Movie/TV/Book Credits (Ghost-writers as sims)

Questions, speculations & updates on the techniques and nature of media fakery
hoi.polloi
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Movie/TV/Book Credits (Ghost-writers as sims)

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

Ever since the great "David Angell" arguments, movie and television credits seem to be really suspicious to me. I understand it takes a lot of people to make a movie work, and 99.99% of those names shown are really of some shmoe taking a check for work on something that they believe has nothing to do with propaganda. Some of them may even be friends we know.

But what about the people credited who aren't people?

Granted there have always been nom de plumes, pseudonyms and the like in credits - "The Bard" has even been suspected of being such trickery. Why not?

But recently, with all the special effects being used in so many movies across different genres (sometimes just to replace a prop or a person in an otherwise SFX-free movie) I am guessing it won't be long before a PsyOp will involve the death of a non-existent CGI artist who worked on multiple movies - and hey presto - you'll have free sympathy advertising for a dozen DVDs.

Although this topic may seem broad or vague, bear with me. Maybe sometimes a credit in a movie or an author doesn't seem like it really deserves its own thread; or maybe there are multiple credits that seem fishy. In that case, here is a side thread for those questions.

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One that comes to mind is the name Jerry Mander (sounds like the verb 'to gerrymander' or redraw political boundaries in a crooked way) who wrote a book about destroying the evil television. What kind of psychology is at work, there, whether that's his real name or not?
nonhocapito
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Re: Movie/TV/Book Credits (Ghost-writers as sims)

Unread post by nonhocapito »

I think I argued profusely in this sense during my unfinished research on David Angell. Personally I came to the same conclusion, Hoi: that a great deal of credits especially in Hollywood are completely fake, invented names. Sometimes this is made almost blatant by picking names that mock real names, joke-names and such. "Mary Fukuto", etc. Of course this probably has a reason in some scheme to cheat union rules, or the taxes. But of course it can also serve very well to cover for a shadowy part of that industry that, for one reason or the other, does not want to be seen or credited. For example because it works for the military.
nonhocapito
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Re: Movie/TV/Book Credits (Ghost-writers as sims)

Unread post by nonhocapito »

A TV author who has been almost officially suspected of being a pen-name fake writer is John Swartzwelder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Swartzwelder
(The surname is a distortion of "schwarzwälder" that means "from the black forest")
Swartzwelder is the most prolific writer on The Simpsons, other than being a prolific book writer on his own. Like in the best tradition since the days of Salinger or Kubrick he is depicted as "reclusive", doesn't want to be photographed, never goes on TV etcetera...
I think names like these can be collaborative containers where multiple authors pitch in in turns or together. For whatever reason.
Farcevalue
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Re: Movie/TV/Book Credits (Ghost-writers as sims)

Unread post by Farcevalue »

I have long suspected the movie industry to be a ready-made vehicle for money laundering. There are huge numbers associated with making a blockbuster hit, but does it really take tens of millions of dollars to make a movie? Supposedly the first "El Mariachi" movie cost $6,000 or so. Does movie production cost a thousand times more in Hollywood? The military, drugs and Hollywood are a cozy combo that would require a mechanism for creating unaccountable slush funds. Fake names in credits could easily be part of that puzzle.
nonhocapito
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Re: Movie/TV/Book Credits (Ghost-writers as sims)

Unread post by nonhocapito »

Farcevalue wrote:I have long suspected the movie industry to be a ready-made vehicle for money laundering.
I think the same happens when we hear that certain sport celebrities are being exchanged for astronomical sums. Their value, entirely arbitrary, could in fact cover a flow of illegal money that materialize out of nothing and are cleaned this way. Back in 1995 Berlusconi was involved in an investigation and trial about exactly this scenario, regarding the footballer Lentini and 10 billions liras off the books that were probably coming from illegal sources (the mafia). Incidentally the trial had to stop when Berlusconi entered the government and changed the laws.
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