Wikipedia:WikiProject Film

"The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second." --Jean-Luc Godard, Le Petit Soldat (1963)

WikiProject Films is an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to films on Wikipedia. This WikiProject also aims to normalize the standards for film articles in Wikipedia.

If you would like to participate, you can simply start by editing any film article, or join the project below and/or contribute to the discussion on the talk page.

If you find, create, or contribute to a film article, please paste {{FilmsWikiProject}} onto the article's talk page and add a Wikilink to the page on List of films.

If you find a stub article that has not yet been marked as a stub, add {{film-stub}} (or {{docu-stub}} for documentary films) to the bottom of the article. It will automatically be included in the film stubs category, where you can find plenty of stub articles to expand if you are itching to do something.

If you find an article without an image, please list it at Requested pictures.

If you are looking for something to do, you can take a look at Requested film articles.

See also:

• Wikipedia:Cinema Collaboration of the Week
• Wikipedia:Filmographies and Discographies

Related WikiProjects

Parent:

• WikiProject Entertainment.

Descendants (proposed):

• WikiProject Actors and Actresses.
• WikiProject Directors.

Similar:

• WikiProject Albums.
• WikiProject Novels.

Participants

This is a list of Wikipedians who are committed to this WikiProject. Please, feel free to join by clicking edit on the right, and signing your name at the bottom of the list with four tildes (~~~~), with an optional comment:

• Seth Ilys, joined February 28, 2004.
• Robert Happelberg, joined March 3, 2004.
• Whkoh, joined December 15, 2004.
• JonMoore, joined February 15, 2005.
• imaek, joined June 2, 2005.
• Martinman11, joined June 28, 2005.
• elvenscout742 11:51, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
• The JPS, joined 15 July 2005
• A Link to the Past 23:56, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Courtkittie 04:13, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
• Amr Hassan 05:44, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
• Rossrs 15:24, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
• *drew 23:04, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
• Ianblair23 23:42, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
• Ilan T. Doing this for some time, found this page just now. (7 August 2005)

Guestbook

This is a list of Wikipedians who are not committed to the WikiProject, but who are sympathetic to the cause. Feel free to express your support by signing the list below!:

• Zzyzx11 (Talk) (Will occasionally help with it) 08:00, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Style

As of July 2005, there is currently a discussion taking place on the talk page concerning whether or not year links in film articles should be entered as YEAR, or YEAR IN FILM|YEAR ("piped" links). For now, while the discussion (which you can contribute to) is taking place and before the issue has been resolved, users are simply advised to continue with whatever they feel comfortable with; in any case, YEAR pages provide links to YEAR IN FILM, and YEAR IN FILM pages link back to YEAR.

Naming conventions

Main page: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films)

• If a non-film article already exists with the name of the film that you are trying to create an article for, disambiguate and use (film) in the title: Film Title (film).
• If a film article already exists with the name of the the film that you are trying to create an article for, use (YEAR film) in the title: Film Title (YEAR film). Rename the already existing article's title and change it to Film Title (YEAR film) also.
• If a film article already exists with the name of the the film that you are trying to create an article for, and the two films are in different languages, use (LANGUAGE film) in the title: Film Title (LANGUAGE film). Rename the already existing article's title and change it to Film Title (LANGUAGE film) also.

Previously, both Film Title (film) and Film Title (movie) were accepted as film article names; however, this has since changed due to a talk page vote in early July 2005. The correct title format is Film Title (film).

Infobox

The table to the right is the Infobox Movie template for The Terminator. Clicking edit on the right will enable you to view and copy the source text to use on film articles. If you have any questions or problems with this table, you can discuss them at Template talk:Infobox Movie.

WikiProject Film
A film poster for The Terminator.
Directed by	James Cameron
Written by	James Cameron Gale Anne Hurd
Produced by	John Daly Derek Gibson Gale Anne Hurd
Starring	Arnold Schwarzenegger Michael Biehn Linda Hamilton
Distributed by	Orion Pictures Corporation
Running time	108 min.
Budget	$6,400,000

Image

The image presented in the table should ideally be a promotional poster for the film, or failing that, a DVD or a video tape cover. Posters can be found at various sites, including the Internet Movie Database ([1]), while DVD and video covers are available at Amazon.com ([2]) and Amazon.co.uk ([3]). A screenshot of the film's title card is also acceptable. Once you have found an image:

• Save it to your hard drive as a JPEG or PNG file. See preparing images for upload.
• Upload it to the wiki at Special:Upload. See uploading images.
• On the file's description page, add a short description of the image (e.g. "A promotional film poster for The Terminator."), and an image copyright tag:
  • {{Poster}} for posters,
  • {{DVDcover}} for DVD covers,
  • {{Video tape cover}} for video tape covers,
  • {{film-screenshot}} for screenshots.
• On the image = line of the template, insert the image's filename. A short description is optional, but the preferred image size is 200-220px:

[[Image:Terminator.jpg|200px|A film poster for ''The Terminator''.]]

