William Faulkner was writing poetry at his younger age. He became famous for his novels “The Sound and the Fury,” “As I Lay Dying” and “Light in August”. Faulkner’s income was poor when he went to Hollywood first. He had a six-Week contract with Metro Goldwyn-Mayer and wrote six credited screenplays. Faulkner’s beloved wife Estelle gave birth to Jill and it was woefully insufficient to maintain his dependents in the family. That is why, Faulkner traveled to Hollywood a dozen time and devoted to write countless films and that only for financial gain.

Faulkner moving to Hollywood might initially have been of financial reasons, however he would soon find a career in screenplay writing. His screen-writing debut starts with a war short Story “turn about”. With Howard hawks as the Director attached to the project, Faulkner enters himself into what would be a successful collaboration in movie making. Starting with his own short story, a decade after Faulkner would get himself job security after his popular work on Ernest Hemingway’s novel directed by Hawks.

It appears Faulkner’s main motive for being a screen writer is due to financial reasons. I believe it wasn’t his initial intention to become a screen writer and he would’ve never done so if money wasn’t an issue. As his career in screenwriting progressed, he became more accepting of the career. As stated, Faulkner believed “The Southerner” represented the best work he had ever done on a movie script.

Because Faulkner went into screenwriting because of financial reasons, he was probably more likely to make compromises in his work. Faulkner had to appease higher ups on multiple occasions such as inventing a character for Joan Crawford and changing “The brooch” to have a more positive ending.

Since he was unable to maintain his family. He decided to do screenwriting of his novels. The screenwriting was successful, especially in 1932 because the production companies of Hollywood started to include sounds in its films. In fact that is why Hollywood did not suffer the great depression as a result of the innovation of films with sound. Faulkner knew that this will be the perfect way of success. Everybody is going to be able not just to read his books but also see his written stories produced on the screen.

To me, sometimes it is tough to make an order because Studio bosses determine Producers, director, writers and so forth. But sometimes producers act as writers or they hire writers. And they have to take care of locations, cameras, and in charge of anything the production needs for making films. Likewise, director select actors base on the ability and performance of the characters roles. Also, directors may changes the scripts if its needed base on characters role. The actors have to have ability to succeed the role of characters scripts. So what I think that the sequence should be studios bosses, writers and actors accordingly.

I figure this specific order might be the production of Hollywood star system in the early 20th century, which is an evolving system putting more attentions on big actors rather than other supplemented elements (like writers) in film making and promoting process because they are more straightforward accepted by the audiences at that time. Therefore, in order to attract more viewer, stars were treated as the commercial center of the process creating and promoting films. And I think that is why we got the rank of actors ahead of screenwriter at that time. But I also believed we do not have the exact same order like that in today’s film industry because the actors were no longer the only essential factors dominating the market.

As I have learned recently, the history of film itself is a broad one. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I love everything about the moviegoing experience. But the business side to movies that is always important, is the money aspect to it. Box office results ,etc. These components are predetermined depending on studio bosses and the actors. Studio bosses are highly important due to the power they possess on and off the set. Through their involvement studio bosses bring in producers and directors which are critical in any film making process regardless. Personally an argument can be made that actors can rank just as high of importance as studio bosses. I say this mainly due to the marketing and promotion that goes into the film. They are the faces and stars of the film that is being released. In the time that we live it is common for studio’s to promote the film just on the iconic actors and actresses alone. At the same time I say this due to the strength that an actor can produce on screen. Yes I am aware that a good script and good story are always important in any film. But even an actor depending on their level of performance can evoke the emotions that the story is supposed to provide and have it resonate well with it’s intended target audience. Even if the story itself is good or bad.

One thing that really stood out to me while reading about Faulkner being a screenwriter is how he wasn’t credited for his work on the film The Southerner. He even goes as far to say it was some of the best work he has ever done. Personally I wouldn’t be able to handle not being credited for something I was that proud of. The reason for not being credited was due to him being under contact with Warner brothers. That right there tells me all I need to know about how the order worked back then. Studios bosses were definitely the top dogs. I personally do not agree with this but that’s how it was.

The reason i would give for that order is simply because studios have to primarily make profit from all their films if possible. It also appears profit came from that order, First you had the studio bosses making decisions, then you had big star actors attracting a large amount of viewers, and lastly writers

My belief is that actors would top the list followed by studio bosses then writers. It has certainly been true in present days. Many major anticipated blockbusters ended up being disappointing because actors were unable to portray the character as well as in the novel. Another reason movies in present day fails is because the movie strays away from the original novel. This is closely related to how studio bosses direct the movie and determine the scenes. Although writers is the last in my list, they also play a crucial role. A popular novel would greatly increase the anticipation for the movie yet I believe the quantity of good writers surpass the amount of good actors which influences the order in my list.

It is in that order because ultimately, the studio bosses pays the writers to make a movie out of their work. Once they pay and sign terms, the writer has no write to make objections to it. As for actors before writers, actors are paid by studio bosses and not by the writers. Actors would care more about whom is paying for their work than who originally wrote the story.