Casting can sometimes influence directors who write their own scripts. For Jason Reitman, he lets the movie take shape as he writes but soon recognizes when an actor is right for the part, which then in turn influences the character's development. For Quentin Tarantino, at least with "Inglourious Basterds," he "didn't have a clue who I was going to cast."

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So how important is the auditioning process in the making of a film? It depends on whom you ask. James Cameron certainly has a different approach than Lee Daniels, for instance.

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The five Oscar nominees for best director — Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker," James Cameron for "Avatar," Lee Daniels for "Precious," Jason Reitman for "Up in the Air" and Quentin Tarantino for "Inglourious Basterds" — are some very familiar faces indeed. Not only have they been regulars on the award circuit this year, but they also all came to The Times last month to participate in The Envelope Directors Roundtable series.

Still, it's hard not to feel that other directors were overlooked. To find out the name of at least one worthy candidate who was not on the list — and learn who is the odds-on favorite to win — watch the above video of Times film critic Kenneth Turan and writer John Horn.

After all, while the nominees could watch from the comfort of home, Turan and Horn had to be at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills well before the crack of dawn Tuesday.

And keep coming back to 24 Frames for more videos today.

— Scott Sandell

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Marketing campaigns may not be the first thing one thinks of when imagining the creative lives of some of the country's most well-known auteurs. But directors behind this season's biggest movies wrestle to a surprising degree with the issues of selling a movie -- whether it's Quentin Tarantino finding parts of the process "inspirational" or directors like Lee Daniels, Jason Reitman or James Cameron understanding that these Faustian bargains can help expose their film to a wider audience. Hear how these directors feel about one of moviedom's trickiest balances.

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Hollywood may be bombarded by sequels, franchises and toy adaptations -- yet many of the year's most acclaimed films derive from little else besides their makers' imaginations. Five of the directors who've succeeded in creating something wholly original this season contemplate why Hollywood continues to be enamored by decades-old properties, with James Cameron taking the sternest tone. "You can make money on a movie that's not based on something else," he said. The drive for profits "is not an excuse for people to constantly be whining about how the business is failing and we have to do all this commercial stuff in order to pay the payments on our corporate jets."

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Film fans like to watch movies and opine on what should or shouldn't have made the final cut. But sometimes a movie's harshest critic is the person who made it. In this clip from our Envelope Directors Roundtable, filmmakers reveal the scenes they loved but had to let go. Whether it's a startling group-therapy moment in "Precious" or a Hans Landa bon mot in "Inglourious Basterds," these scenes are often strikingly good -- and yet they'll never see the light of day.

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Nearly every director who's ever worked anywhere near Hollywood makes compromises. But many directors also have a defining moment when they drew the line and clung tightly to their principles. For Quentin Tarantino it was declining to cut a potentially graphic scene over Harvey Weinstein's protestations. For Jason Reitman it was insisting on shooting in multiple locations when a studio was asking he shoot only in one. Hear what they and others on our roundtable did to elevate themselves from hired hands to artists.  

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In Michael Tolkin’s script for the 1992 Hollywood satire “The Player,” studio executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) strangles a screenwriter he believes is trying to blackmail him.

It hasn’t gotten that gruesome in Hollywood. But for some involved in the script business these days, the movie’s arc may feel a little too familiar.

Screenwriters on some of the season’s biggest movies have seen acknowledgment for their work, if not choked off, then certainly minimized -- a group that includes, as fate would have it, Tolkin himself. So when the Golden Globes are handed out on Sunday, the names that viewers associate with the most lauded films may not quite include all the people who drove those movies forward.

That could be particularly true for three of the movies that lead nearly all others in Globes recognition — “Up in the Air,” “Nine” and “Avatar,” which have collectively amassed 15 nominations.

The issue cuts to the heart of contemporary Hollywood, where screenwriters are abundant but successes are rare, leaving a lot of people to scramble for a little bit of glory.

To those removed from the rituals of Hollywood, the fierce debate over credit can seem like arguing over who rides shotgun on a weekend road trip — arbitrary and, in the end, not very consequential. But for writers, credit can mean the difference between getting and not getting future gigs, higher paychecks and the acclaim and envy of peers. And credit issues can extend beyond how the Writers Guild of America arbitrates who did what on a script to shape the public (and media) consciousness about a writer's standing.

All of this comes against the backdrop of writer concerns that they are not given the same respect as their peers, particularly directors. “These things just seem to be messier lately. Everyone wants credit and nobody seems to be able to figure out the truth,” said an agent for several high-profile screenwriters who requested anonymity because the agent may yet work with some of the writers.

Jason Reitman humanized a tobacco lobbyist in "Thank You for Smoking" and a corporate hatchet man in "Up in the Air." Now,  he’s turning to an equally charged subject: Joyce Maynard, the author who as a teenager had an affair with J.D. Salinger and then created a furor when she wrote about it 20 years later.

Reitman’s next movie isn’t about Maynard herself, but it is based on her novel "Labor Day," and the director is already feeling the heat from being associated with a scarlet woman of letters.

To Reitman, Maynard's critics are a little nuts. "From my perspective, it is like, really, you hold an 18-year-old girl responsible for being seduced by a 53-year-old published novelist?  I mean, what freak world do I live in here?" he says  (Reitman, who sat down with us last month to talk about “Up in the Air,” also thinks Roman Polanski’s defenders are cracked. "He ...  drugged a 13-year old girl!")

“Labor Day” tells of a single mother who, along with her son, is held hostage by an escaped convict.

Reitman, who’s also contemplating directing a script from “Rachel Getting Married” writer Jenny Lumet, is actually getting in touch with his feminine side. "I want to tell original stories, " he says. "And there are more  stories about women that have not been told.”

-- Rachel Abramowitz

Photo: Jason Reitman. Credit: Dale Robinette / DreamWorks Studios