Template talk:Infobox film

TCM database

I've been editing quite a few movie articles lately, and I've found the TCM database to be very helpful and a very solid source of information, especially production information, much of which is not available on IMDB. Overall, it's at least as valuable as IMDB, and certainly better than All Movie Guide, which frequently doesn't have much information at all.

I'd like to suggest that a link for the TCM database number be added to the template. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 20:22, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

As a replacement for the AMG link, perhaps, but I would be opposed to simply adding it to the template. The infobox shouldn't become a repository of external links. That's not what it's for. PC78 (talk) 20:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Either way, as an add or a replacement. I don't find the AMG all that helpful, usually. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 21:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Academy Awards and other awards

I have recently reviewed certian arctiles about Academy Award winning films, including Best Picture, and I found it difficult to distinguish the films as Academy Award winners, even Best Picture. I made an icon or image of an Oscar and have placed it next to some infoboxes from articles about Academy Award winning films, as a way of making easier for a reader to recognize the image and identify the film as being an Academy Award winner almost instantly. I believe that should bee used more often with Academy Award winning films. I also noticed that there was no section in the Infobox about film that listed the awards the film has won. Even though there is a seperate infobox for awards, I think that including a section listing the awards in the Infobox about film, would be more recognizable. Please take this proposal under consideration, Thanks. Jughead.z(1) (talk) 22:40, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not support this. This is English Wikipedia, not American Wikipedia. Placing the AMPAS image in the Infobox without including reference to other awards shifts the focus to American-centrism. Also, although considered by many to be important, Oscars are not the end-all-be-all indicator of a film's significance. Even if awards are included in the Infobox, which awards and for which categories?
Jim Dunning | talk 23:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It's also inappropriate use of a copyrighted image. An awards parameter was removed from this infobox some time ago (see discussion here). PC78 (talk) 23:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:FUC rule #8 states that "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." The current interpretation of that rule is that fair use images cannot be used merely as decorative icons on infoboxes. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Jim about the characteristic shifting the focus to American-centrism. In addition, awards can be too varied for a brief summary in the infobox. If you've come across articles in which you thought it was difficult to discern what awards it won, including Oscars, perhaps the lead section or the Awards sections could be revised to reflect this better. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:38, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Although I'm in the odd position of having just asked for an addition to the infobox myself (see #TCM database above), I also agree that adding either an awards section to the infobox or the Academy Award icon is unwarranted. For the latter, it won't pass muster for fair use, and for the former, it will just get much too complicated. The infobox is fairly stuffed at this point - let's leave something to include in the article! Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 00:25, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Academy Award winners does group those movies, and it does it better than an infobox could. --Qyd (talk) 02:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Home Video releases

I really think that the infobox should comment on home video releases for movies. This is pretty relevant information for anybody interested in a film and who may want to watch it.--SkiDragon (talk) 02:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary... we already cover such details in Home video sections. We try to keep the infobox limited to primary information about the film, such as when it first came out. In the Home video section, we can specify things like DVD/Blu-Ray and the kinds of features it may have. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 04:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

ISBN

what are the thoughts of adding an ISBN link to this infobox. a lot of movies have them see ISBN 1419828371 and the WorldCat link? β^_command 01:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it would be very useful. ISBN is an international standard book number, and I'm not sure how widespread their use on films is or will become. In any case, the articles are about the film itself, not about any one particular instancing of the film, in a DVD or tape - not to mention that different versions would probably have different ISBN's, just as in book publishing, which actually makes them somewhat problematic for referencing there.

