogus" producer credits.

14:59 08 October 2004

Film-makers in Hollywood are attempting to stop people gaining "bogus" producer credits.

Undeserved credits are flowing to actors, agents and managers - according to the Producers Guild of America.

It costs studios almost nothing to add someone's name to the "produced by" section of a film's credits and this has been offered as an incentive without the individual having to do any work, the industry body has said.

"The studios did not set out to demean the producing credit," said Kathleen Kennedy, president of the guild.

"They simply discovered they could use the unregulated producer credit as a form of currency.

"When counterfeit currency is allowed to proliferate it devalues the whole system of currency."

Lawyers representing the body have vowed to sue movie studios to make them remove bogus credits.

"Under California law, the false attribution of credit on a motion picture is false advertising, and statutory law prevents false advertising," said a lawyer for the guild.

In addition to the lawsuits, the guild has said it will now include the duties required to have "producer" attached to your name in a film's credits in all would-be producer's contracts.

Currently directors and writers in the US have regulations, drawn up by unions, which delineate who can and can not be credited as representing one of their professions. But until now no such protection was available for producers.

Ms Kennedy would not reveal who had received bogus credits.