Film Billing Credits / Photo Credit: Studio Binder
WHAT DOES BILLING MEAN IN FILM? (In
the Entertainment industry.)
What does billing mean in film?
Billing is a performing arts term used in referring to the
order and other aspects of how credits are presented for plays, films,
television, or other creative works. Information given in billing usually
consists of the companies, actors, directors, producers, and other crew
members.
The order in which credits are billed generally signify
their importance. While there are numerous variations, most opening credits use
some variation of the following basic order. In the absence of opening credits,
these roles will often be credited in reverse order at the beginning of the closing
credits.
Studio vs. production company
The name of the studio that is normally credited is the
one that distributed the film. However, a studio may not necessarily be the
party that produced it. Instead, a separate production company may have made
the film or financed a substantial part of the film.
Top and above-title billing
The actors whose names appear first are said to have
"top billing". They usually play the principal characters in the film
and have the most screen time. Frequently, top-billed actors are also named in
advertising material such as trailers, posters, billboards and TV spots.
The two or three top-billed actors in a movie will usually
be announced prior to the title of the movie; this is referred to as
"above-title billing". For an actor to receive it, he/she will
generally have to be well-established, with box-office drawing power. Those
introduced afterward are generally considered to be the supporting cast.
Well-known actors may be given top billing for publicity or contractual
purposes if juvenile, lesser-known, or first-time performers appear in a larger
role: e.g., Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman were both credited before the title
in Superman (1978), while Christopher Reeve, the then-unknown actor who played
the titular character and protagonist, was not, even though Brando only appears
in the introduction while Hackman was the main antagonist. Similarly in
Apocalypse Now, Brando was billed first though he only appears at the end as
the film's chief antagonist, while Robert Duvall was billed second despite a
brief supporting role that earned him an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor,
and Martin Sheen who portrayed the main character was billed third.
It used to be common practice to give top billing based on
a person's level of fame, regardless of the significance of their role in the
film. For example, Marlon Brando received top billing in The Godfather
(although he had less on-screen time than Al Pacino's character; Pacino was
displeased that he was only nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar while
Brando received the Oscar nod for Best Actor in a Leading Role), Apocalypse Now
(see above), and Superman (also see above). Maximilian Schell was billed fifth
in Judgment at Nuremberg after Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark,
and Marlene Dietrich, yet Schell went on to win the Oscar for Best Actor in a
Leading Role. In recent decades, however, the practice of giving top billing to
a star actor has largely been discontinued especially if they only play a bit part;
some major actors may have a cameo where they are only noted within the other
cast during the end credits.
If an unfamiliar actor has the lead role, he may be listed
last in the list of principal supporting actors, his name prefixed with
"and introducing" (as Peter O'Toole was in Lawrence of Arabia)
However "and introducing" is now mostly used in feature films by a
young actor (usually a child) who appears for the first time in a motion
picture. Sometimes, he may not receive special billing even if his role is
crucial. For example, the then-unknown William Warfield, who played Joe and
sang "Ol' Man River" in the 1951 film version of Show Boat, received
tenth billing as if he were merely a bit player, while Paul Robeson, an
established star who played the same role in the 1936 film version of the
musical, received fourth billing in the 1936 film.
If more than one name appears at the same time or of a
similar size, then those actors are said to have "equal billing,"
with their importance decreasing from left to right. However, an instance of
"equal importance" is The Towering Inferno (1974) starring Steve
McQueen and Paul Newman. The two names appear simultaneously with Newman's on
the right side of the screen and raised slightly higher than McQueen's, to
indicate the comparable status of both actors' characters (this also features
on the advertising poster). A similar situation occurred in 2002 with Chicago,
where Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones received “stacked billing” on
the film’s poster, where a person reading from left to right would read
Zeta-Jones’ name first and a person reading from top to bottom would read
Zellweger’s name first.
If a film has an ensemble cast with no clear lead role, it
is traditional to bill the participants alphabetically or in the order of their
on-screen appearance. An example of the former is A Bridge Too Far (1977),
which featured 14 roles played by established stars, any one of whom would have
ordinarily received top billing as an individual. The cast of the Harry Potter
films includes many recognized stars in supporting roles who are billed
alphabetically, but after the three principals who were initially child actors.