I'd say no. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 01:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

(xpost) Hmm...how would that be able to deal with multiple editions not only in this country, but many other ones? It would need to cover VHS and/or DVD, all the different DVD region releases, and several editions in each region or country for certain films? Is there a unified code per film, or is it on an edition-basis? Because the latter would be a considerable logistical challenge. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I would welcome something like an ISBN for films, but I'm not really sure if there is such thing. I'm not aware of any kind of sorting system available beyond identifying the title, studio, and director. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 01:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I suggested (see above) using the MPAA certificate number (at least for U.S.-made films), but the idea was shot down. — Loadmaster (talk) 01:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}} Can someone please change

! style="font-size: 100%;" align="center" colspan="2" {{!}} '''[http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql={{{amg_id|}}} All Movie Guide profile]'''

to

! style="font-size: 100%;" align="center" colspan="2" {{!}} '''[http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql={{{amg_id|}}} Allmovie profile]'''

following a page move to the correct website name? Thanks! PC78 (talk) 17:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed additions (2)

I previously requested Costume Designer be added to the infobox. Girolamo Savonarola thought this was "relatively reasonable," but nobody else responded and nothing came of it. I think Production Designer is a worthy addition as well. Does anyone else agree with these two suggestions? How does one go about adding them if there's a consensus to do so? Thank you. MovieMadness (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that adding these roles would unnecessarily weigh down the infobox. The problem is that there are a lot of different roles for any given film, so a case could be argued for any one of them. (Why not the casting person? Why not the visual effects supervisor?) My opinion is that what already exists is suitable because they are pretty general roles for any film. Not all films will necessarily utilize a costume designer or a production designer to the greatest extent. In addition, I think that biographical information about such crew members would be very minimal. In opposition, there are editors, producers, and cinematographers that have pretty extensive backgrounds. I don't have a problem with identifying people like the costume designer and the production designer in the article body itself if they contributed something particularly important to the film. However, having fields for them would suggest biographical articles, and I don't think there's much that can be said in them. We used to have executive producer and associate producer attributes, but they were not really substantial. That's my take on it, anyway. By the way, you may want to post a link to this at WT:FILM -- I'm not sure if many people in WP:FILM have this template on their watchlist. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, a follow-up thought. The crew information is available at IMDb, so the credentials of any one of them can be explored without biographical concerns. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if you look at Academy Award for Costume Design, Costume design, Academy Award for Best Art Direction, and Production designer, you'll find a lot more blue links than you might have thought existed. MovieMadness (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The blue links aren't the issue so much as the template-creep. At a certain point, the infobox no longer serves its purpose - to show only the most salient data on the film. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

In that regard, I know I asked for TCM to be added to the template, but I wouldn't be adverse to removing both AMG and IMDB from it if it would free up space for designers and other personnel directly connected to the movie, such as, for instance, choreographer. Since the database links are set off from the main body of the template anyway, removing both of them would provide space for three or four names. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 07:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Ed. Since AMG and IMDB can be and usually are listed under "External links," they easily can be removed from the infobox to make space for what I feel are credits more pertinent to the project. MovieMadness (talk) 13:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the most prudent approach would be to keep our "default" the same but add some more parameters which are only used in special circumstances. Some films warrant greater prominence for these positions while others do not. gren グレン 12:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Image_size issue

It looks like something "funny" is going on with image_size. This parameter can be used to reduce the image size, but that's sometimes not working now. See for example Montana Sky. That has image_size = 200 px, which was reducing the size to 200 pixels until recently. To make things more confusing, I'm also seeing pages where it's still working, e.g. Black Scorpion (film) — Mudwater ^(Talk) 11:52, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove the "px" from the imagesize parameter, that solves the problem -- I've doen it for Black Scorpion. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 12:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That worked, thanks! Do you know if there was a recent change somewhere that made things work differently? I'm wondering if a lot of other film infoboxes will be affected. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

There was apparently a bug in a new version of the MediaWiki software. There was a notice about it for a couple of days at the top of my watchlist. Some infoboxes have been effected, but some haven't -- I have no idea why. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 12:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your help. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:ClickFix for the technical reasons why it's happening. The bug does affect this template, but it's not very visible since the image_size parameter is used rarely. It's only supposed to be used when the actual image is smaller than 200px, and in those cases, the bug wouldn't affect anything (since the image would just be shown in full size, which is less than the 200px). If you see the bug happening a lot, please leave a note of it somewhere though. - Bobet 13:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional info. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 13:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed it on many pages too. Wikipedia:ClickFix#Fixes explains how the template can be fixed so that it accepts both "200px" and "200" for the image size. Can someone who is able to edit this template do it? That way we don't have to go around to every film article just to remove the "px" from the ones that have it. For An Angel (talk) 14:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The line

