Music first

A childhood friend of mine wrote the music for the very good documentary The Greatest Night in Pop. Which is kind of a funny thing to do, since most of the music we hear in the movie is snippets of "We Are the World."

But he did have a very good song that accompanied the opening credits, and for that he got the "music by" credit. A richly deserved credit for a really good musician and a really good guy.

When he posted about it on social media, though, perhaps the most interesting thing about the credit was revealed: it was the first one in the movie.

Considering that his contribution was "only" that bit of music we hear for about a minute over the opening credits, it's a strange position of prominence for his credit. (Please note the quotation marks around "only." It's a great honor, he performed it well, and it's a lot more than I could do.)

After watching Frida the other day, I've determined that this appears to be a thing.

I wasn't looking for the contributions of Victor Hernandez Stumpfhauser -- that's some name -- the way I was with my friend Goh Nakamura, but I did notice that Mr. Hernandez Stumpfhauser was also listed as the first credit in Frida. 

It's not something you would ever see in a feature film, so I'm trying to figure out what it is about a documentary that's different.

For one, there are no actors in a documentary. (Or in most documentaries, anyway.) The feature films that do still have opening credits are likely to lead with the names of the actors, adhering to a universal convention that no one questions. (Well, perhaps other people who worked on the film would dispute that they are the most important people in the film, but everyone else accepted it long ago.)

So if we aren't going to open the documentary credits with the music, I guess we need to figure out what other credits could potentially supersede that. And for that I will check both of these movies, because they both are still accessible to me on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

After the music credit, the credits in Pop go:

Music Supervisor, Director of Photography, Editor, Archive Producer, Executive Producer, Executive Producer of USA for Africa, Co-Producers, Producers (three times), Produced by, Director. (Let's not even get started on how producer credits are doled out and the distinctions between them that are only understood by people in the industry.)

After the music credit, the credits in Frida go:

Animation by, Editor, Supervising Editor, Executive Producers (three times), Produced by (three times), Director.

In Frida, if you were trying to showcase a truly distinctive role on this film, you could have gone with the animation first. I'm not saying the music was not distinctive, I'm just saying the thing about this movie is that it animates Frida Kahlo's paintings. You are going to remember that a lot more than you are going to remember the music, even if it's great.

If we were to look at the most similar role in The Greatest Night in Pop -- as in, a visual component about the film that was memorable -- it would probably the archive producer you would honor, because the priceless archives of America's greatest musicians rubbing elbows in one room are the thing you talk about after watching Pop.

Since executive producer positions are often given out as honoraria -- the joke in the industry is that if you want to kiss up to/placate someone, you offer them an executive producer credit -- they could have intensified the butt-kissing my promoting them to the top of the credits. But maybe even a cynical producer knows the executive producer does not deserve that sort of prominence.

Because you typically backload the "most important" roles -- producer and director, as well as writer in a fiction film -- those are not options. Editor? Although editor was third in Frida after music and animation, that job is usually closer to the big three listed at the start of this paragraph in terms of coming closer to the end of the credits than the beginning.

Music it is, then, I guess.

And hey, I have no problem with it. Don't misconstrue my examination of it here. A memorable musical score does wonders for a good movie. It can even elevate a not-so-good movie.

I had just never noticed this before, and then I noticed it twice in two months. (A newspaper editor would tell you that three of something makes a trend. I guess I'm going with two.)

I will keep my eye open for it going forward.