A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

The following letter from DGA President Martha Coolidge was published in the September 2002 DGA Magazine:

I want to talk to you this month about an issue that has been much in the news lately, and that affects members of the Guild in a very personal way.

The rise of digital technology has paved the way for a number of companies to rent or sell unauthorized edited copies of videotapes and DVDs of hundreds of movies, and has also permitted other companies to design and sell software or devices that can be used by consumers to watch edited versions of DVDs that have been pre-programmed by these companies.

Among these companies are: CleanFlicks; Video II; Trilogy Studios, makers of MovieMask software; and Family Shield Technologies, manufacturers of MovieShield.

What they all have in common is that they are taking films and using technology to alter them without permission from either their directors or their copyright holders.

There are many questions — including legal ones — posed by the actions of these companies, but the one I would like to address is the moral one: Is it right to take finished films that have been created by someone else, change them to suit your whims, then profit by the commerce of these grossly altered products — and at the same time portray these versions as still being the works of their original directors?

For directors, and for the DGA, the answer to this question is a resounding no, and here's why:

As directors, we design and orchestrate every scene in a film, working with actors, writers, cameramen, editors and the hundreds of others whose hard work is reflected in the final product. We make thousands of creative decisions while creating films, through pre-production, casting, shooting and editing. These companies that further edit the films for distribution or sale override these decisions without directors' input or consent by changing or deleting words, adding, replacing or deleting images. In other words, they substitute the carefully thought out choices made by filmmakers with the ones of their programmers or technicians.

Regardless of the motives of those who perform these alterations, it is wrong for them to do so. All creative works, whether they are films, novels, paintings or comic books, are the output of their creators, and stand as representatives of their creators' intentions. These intentions could be to inform, to instruct, or merely to entertain — it doesn't matter. Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight are all equal in the sense that they are what their creators wanted them to be.

Further, to alter these creations in the name of "morality" or "family values" is the height of hypocrisy. What kind of morality and values does it teach our children when we say it is OK to cut scenes from a film, to cover up part of a painting or rip pages out of a book, simply because we don't like the way something was portrayed or said by somebody else? What does it teach our children about America if we allow technicians to remove five minutes from the Normandy landing scene of Saving Private Ryan to make it more "palatable," when Spielberg's overriding intent was to portray in graphic detail the horrors our fathers and grandfathers went through in order to literally save the world?

And finally, it is appalling that these companies release their edited versions of films while trading on the name of the filmmakers whose works they are altering. Shakespeare in Love is no longer John Madden's film when it is changed in any way without his input. National Lampoon's Animal House is no longer directed by John Landis when it is chopped up without his consent. Traffic is no longer the film for which Steven Soderbergh won an Academy Award for directing when it is altered behind his back. It is a clear misrepresentation to rent or sell films that, despite whatever blinders have been put on their vision, will always be associated with their directors — yet, this is exactly what these companies are doing, and exactly how they are making their money.

The DGA is not idly standing by while this is happening. I encourage you to read Ray Richmond's story for an up-to-date look at what your Guild is doing on this issue, and I promise to keep you posted as this heats up over the next several months.

Martha Coolidge
DGA President