[[Image:{{{image}}}|{{#if:{{{image_size|}}}|<!--then:-->{{{image_size}}}px|<!--else:-->200px}}|]] {{#if:{{{caption|}}}|<br />{{{caption}}}}}

should be replaced with:

[[Image:{{{image}}}|{{#if:{{{image_size|}}}|<!--then:-->{{px|{{{image_size}}} }}|<!--else:-->200px}}|]] {{#if:{{{caption|}}}|<br />{{{caption}}}}}

--Qyd (talk) 15:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Can someone who is allowed to edit this template do this? For An Angel (talk) 21:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Requested, as per above. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 23:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. - Bobet 23:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, everybody. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Genre

I'm not sure if anybody has requested it before, but I think that adding a line for genre might be a good addition. ONEder Boy (talk) 21:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It's been discussed before: Template talk:Infobox Film/Archive 6#Genre. My opinion is the attribute may be too subjective or too varied to be part of a straightforward infobox. If there is a lack of clarity regarding the genre of a film, it can be outlined in the lead section. The infobox has pretty basic information, and while there are a chunk of films whose genre could be identified without a problem, I think that there's plenty that cannot be easily described in a "genre" attribute. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Many films cross genre lines, or can be considered to be in different genres depending on how you look at them. Bottom line is that genre is pretty subjective, and the stuff in the infobox is really objective data.

Besides, genre is almost always mentioned in the lede, and it seems silly to lard up the infobox with material that's going to be repeated just to its left (any more than in the case already). Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 00:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

More or less what the others have said but the infobox is to present a clear and concise listing of facts about the film. Genre is useful but it sometimes needs to be explained somewhat since many films cross genres. gren グレン 12:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Points well taken. ONEder Boy (talk) 13:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I still miss the genre option. A film could be listed with several genres. 88.88.106.99 (talk) 14:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

infobox

Regarding this conversion to use Template:infobox.. I don't see the point. Doesn't this make it harder to edit the infobox, with out any real benefit? It would be far easier to just use normal wikitable syntax and follow some kind of guideline for helping to standardize the template. -- Ned Scott 05:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, did it cause the change I'm seeing in film infoboxes, that the names in the box are smaller and stand out less from the page than the labels (Director, Starring, Producer, etc.) do? If so, it's not a change for the better, I don't think, since the actual information in the infobox has been downgraded. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 05:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but it's certainly a fairly major change to be making to a protected template without any prior discussion. PC78 (talk) 11:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, my intention was to make it easier to edit - by using the infobox template one doesn't have to take care to hand-craft table or parser function code to add new rows, it's less cluttered, and the styling is handled all in one place by style parameters. I'll add style parameters to make the template look more like it did before, hopefully that will help with whatever problems the change may have caused. I don't think changing to infobox had an effect on the relative sizes of the names in the box and the labels beside them, they're still just plain vanila "header" and "data" table cells in both versions. I'm not sure what's meant by the "information" being downgraded in this case. Bryan Derksen (talk) 23:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks better! :) Hopefully that will alleviate people's concerns. There does appear to be a greater amount of spacing between lines, but I don't see that being a major problem.PC78 (talk) 23:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! For comparison I've rigged up my template sandbox to display both the pre-{{infobox}} and the current (as of this moment) {{infobox}} versions of this template. You can find them here displayed side by side: User:Bryan Derksen/Template sandbox/test. The font sizes look exactly the same to me (I'm using Firefox 2), the only difference I can see is a slight change in the spacing between the rows of the table. Bryan Derksen (talk) 23:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the only real differences seem to be the spacing between rows, which is stretching the infobox a bit, and also around the edges, which is causing a few lines of text to wrap (I'm using Internet Explorer). Not a big deal as far as I'm concerned, but if it's something that can be fixed then it might be as well. PC78 (talk) 00:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I'd have to add a cellspacing parameter to {{infobox}}, or change it globally, which would be rather drastic. I'll wait until there's feedback on the tweaking I did with style parameters before diving into that. :) Bryan Derksen (talk) 00:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

