question about north and south
was the mini series was it written or directed by the same person who made roots
shareThe producer David Wolper was involved with both series. He's labeled the creator of North and South (although the original source material were novels by John Jakes) and helped produce the first two sections. He was smart enough not to get involved with III, it seems...
I don't know details, but after a quick search on Wikipedia, Wolper is the 'creator' of North and South and is a producer of Roots. Alex Haley is the 'creator' of Roots.
So, yeah, there's some overlap.
"You policemen are always in such a hurry. As if dead men didn't have all eternity."
One shouldn't always trust Wikipedia as "fact" as it's content is submitted by the public. Clearly in this case, it is not correct. John Jakes wrote the North and South trilogy, it's characters, storyline, etc. All of which the miniseries is based on. David L. Wolper was an executive producer.
Nevertheless, 'creator' is a misnomer in both cases. Mr. Wolper as exectutive producers did not create the North and South story. Mr. Haley didn't create his family history in writing Roots.
So to the OP - North and South and Roots, were not written or directed by the same person.
Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that I need peer reviewed journal articles to answer a question on an IMDb message board
And I know my North and South. I read them when I was 12 and once a year since.
"We can end this." 7/15/11
As far as the term "creator" I can think of at least three different definitions of "creator" (just from reading this thread...threads can often be quite thought-provoking).
1. "Creator" as in author/novelist/etc.
2. "Creator" as in the person behind the concept of the televised version (which I think Wolper probably was, for several different miniseries, so far...wow, that man really gets around, doesn't he!!!).
3. "Creator" as in "Mr. Haley didn't create his family history in writing Roots". (For that kind of "creator" you would need God/Goddess/Mother Nature/a higher power/etc. ^__^)
"Creator" in terms of a television miniseries seems to be most often assumed to mean the second of those three (unless otherwise specified).
And, while I agree that (obviously) Mr. Haley did not "create" his family history...he did create the book version of it (which wasn't necessarily 100% identical to his actual family history anyway)...therefore, he is the creator of Roots, the book, although he was (presumably) not also the creator of his own roots. ^_~
(Lecture and/or argument not intended. Posted as an interesting note to the discussion. Mentioning that, just in case any of you who posted last year should ever happen to read this.)
Respectfully,
Kit (the magical cat =^__^=)
Addendum to previous post (in case anyone is or may be at all interested):
Generally speaking, the writer of the book, the writer(s) of the miniseries, the director(s), and the producer(s) are all different people (although not always). In some ways, the average miniseries could be said to have been "created" by dozens of different people, not just one. (And usually, the book author ends up being one of the people with the least say in how the TV version is done.)
(See any of the IMDb lists of the MANY people involved in any of the various David Wolper productions...just for example.)
Edit, after rereading the original post:
The original poster's question, if taken in context rather than out of context, almost certainly refers to the person or persons in charge of the making of the TV versions of North and South and Roots. ("Who made" something, when it's about a TV show, hardly ever refers to the original creator of the book...unless it's the same person or persons...or to the creator or creators of whatever real-life events any particular book, book series, movie, or miniseries was or may have been based on.) (Hardly anybody would think, for example, that either John Jakes or David Wolper had "created" the Civil War. ^_~ They weren't even born yet, back then. ^_~ Just a humorous note. ^_^) The original answer, which I consider an accurate and appropriate response to the original question, did make use of the term "creator" but not necessarily in the other senses of the word, which were later addressed by another poster (and still later by yours truly).
When referring to a TV show/miniseries/movie/etc., "creator" often means the man or woman behind the concept (of the show, not necessarily the book it was based on). Which may or may not be the same person/people who produced, directed, etc. (If it's a relatively small production, they may well all be the same person/couple/family/theater troupe/etc. In a major production...the kind that makes millions and billions, for instance...they may have essentially no connection with each other except that they all had something to do with the same movie or miniseries.) In other words...who is usually considered to be "the creator" of something, and "who made" the show/series/miniseries/whatever...can often be two almost completely different questions. Confusing much? ^_~
I can't remember whether or not Alex Haley was supposed to have been the "creator" (the man behind the concept) of the TV version of Roots...I would have to go look it up to find out. (Fortunately, here we are at IMDb, where one can look up practically anything about practically any movie or miniseries. ^_^)
Anyway...all this is reminding me of why, when the book and the TV or movie version(s) have the same title, it's good to specify which version you mean. (For example, the North and South books by John Jakes, versus the North and South miniseries produced by David Wolper. Two different things, obviously.)
But...of course, I'm probably just talking to myself here, anyway. ^_~ (If not...then I hope I haven't totally bored to tears whoever may stop by. Best wishes to all who enter here! ^_^)
Antosha...I thought your info on which person was labeled the "creator" of what...was actually interesting and relevant to the discussion.
And...for one thing, quite a lot of the information on Wikipedia is actually habitually checked for accuracy (more often than IMDb, it sometimes seems! ^_~) and for another thing, the term "creator" seems to be largely subjective anyway...so...this is NOT necessarily a matter of Wikipedia's lacking accuracy on the topic, as the other poster appears to be claiming. Possibly some of the posters on Wikipedia were simply using some of the several different definitions of the term "creator". Which, I think, shows more that the term itself often tends to be relative and subjective...rather than that the information on Wikipedia is necessarily less accurate. Extremely inaccurate information on Wikipedia has a tendency to get removed within the first 24 hours or so anyway, precisely because so many people can post and edit the articles. At IMDb, if something is inaccurate, it may have to wait months to get removed or changed...because we-the-posters are responsible only for our own discussion posts, not for editing the IMDb info whenever we may happen to feel like it. There are, of course, both good and bad things about that! ^_~