Credit Reading
Today, I'm going to introduce one of the industry stalking techniques that I've honed throughout my career.
I'm essentially an internet stalker in the realm of digital creative development, where I am actively involved. I constantly track various players in different companies to understand their skills. Since moving to the United States, I've been doing the same for the American industry. In my work as a technical director, I often need to assemble a development team, and this tendency is extremely helpful in that respect. It allows me to know who to consult when the need arises, and to discern to some extent which production companies have what kind of personnel and what kind of talent they are lacking.
At the heart of this industry net-stalking technique is the skill of "reading the staff credits." You know, figuring out who the art director is, who the designers are, and so forth. This skill of reading staff credits is quite deep and requires expertise. In my case, I had a period of about a year before I entered this industry when I was totally enamored with it. During that time, I was constantly looking at the credits of things people had made, so I have about 13 years of experience in this "credit analysis." I've been doing this since I was writing in this blog post (In Japanese).
I wanted to win an advertising award.
With that said, what I'm about to describe are some important techniques in this "credit reading," but keep in mind that these are just probabilistic observations like "in this case, this person often turns out to be this type." Just because someone fits the conditions, it doesn't necessarily mean that the result of this "credit reading" is accurate. It does hit the mark quite often in reality, but of course, there are exceptions. However, depending on the reader, the content might be quite chilling.
Now, let's get into a few of these techniques.
Identifying the Pillar of the Company
This is a very basic technique, but what it implies is that "staff credits don't mean much if you just look at one work." Comparing multiple staff credits is the basis of "credit reading".
In every production company or agency-like place, there exists a "pillar." In other words, a key player whose absence would generally lower the production/development level or the overall responsiveness of the company.
Identifying this person is easy. If someone is credited in an unnaturally high number of projects that the company is working on (excluding top positions like creative directors or chief something officers), that person is likely the pillar of the company.
Also, anyone who is consistently credited in difficult projects or works by famous creative directors is probably a pillar.
As I repeat, when this pillar is removed, the overall strength of the company tends to decline.
However, an important point to remember is that the pillar is not always outwardly noticeable. While creative directors and the like who are frequently exposed to the media (through interviews, etc.) may be noticeable, there are cases where the pillar may be surprisingly overlooked and underappreciated (this can depend on the person's personality or consciousness).
Looking at the Repeat Rate
This is an important point. People naturally want to work with those who they can have a good and enjoyable working experience with. When you have a successful experience in a job, thinking, "Ah, things went well with this person (team)" or "Working with this person (team) was fun," you naturally want to work with that person or team again.
Therefore, if you find credits where the same team has done a few projects in a row, that team is likely composed of excellent individuals. At the very least, they should be people who act professionally in their respective roles. This is because, to work in the same team, you need to have a minimum level of respect for each other. I think this is a prerequisite for professional work. There's also the element of compatibility, but before compatibility comes into play, you don't want to work with someone who doesn't do their job properly, so being "excellent" often comes before compatibility.
Excellent people tend to work together in the same team multiple times.
People Who Don't Repeat
At All Naturally, the opposite is also true. People don't want to work with those who don't work at all, are sloppy, push responsibility onto others, harass, or are difficult in some way. I have some experience with this as well. If you have a bad experience with a person or team, thinking, "Working with this person (team) was the worst" or "Working with this person (team) was a mess," you may not want to work with them again or may be cautious in the future.
If you compare the credits of a person's work and find that there is hardly any team repetition, there is a chance that the person's abilities are questionable (although I think there are cases where this is not the case).
Finding the "Person Inside"
This is a hybrid theory of the pillar and repetition rate. Most big names or famous creators have a "person inside". This is not a diss to big names or famous creators. Basically, such people are popular, so they are pulled into various meetings, appear in the media, give lectures, and generally can't concentrate on their work. This may sound self-serving, but even I attend meetings all day, appear in the media, and am invited to various events, and while this is certainly part of my job, it's quite difficult to provide full-time, full-service with integrity (although I'm somehow managing by working late every day).
In such cases, there is often a "person inside" who constantly supports the big name or famous creator. There are many cases where someone is hailed as a charismatic programmer, but in fact there is a true god programmer in the team.
This is simple, too. Look at the regular participants of such people's projects, and the person who is always credited is the "person inside". This is also true when they are not from the same company.
What's even trickier is that this technique can sometimes help you identify "incompetent assistants". For example, people who are clearly working as someone's assistant but are occasionally left out of that person's credit might not always be, but can sometimes be a bit tricky.
The ability of big names and famous creators
This is a slightly advanced technique, but while one would like to think that big names and famous creators have become so because of their abilities, unfortunately, this is not always the case. There are certainly people who have become famous just by being good at navigating the world.
And famous people often have their own teams, so they can't be judged by a simple repetition rate.
What we should pay attention to here is the repetition rate among famous people.
It's common for famous creators to collaborate with each other, and there's a metric of repetition rate in this context too. It's the "repetition rate among famous creators". Since they are both famous creators, if one of them thinks, "Oh, this didn't work out," they won't work with the other person again.
However, if A and B simply don't repeat, it might just be that they didn't get along.
The problem is when you compare the repetition rate of A and B with other famous creators, and A has repeated with C several times, but B is always collaborating with different people and doesn't repeat at all.
In this case, there is a reasonable chance that B is a famous person who became famous just by navigating the world, without any real ability.
This can sometimes be seen in a somewhat cruel way, and often when you can guess that someone is a bit off with this theory, other famous creator-like people are harshly criticizing them, saying, "They didn't do anything. I'll never work with them again" (although I think there are cases where this is not the case).
If both A and B are repeating with other people, then they probably just didn't get along.
There are many other techniques, but when I'm networking in the industry, I often look at these things. By the way, if you ask me who my mentor is, it's Naoki Ito of PARTY. There was a time when Ito-san, in a project early in my career where I had just entered as the lowest-ranking project manager, put me second in the credits, after him, because "you contributed the most," despite my company's boss at the time.
Considering industry conventions and company hierarchies, this was quite a punk thing to do. Once, I changed the credits out of consideration for my boss, but Ito-san said, "No, I prefer the original," and he went out of his way to revert it. And he kept repeating after that (or rather, the repetition escalated to the point where we started a company together).
I will never forget my gratitude for his evaluation of me at that time.
As I wrote in the aforementioned blog post, I have worked hard out of resentment for credits, but I have also continued to work because I was saved by such credits.
If you read the credits carefully, they project various things about the person's stance on work, their work style, their values, and so on. I have made mistakes in crediting people and there are cases where I couldn't apologize enough, but credits can sometimes change a person's work life.