Details

Cast and crew credits for most films are available at the Internet Movie Database, as is distribution, release date, language, runtime and budget information. Inserting <BR> at the end of each line will separate lines from each other in the infobox.

• Starring: the principal actors in order of their characters' importance in the film, though there are some exceptions (e.g. ensemble films).
• Produced by: the film's "main" producers, such as Jerry Bruckheimer on Pirates of the Caribbean, or simply list all of them if there are five or less.
• Distributed by: the film's original theatrical distributor. In the case of there being different distributors for different countries, list only the film's US distributor (and its distributor in its home nation first if the film was not produced in America). You can clarify this in parentheses at the end, e.g. "Orion Pictures Corporation (USA)" if Orion only released The Terminator in the US.
• Release date: similar to the above, but should also list any major festival release dates if the film was not commercially released, or went straight to video or cable (which you should also note in parentheses).
• Runtime: the runtime of the original version of the film, with runtimes of other versions (such as director's cuts or extended editions) noted in parentheses.
• Languages: languages featured prominently in the film, in order of how much they are used.
• Budget: the film's production budget, which excludes additional costs such as prints or marketing.
• IMDb page: The series of numbers at the end of the URL for the film's IMDb page, after http://www.imdb.com/title/tt.

It is not essential to complete all fields in the infobox, or insert an infobox on every film article. This is especially true if scarce information on the film is available.

Article body

The lead section of the article serves as a quick introduction to the film, and the very first paragraph should cover the basics, such as the film's release year, genre, setting, stars, and director (and possibly writer in some cases), as well as one or two of the most notable, verifiable facts about the film, such as "At the time of its release, it was the most expensive film ever made". The second paragraph should be a brief look at the film's impact: whether critics liked the film or not (and why), whether it was a commercial success or not, and whether any sequels to or remakes of the film were produced.

Plot

It is best to describe the basic premise of the film in a couple of sentences at the beginning of this section, and then start a new paragraph going into more detail about the plot of the film, including the ending. Separate these two descriptions of the storyline with the template {{spoiler}}, which will warn readers of the article not to proceed if they do not want the film spoiled for them. Actors' names should be in parentheses after the first mention of their characters' names. The events of the film do not have to be described in the order in which they appear onscreen, however; see Pulp Fiction for an example of this.

Background and/or Production

Included here should be a history of the film's background and development, such as how many studios, actors, directors and writers were involved with the project at one point or another. Continuing onto the production of the film, facts such as filming dates, budget figures, any noteworthy titbits (such as delays, reshoots etc.) should be transformed into prose. Comments from the cast and crew are also welcomed.

Reception

Expanding on the second paragraph of the lead section, you should analyse how the film was received by critics, meaning professional or well-known film reviewers, and not comments from members of the public (for example, quotes from users of Amazon.com and the Internet Movie Database do not count). Websites such as Rotten Tomatoes ([4]) and Metacritic ([5]) collect professional film reviews and calculate a numerical score from them for each film. In the case of what the general public thought of the film, tend towards the expression "money talks" and provide a summary of the film's commercial success, consulting sites such as Box Office Mojo ([6]) and Box Office Guru ([7]).

Cast

The cast list in the body of the article should be longer than the list in the infobox, and, depending on the number of minor characters in the film, can be furnished with a dozen or more credits. Credits should be written in the "ACTOR as CHARACTER" format, but for credits where the character has not been mentioned in the plot section, a short summary of the importance and role of the character in the film would be necessary, e.g. "Rick Rossovich as Matt Buchanan, Ginger's boyfriend" in the case of The Terminator.

Notes and/or References

In accordance with Wikipedia's verifiability policy, all articles should cite their sources. A variety of methods to present your references is available at Citing sources:Style and how-to, as well as an inline citations/footnoting system at Footnote3. If you are unsure of how to use internet links as references, simply inserting the URL into square brackets at the end of the corresponding text (e.g. [http://www.google.com/] becomes [8]) is an adequate form of referencing the web, although providing the date on which you accessed the web page would enable other users of Wikipedia to retrieve it using the Wayback Machine, should the web link change or cease to function.

External links

• {{imdb title|id=0088247|title=The Terminator}}
• {{rotten-tomatoes|id=terminator|title=The Terminator}}