Michael Bay, auteurship - Essay Example

y, there has been debate about filmmaking authorship, with industry experts believing that it is the screenwriter who should be applauded for a finished film product that meets with revenue success and manages to satisfy the intended target audiences (Kipen, 2006). More contemporary perspectives suggest that it is the director that should be applauded for a successful film that manages to outperform competitor films, bring high profitability and build audience satisfaction. Many directors, on many film projects, are given opportunities to express their own unique creative vision when producing a film, hence having the ability to transcend the original script and create a work of genius that is both personalised and aligned with individual director vision (Murray, 2014, p.1). In such a scenario, the director is considered a film auteur (the French word for author), in which the director’s creative voice becomes the framework by which a film is considered innovative, original and inventive.

There are some who prescribe to the Schreiber Theory proposed by David M. Kipen of the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts which suggests that true authorship accolades should be granted to the actual screenwriter rather than the director. Kipen (2006) argues that the notion of director as film auteur is distorted, with this professional stating that the script serves as the predictor of whether a film will be high quality. Hence, according to Kipen, a finished film product, when it achieves commendation and acclaim, should be attributed to the talents and expertise of the script writer.

However, there appears to be substantial evidence that contemporary directors have the most influence on whether or not a finished film product will be successful and profitable. From a marketing perspective, such directors as Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton (as only two examples), have put their own unique thumbprint on many of their films that are distinguished from other competing