In the case of the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet, there were many
famous actors playing supporting or bit roles, and these actors were given
prominent billing in the posters along with the film's actual stars: Branagh,
Derek Jacobi, Julie Christie, and Kate Winslet. In the actual film's credits,
they (along with the other actors in the film) were listed in alphabetical
order and in the same size typeface.
If an actor is not an established star, he or she may not
receive above-the-title billing, or even "star" billing; they may
just be listed at the head of the cast. This is the way that all of the actors
were listed in the opening credits to The Wizard of Oz; Judy Garland, although
listed first, was given equal billing to all the others, with the cast list
reading "with Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack
Haley," etc. F. Murray Abraham, a supporting actor at the time of Amadeus,
did not receive special star billing although he played the lead role of
Antonio Salieri; his onscreen credit reads "with F. Murray Abraham",
although his name does appear first in the cast.
In some cases, the position of a name in the credits roll
can become a sticking point for both cast and crew. Such was the case on the sixty’s
TV sitcom Gilligan's Island, where two of the stars were only mentioned by name
in the closing credits. In fact, the characters of The Professor (Russell
Johnson) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) were the only ones whose mention in the
opening theme song was abbreviated simply as "the rest" in the show's
first season. Bob Denver, who played Gilligan, was so upset with this treatment
that he reportedly told the producers that since his contract stipulated that
his name could appear anywhere in the credits that he wished, he wanted to be
moved to the end credits with his co-stars. From the show's second season, the
studio capitulated, and moved Denver's co-stars to the opening credits of the show
and changed the theme song's lyrics to include "The Professor and Mary
Ann" instead of saying "and the rest".
Last billing
An actor may receive "last billing", which
usually designates a smaller role played by a famous name. They are usually
credited after the rest of the lead cast, prefixed with "and" (or
also "with" if there is more than one.
Unbilled appearances
An actor may go uncredited, and not be listed in either or
both opening and closing credits. Reasons for this may vary.
Billing Block
The "billing block" is the "list of names
that adorn the bottom portion of the official poster (or 'one sheet', as it is
called in the movie industry) of the movie". In the layout of film posters
and other film advertising copy, the billing block is usually set in a highly
condensed typeface (one in which the height of characters is several times the
width).
References
& Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, WikiBooks, Pinterest, IMDB, Linked
In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, History Channel, Film Daily, New York
Film Academy, The Balance, Careers Hub, The Numbers, Film Maker, Film Site, TV
Guide Magazine, Blurb, Media Match, Quora, Creative Skill Set, Chron, Investopedia,
Variety, No Film School, WGA, BBC, Daily Variety, The Film Agency, Best Sample
Resume, How Stuff Works, Studio Binder, Career Trend, Central Casting, Producer's
Code of Credits, Truity, Production Hub, Producers Guild of America, Film
Connection, Variety, Wolf Crow, Get In Media, Production Beast, Sony Pictures, Warner
Bros, UCAS, Frankenbite, Realty 101, Careers Hub, Screen Play Scripts, Elements
of Cinema, Script Doctor, ASCAP, Film Independent, Any Possibility, CTLsites, NYFA,
Future Learn, VOM Productions, Mad Studios, Rewire, DP School, Film Reference, DGA,
IATSE, ASC, MPAA, HFPA, MPSE, CDG, AFI, Box Office Mojo, Rotten Tomatoes, Indie
Film Hustle, The Numbers, Netflix, Vimeo, Instagram, Pinterest, Metacritic, Hulu,
Reddit, NATO, Mental Floss, Slate, Locations Hub, Film Industry Statistics, Guinness
World Records, The Audiopedia, Imagination for People, Literary Devices, Start
Up Film Maker, On Post Modernism, The Guerrilla Rep Media, Indie Film
Distribution, Filmmaker Freedom,
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Film Billing Credits / Photo Credit: Studio Binder
