DGA Monthly

6 I D G A M O N T H L Y April 2025 marks 62 years since the Guild published the first "Bill of Creative Rights" for Directors after Elliot Silverstein challenged how his episode of The Twilight Zone was edited. There was a time in Hollywood when a Director might not have any input in the final version of a movie or TV show. The producer would handpick a film editor who made the final cut, and the Director was frequently locked out of the editing process. Such was the case when Elliot Silverstein directed an episode of The Twilight Zone called "The Obsolete Man," a Kafkaesque tale written by Rod Serling about a neo-Nazi state that banned books and obliterated individual and religious freedoms which aired on June 2, 1961. Silverstein staged the episode in a style reminiscent of German expressionist films of the 1920s. When he finally viewed the editor's rough assemblage for the episode, everything seemed as he had envisioned it, until he got to the final scene in which the guards turn on their ruler and condemn him to death. Inspired by a nightmare, Silverstein had directed the guards to initially growl without making a move. Only when the tension reached a boiling point did they close in, automaton-like, to attack the chancellor as he pleaded for his life. But the editor didn't see it that way. Rather than have the guards stand pat, he cut it so that the guards moved in immediately for the attack. "You don't understand," Silverstein said, asking the editor to restore the scene to his original concept. "Well, I don't want to cut it that way," the editor said. "You what?" Silverstein responded, his blood boiling. "I don't want to cut it that way. It's ridiculous," the editor insisted. Silverstein immediately began calling other Directors. "Are you having this kind of problem?" he asked. Yes, they had. He then contacted Joseph Youngerman, the executive secretary of the Guild, and discovered that Director had the right only to view the first rough cut and to communicate improvements to the associate producer. That was unacceptable to Silverstein and to other Directors. To make any changes in the system the Guild would have to negotiate with the studios. Guild President George Sidney authorized the creation of a committee on Nov. 12, 1963. At first, members considered calling it the Artistic Rights Committee, but Silverstein, the committee chair, recalled in a 1986 oral history interview, "The use of the word 'creative' would provoke less hostility than the use of the word 'artistic.'" So they decided to call it the Committee on Creative Rights and the 18-member group, which included Robert Altman and Sidney Pollack, met each Sunday for six months. Their first act was to create "A Bill of Creative Rights." The bold document, released in April 1964, started by defining the role of the Director as someone who should take part in all aspects of the motion picture process. "[The Director] translates a motion picture script, story, or idea into visual and aural terms and arranges the images and sounds in a relationship he considers proper," the document read. "We wanted to cast ourselves as the people who made the films," Silverstein explained. "Everything else was stuff on the palette. But we were making the painting." Establishing Creative Rights Celebrating Our History As a result of Elliot Silverstein's vision, the Guild launched its successful campaign for a Director's Cut. (Credit: Photofest) The most important declaration concerned the Director's Cut. "The arrangement of the recorded images and sounds in a relationship the Director considers proper shall be known as the 'Director's Cut'" the document read. "It is the Director's creative right and obligation to prepare this cut and he must be given the time he deems necessary to fulfill this function." With this daring stroke, the committee elevated the status of the Director. The Negotiating Committee members knew that getting the studios to agree to the demands put forth by the Creative Rights Committee would be difficult. The Guild turned once again to former Guild President Frank Capra to chair (with John Rich and David Miller) the negotiations with the AMPTP. When the Directors presented their idea for the "Director's Cut," their adversaries were initially confused, in part because they were professional negotiators who were not intimately involved in making movies and TV shows. It made perfect sense to the Directors who helped develop the script, directed the actors, and gathered the raw footage. "To have the baby pulled away from us [when it came time to pull the material together and realize our original vision], seemed to be cruel and inhuman punishment," Silverstein maintained. But the other side—led by Charles Boren, AMPTP executive vice president—was concerned that any change could stall production. The producers wanted to know, "What if the Director doesn't show up? What if he stays in [the cutting room] forever? It's gonna cost us money. The industry will collapse. The companies will go under." Frank Capra proposed a bold solution when studios balked at a Director's Cut. (Credit: Everett)

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