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I was recently watching the latest season of Star Trek: Discovery. While watching the opening credits, I noticed that two episodes of season 4 had two directors listed for those two episodes: Christopher J Bryne & Jen McGowan (4.08), and Jeff Byrd & (again) Jen Mcgowan (4.11).

Now I have seen pairs of screen writers (such as Alexander Kurtzman and former writing partner Roberto Orci) and I know that there are assistant directors, special scene choreographers, and/or cinematographers/art of Photography that can be additional to any given director, but I don't recall seeing a double director feature film or TV series episode before.

What was the first film project to do this, and what is the general/common purpose if it?

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    Many many. The Farrelly Bros, the Coens, the Warshowskis etc etc. It's usually the DGA that requires one director for "record/award" purposes.
    – Paulie_D
    Mar 17, 2022 at 15:46
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    As I mentioned there's no rule against it except for Award purposes I think.
    – Paulie_D
    Mar 17, 2022 at 15:49
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    idk these episodes, but it's often done in TV shows when they have a flashback to another episode. The current & previous directors are both credited. Also if it's a double-episode story & the blocks as shot have been re-edited so parts of both end up in a single episode.
    – Tetsujin
    Mar 17, 2022 at 16:12
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    The first ever projected film: imdb.com/title/tt0000012
    – magarnicle
    Mar 17, 2022 at 23:18
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    @magarnicle WOW! That's old!!! If you would make an answer with another source (imdb isn't always reliable, even though I suspect it's accurate) and I would be happy to 1+ Mar 18, 2022 at 2:03

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The first film ever projected - L'Arrivee d'un Train a La Ciotat (1895) - is sometimes credited as being directed by both Louis and Auguest Lumière. Other sources, however, only list Louis. As far as I can tell the film itself does not have any credits, and this was obviously before any bodies such as film guilds that could act as an official source.

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