Question regarding "pecking order" of authority on a film - any charts?

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some type of chart that outlines every single job on a film. I basically know them just like everyone, but I'm looking for a listing that's broken down into authority type catagories. There are sometimes 100's of people involved with a film - I'm specifically looking for the "pecking order" of authority.

An simple example:

Director, Executive Producer, Writer etc

Producer, Line Producer etc

........going all the way down to the interns and catering.

If anyone has a graphical chart or complete listing with the "pecking order" of authority please let me know.

I could always pop in a movie and look at the credits if I need to, but I'm sure there is a chart out there somewhere!

Thank you!!

[Charles Papert]

Christopher:

It's really only fully defined "below the line", by definition. It's pretty tough to play Rock, Paper, Scissors above the line in a generic way as it depends on the individuals in question. A novice director will fall below more people than an experienced one; in TV, the writers are above the director but generally not in the feature world; some people are given a producer title more as lip service, without much power behind it, etc.

Haven't ever seen a chart that shows this in a hierarchical fashion.

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Hey Charles,

I know it changes for every picture. It's just that I was hoping to find some sort of master list of titles with a hierarchical structure - or better yet, there was one I had a couple of years ago. I got one from a film lighting class I took, but I've misplaced it. So, one does exist! It had a very detailed graphical view and was very old. The teacher who gave it to me said it was passed down through the studio system in Hollywood over the years. It looked like it had been photocopied 1000 times...it was definately more than 40 years old or so. I remember it was laid out in a tree fashion with all the roles defined...it was just a cool visual of the hierarchical structure of departments.

Anyway, the teacher said that having the organizational authority displayed on film sets can help with knowing who the "go to" people are for what jobs. It saves time...blah, blah...lol.