The Collaboration
Generally, Pressburger would create the original story (for all their films from 1940–1946 plus The Red Shoes) and write the first draft of the script. They would then pass the script back and forth a few times – they could never work on it together in the same room. For the actual dialogue, Pressburger would know what he wanted the characters to say but Powell would often supply some of the actual words.
They would both act as producers, perhaps Pressburger slightly more so than Powell, since he could soothe the feathers ruffled by Powell's forthright manner. They became their own producers mainly to stop anyone else poking their noses in, since they had a considerable degree of freedom, especially under Rank, to make just about any film they wanted.
The direction was nearly all done by Powell, but even so The Archers generally worked as a team, with the cast and crew often making suggestions. Pressburger was always on hand, usually on the studio floor, to make sure that these late changes fitted seamlessly into the story.
Once the filming was finished, Powell would usually go off for a walk in the hills of Scotland to clear his head, but Pressburger was often closely involved in the editing, especially of the way the music was used. Pressburger was a musician himself and played the violin in an orchestra in Hungary.
When the film was finally ready and Powell was back from the Highlands, it would usually be Powell that would be the front man in any promotional work, such as interviews for the trade papers or fan magazines.
Because collaborative efforts such as Powell's and Pressburger's were, and continue to be, unusual in the film industry, and because of the influence of the auteur theory, which elevates the director as a film's primary creator, Pressburger has sometimes been dismissed as "Michael Powell's scriptwriter", but Powell himself was the first to say, in many interviews, that he couldn't have done most of what he did without Pressburger.
Read more about this topic: Powell And Pressburger