The only way that a director can have complete artistic control is to make an animated feature all by himself an impractical idea at best. Esterhaus not only wrote the script, but also contributed greatly to the production at every stage. Theres been a lot of talk about how unappreciated screenwriters are about how all the magic of movies starts with the written word, and the writers are the true visionaries at work. More and more writers are extending their influence acting, producing, directing. But in the movie business, nobody works alone.
Motion pictures are perhaps the most collaborative art form of all.
Most screenplays are rewritten several times before, and even during production. Sometimes the scripts original author is rehired to work on his own script after it's been handled by other writers and finds he doesnt recognizable a single word of his own work. In the case of Burn Hollywood Burn , Esterhaus had no collaborators, and even the reconstruction of the film in the editing stage was done by him. But you couldnt call him the author of the film. Cuts and budget restraints were called for by the studio.