Who makes a film?

[Waterwolf]

What's the difference between the role of a director and a a producer in making a film? And why does the director get the main credit for 'authoring' a film -- what about screenwriters and the like?

[treaclefight]

the director is the person who brings together all the artistic elements of the film, a good script is only one element, good cast is another element, the director puts the whole thing together according to their own vision of what the film will be and so the film you see is ultimately the directors idea of what the film is and thats why the director takes the majority of the credit. the procucer finances the film and that will give them a big say in what films get made and what happens in terms of cast, crew etc, but there is resistance to letting producers take artistic control of films, thats the directors job.

[LeMarchand]

It is my understanding that the producer is the "money" guy, responsible for assembling the budget and deciding on how it is to be spent. The director handles the "talent" side of things, encouraging the best performance out of the thesps and deciding on how the film should look in terms of camera shots etc and generally responsible for the "style" of the film. The writer tends to be the lowest rung on the ladder because everyone is so determined to put their own input into the movie that they will quite happily change the script. (Especially actors who claim to have a better understanding of the characters than the writers and who will try to pump up their screen time). Probably the best way to look at it is to look at "Armageddon". Famous producer - Jerry Bruckheimer, you know it's going to be a big-budget brain-off action fest. Famous director - Michael Bay, there's going to be lots of slomo, and fast-cut action. Without looking it up, do you know who wrote it? Of course these roles are somewhat fluid!

[sddsddean]

The easiest way to remember it, is that the director is responsible for everything in front of the camera and the producer is responsible for everything behind the camera.

[Gef]

Just to add that the Director is usually hired by the Producer.