Don't Let People Take Your Credit
When people “forget” who said what and where, and why they do it.
It doesn’t matter if it’s one idea or a hundred of them, if you are a person who comes up with ideas that make something better - a movie, or show, or app, or whatever - you are adding value to the project and to yourself as a contributor. In creative work, ideas are valuable, and credit is currency. It makes my skin crawl to write that - but I don’t make the truth, I just write it.
Here’s the TL/DR: if someone takes credit for your ideas, you need to correct them right there on the spot.
Why would people take credit for your ideas? Let’s start with the kindest reason:
They made a mistake. They misheard, misunderstood, or misremembered how a discussion went and got it wrong. It happens. Let’s give people the benefit of the doubt, and assume a mistake is the reason.
Because every other reason is a different shade of bullshit. Here are a few of those.
They want to raise their stock by getting credit for your brilliant idea.
They want to lower your stock by denying you your credit.
They want to build up someone else by attributing your idea to them.
They are fucking evil and they should be stuffed in a canon and fired off a cliff - no, into a cliff.
The first time someone took credit for one of my ideas, I was genuinely shocked. We had been working together for months when it happened. It was a true WTF moment and for a split second, I thought maybe I didn’t come up with that idea - but I knew I DID! I knew the truth, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t want the conflict of contesting it right there. In that moment, it wasn’t worth the credit to me. The problem with that… is that if you don’t correct the mistake - whether it was intentional or not - this reattribution of credit is what people will remember, and it becomes the record. The lie becomes the truth. And that moment ate at me for weeks.
Then it happened again, but this time it was by someone else. The alarms in my head were going off, but still, I couldn’t believe it was happening. And I let it slide.
And it ate at me for weeks - actually for years, because apparently it still makes me mad.
Then, it happened a third time, by someone else! But, since each of these instances was done by a different person, it wasn’t a pattern of behavior on their part, it was becoming my pattern to let it happen. And this time in a split-second, I decided I wasn’t about to go on again for weeks letting that feeling eat at me again - so I said, “Actually, that was my idea.” The person stopped with a look of slight surprise on their face and said, “Oh, I thought it was me. Sorry.” There was no argument, and that fixed it. And thankfully, it never happened again on that project. That’s all it took.
It’s important to correct the person quickly and publicly - I don’t mean tweet it out to the world, but if there are other people around, just calmly call it out and most likely, it will resolve right there. There is nothing wrong with standing up for yourself, even if it’s to someone above you, like your boss. It is actually the right thing to do and you owe it to yourself, and if they made an honest mistake, you owe it to them too. If you wait to talk to the person in private, there is the chance that they did it maliciously, and they won’t remember, or they might try to weasel their way out of it, or try to gaslight you, or minimize the cost to you. And anyone who heard them say it, won’t be there to hear the correction. So just nip it in the bud when it happens and everyone will know the truth and anyone who thinks you will let people take your credit, will be quickly reeducated, tout de suite.
Thankfully this doesn’t happen that often. It has happened a few other times on other projects, and each time I have immediately corrected the “mistake.” I’m not going to pretend it is comfortable, because you can’t know what the response will be, but I have never had a problem. The sooner people see you stand up for yourself when this happens, the chances of it happening again shrink to almost ZERO. It’s one of the most empowering changes I’ve made for myself and I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in this situation, and I bet you will. You will respect yourself and other people will respect you more for it too.
I hate to be the motivational quote guy, but here’s a quote that I find to be very true:
“You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce.” - Tony A. Gaskins Jr.
(I have no idea who Tony A Gaskin, Jr. is, but he’s right.)
There are a couple variants on this theme of misplaced credit:
The first is when I see someone give credit to the wrong person for an idea. I always correct them.
Another is when someone credits me for someone else’s idea, which can happen a lot when you’re the director because people assume you come up with everything - and trust me, I don’t. So I always correct them, even if I can’t remember exactly who had the idea.
The third variant is simply giving people credit where credit is due. For example, if someone says to me, I love that line in the movie, and the actor was the one who came up with it, I say so. I don’t lose anything by doing that because there’s room for everyone to get credit for their ideas. It’s that simple.
I’ll make another recommendation: An invaluable tool on a production is note taking. In feature animation, there is a beautiful tradition of note taking. In every meeting, a PA or other production person writes down what everyone says. Then, the notes are sent out to everyone in attendance for reference, and if there is ever any question of who said what, it’s all right there in black and white. This isn’t so much about credit, but a record to remind everyone what the plan is and how it was reached, but if there is a question of who came up with something, the answer can be found.
We have one of the most fascinating documents about filmmaking thanks to note taking, or, in this case, audio recordings that were transcribed. I’m talking about the story notes from the creation of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan figured out the story. Everything they said was recorded, and later transcribed and it is brilliant. Plus, it reveals who many of the ideas in this masterpiece came from. You can really see how Lucas had the major story elements in his head, Spielberg added some of the kookier, fun story ideas, and Kasdan would bring ingenious solutions to problems they were trying to solve.
You can this document all over the internet, but here’s a link that has it in a few different formats.
I don’t know why note taking doesn’t happen all the time, but I’m going to push for it on every project going forward.
Now, go forth and create - and be prepared to get credit where credit is due.