Scripts constrain but do not fully determine directors’ creative choices

Evidence

Scripts do not, in fact, strip directors of all creative freedom. They can request revisions of elements they find objectionable. Moreover, scripts provide guidelines, but directors have to fill in the details. This gives them some leeway in how they portray violent episodes. Writers and producers who remain in the broadcast system accept network directives regarding the use of violence and work within that framework. Those who are unwilling to compromise their standards leave. If they have a talent for producing highly rated shows, the issuers of the directives grudgingly back down. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 864

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to the book’s broader theme of moral disengagement through diffusion of responsibility and blaming impersonal forces — connects to Zamyatin’s We where the One State diffuses individual responsibility into a collective agent.