I still think it makes things needlessly complicated in the big picture. Infobox film doesn't have to be "easy to edit" for every single editor, and it's protected from editing anyways. There's tons of editors who easily understand how to edit the template, if an edit is needed. This used to be one of the very few templates that one could even copy onto another installation of MediaWiki without making any modifications, because it was a well crafted template.

We're supposed to be dealing with parser functions, and we're supposed to be making hand-crafted changes (when necessary). Everything else can be covered in the infobox CSS class. This does more to limit future options and possible custom considerations, because we wouldn't be able to have any unique code. This is fixing a non-existent problem. I insist on reverting back to the previous code until we can discuss this some more. -- Ned Scott 05:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, since you insist. But I don't really see why this is such a big deal. Navboxes have been converted over to the {{navbox}} template virtually site-wide and it's done wonders for standardization and ease of use, and {{infobox}} supports everything that this template needs. Bryan Derksen (talk) 07:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Fix infobox

Could somebody fix this infobox, please?. It really doesn't look that good, and all the information is much smaller than it needs to be. The old version was the best, in my opinion, and I think we should stick with that one because it's easier to read and understand. --EclipseSSD (talk) 13:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added the old font-size style parameters to the infobox template, they should now be the same size as they were before. Bryan Derksen (talk) 23:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Language parameter

I'm no syntax boffin, but I'm guessing there's a way to stop blank language parameters from automatically adding Category:-language films. —97198 talk 13:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Granted, it's something that should be fixed, but I would think that in most cases language can and should be specified. PC78 (talk) 23:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Language linking

Could the wikilinking of the language be suppressed when it's the same as the language of the Wikipedia it's on? What we now have in the English wikipedia is an enormous number of film articles with links to English language which are never going to be clicked on, as the readers of the English wikipedia presumably already know what the English language is. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You make a good suggestion. Perhaps you can bring up this topic at WT:FILM? You'll have more attention to it. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 15:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion - I've just done that now. Colonies Chris (talk) 23:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I raised it there and the only comment was a request for clarification. The requester has not followed up on my reply, so there seem to be no objections, and my reading of WP:OVERLINK suggests that it should not be linked. Could this change be made to the template? Colonies Chris (talk) 08:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Copyright

Is this template copyrighted? If it is, I will take it down from conservapedia. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.122.248 (talk) 17:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It is copyrighted but also released under the free content license GFDL. Garion96 (talk) 17:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Add an optional parameter called "broadcast_premiere"

{{edit protected}} request pending

Made-for-television films such as HBO's Recount don't have release dates, they have broadcast premieres. So I propose adding a parameter called "broadcast_premiere" to be used in such cases. I'll turn this into an explicit edit request after waiting a few days to see if its controversial in some way that I haven't anticipated. 67.101.6.13 (talk) 06:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC).

There is another infobox for made for television films, {{Infobox Television Film}}, that has that, though it also uses Release date for the wording. Its basically the same thing. The lead notes that its a made for television movie, indicating that release date = first aired. I dont't think another field is necessary.-- [[::User:Collectonian|Collectonian]] ([[::User talk:Collectonian|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Collectonian|contribs]]) 06:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Collectonian here - it's a superfluous parameter which also borders on stepping on the toes of WikiProject Television. Plus, the existence of the parameter may be confusing enough that users start adding a TV broadcast premiere date to theatrically-released films' infoboxes. Let's keep things simple instead of going in the direction of instruction creep. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Location

Maybe there should be a location setting for the film. Mcanmoocanu

Image size coding

Current coding is:

{{#if:{{{image_size|}}}|<!--then:-->{{px|{{{image_size}}} }}|<!--else:-->200px}}

But {{px}} allows for empty as well as blank parameters, and allows for default values. Hence above can be simplified to:

{{px|{{{image_size|}}}|200}}

If no objections, I can insert the revised code. David Ruben ^Talk 14:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not as familiar with the code on this one, but I can always support more simplicity. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Genre missing

Why can the film's genre not be specified in the template? Socrates2008 (Talk) 08:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. A genre option would be very helpful and not confusing. 88.88.106.99 (talk) 14:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Can't get infobox to work

I can't get the infobox to work on this article: Miracle Dogs TooSchuym1 (talk) 23:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)schuym1

I've fixed it for you. You forgot one of the ] on release date. -- [[::User:Collectonian|Collectonian]] ([[::User talk:Collectonian|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Collectonian|contribs]]) 23:30, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Schuym1 (talk) 23:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)schuym1

24 City prompts a suggestion

A New York Times podcast review from Cannes 2008 noted the distinctive visuals in 24 City as a result of the use of a digital camera (and in this case, the use of digital projection). I've heard similar things mentioned about the use of 70 mm film. Shouldn't film_format (see List of film formats) be an optional part of the infobox? 67.100.126.110 (talk) 19:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC).

I think we try to limit the infobox to very basic information about the film. I'm not sure if film format is that commonplace to include. For what it's worth, we already have several categories for film formats, see Category:Films by technology. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Change release date(s)

Change release date(s) to Anticipated release date(s) for confirmed films which aren't yet released? Gnevin (talk) 20:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Or we could just edit the page as the information changes? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes but how does that indicate the date is Anticipated ? Gnevin (talk) 01:37, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

How about putting "(anticipated)" after it? Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 02:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I would imagine that the fact that it's a future date should speak for itself. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Rating??

I feel like this template should include a film rating. Too many times now I've scoured film articles looking for the rating, and it isn't there. -- Erroneuz1 (talk) 21:09, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Some editors use {{Infobox movie certificates}}, but we don't usually specify ratings. The large portion of edits tends to be only MPAA ratings, which is a systemic bias toward the United States. Some editors think it's better to only specify ratings if there is relevance to the film. For example, Hancock got rated R twice before editing down to PG-13. After all, if you're going to see a movie, all theater websites will show you the rating. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 21:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Minor fix

{{editprotected}} Can someone find where it says "date(s)" (as in "Release date(s)") and place it inside a {{nowrap}} template? This will prevent the "(s)" from wrapping onto another line. Cheers! PC78 (talk) 15:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Sorry, I meant just "date(s)", not the whole of "Release date(s)", i.e.

! Release {{nowrap|date(s)}}

PC78 (talk) 19:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The other fields use a non-breaking space ( ), so allowing "Release date(s)" to break would be inconsistent. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Language field

I am requesting the following change:

{{#if:{{{language|}}}|
! Language
{{!}} {{#ifexist: {{{language}}} language | [[{{{language}}} language|{{{language}}}]]{{#ifeq:{{{language|}}}|||[[Category:{{{language}}}-language films]]}} | {{{language}}} }}
{{!}}-
}}

to:

{{#if:{{{language|}}}|
! Language
{{!}} {{{language}}}
{{!}}-
}}

The reason I request this is that to my knowledge, this categorization cannot sort film titles that begin with "A" and "The". For example, if it was an English-language film called The Movie, then it would end up in the T section. It would require [[Category:English-language films|Movie, The]] or usage of {{DEFAULTSORT}} to categorize properly in the M section. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:35, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if this could be done in a week from today, that would be great. I'm finding that the automatic categorization of a non-linked field is pointing to a lot of articles badly in need of multiple categorization. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

As long as the article uses DEFAULTSORT, I'm fairly certain this isn't a problem. PC78 (talk) 18:42, 24 July 2008 (UTC)