Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film

Template:Infobox Film

I want to add more elements to the Template:Infobox Film, like "style" and "time making". For example:

• Style: 2D animation
• Time-making: 2 years

Is it possible? Appleworm 16:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Those don't really seem necessary for the infobox. Instead, they would go under "Production," "Post-production," or the lead paragraph of the article. Volatile 23:54, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The infobox should have only a minimal amount of important data so it doesn't get too big. The first one has little variation across films which would mean a lot of redundancy in infoboxes. The second one would be very difficult to find and even if it were as useful as budget would probably go widely unused. gren グレン 05:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Films February Newsletter

The February 2007 issue of the Films WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. Cbrown1023 talk 00:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

French films

I was looking at the Category:French films, and I noticed that some film titles are in French and some are in English. It's inconsistent. Shouldn't we come to a consensus here? I suggest English titles since this is an English Wikipedia. --Crzycheetah 05:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The lack of replies is probably because this has been discussed several times in several different talk pages. Besides using English, there are other factors that need to be looked into, such as what is the most common title, if the English title is official or unofficial and/or if there are several well-known English titles. I suggest we continue case by case. Prolog 21:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Understood, thanks for the reply. --Crzycheetah 22:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Also see the foreign film bit at WP:NC(F), which basically just repeats the information at the two links already provided by Prolog. Doctor Sunshine talk 11:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Film directors

I see that screenwriters have their own project. Where do directors go ? If part of this project, shouldn't there be something on their talk pages that indicates that ? -- Beardo 15:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

If a sub-project for film crew (or a specific one for directors) is not created and adequately manned, our template wouldn't mean much. Note that the screenwriters sub-project is a one member effort (or was so when I last visited). Also please don't add the talk page film template to biographies, as in stubs it will expand to film article upgrading. Which is also true for all general film articles. Could we find a solution for this? Maybe a special film template for non-film articles? Hoverfish Talk 20:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to create WikiProject Filmmakers which incorporates all actors, direcotrs, cinematogrpahers, editors etc and also screenwriters unifying a two man project ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 11:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Whose fetus?

The article states that Homer performed an abortion on Rose, but it is unclear who the father was - it says (paraphrasing) that "Rose became pregnant by him" - apparently either Rose's father or Wally Worthington, but it is ambiguous as to which (I would edit it but I do not know who the father was).

Proposed categorization for Soviet and Russian films

Note: Discussion has been moved here. Esn 23:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually this issue should be posted in our categorization sub-project page, but I will answer here. IMO Category:Russian Empire films should be created again. We need 10-20 films to justify it in terms of size (I think). The users that CfD'd it have nothing to do with Films and it's getting to be a problem lately with film related deletions with no one notifying us here. I support your proposal. The language category is an independent one from the country categories, so it shouldn't substitute any period. Maybe we should put a request in the German category pages to notify us before CfDing any of them. After we straighten up the present mess, we must also clean up the overlap. Hoverfish Talk 00:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I've partially translated a fourth article for the category. Creating a total of 10 articles should be doable, but it'll take some time. Anyway, good point, I'll move the discussion there. Esn 00:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:Films and WP:Indian cinema infobox divide?

Due to our large influx of new infobox requests, I was wondering if there would be any objections to creating a new infobox request template just for Indian films and Persian films which WP:Indian and WP:Persian cinema could use, while WP:Films retains the {{needs film infobox}}. By doing this, each project could better focus on their individual infobox requests instead of having them all clustered into a large collection of requests. We have so far done a good job on fulfilling many infobox requests and I commend the efforts of the editors who have added so many requests to many of the films that do not have infoboxes. Perhaps we can add a programmable distinction in the {{needs film infobox}} template stating something like "project=Films", "project="Indian", "project=Persia", for example. This could then be divided into new categories for people to better edit articles pertaining to each project. I would prefer consensus on this first before we do anything that we may have to redo later. I'll post a message on both of the other projects to join in on the discussion here. --Nehrams2020 04:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong support. I think automation might have problems, but I'm not the best to judge this. We could add a field to the request infobox that simply assigns another request-category to it. For example {{needs film infobox|WP=India}} (if no WP= entered then proceeds as usual) would assign category [[Category:WPIndian cinema articles that need a film infobox]] or something more concise. Maybe this could be combined with automation, but we have to make sure no undesired side-effects happen. Hoverfish Talk 08:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with this. Really, even after tagging all of the country films categories I suspect there are still thousands of uncategorized, unbannered film articles out there. If someone's willing to do this, it could be done for all of this project's descendants, which would make it easier to enlist their help. Doctor Sunshine talk 00:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment, I kind of see this as a waste of time. It doesn't help further organize and clarify what needs to be done. I maybe see the argument that doing this will get the word out to members of the subj-projects but... I think they can easily browse the list and pick out films from their own cinema not to mention that I don't believe the editors on either of the subprojects have been very active in doing infoboxes (I may be wrong) so it won't even enlist more help. I fear that to an extent this is because users want to be done doing a huge backlog of infoboxes... and I don't think putting them in another category gets us any closer to that goal. If you don't want to do Indian films then don't, It's pretty easy to see which ones they are. So, if you really want to do this... go ahead but I don't see the good in it. It's just compartmentalizing work which is far removed from expertise (which is why stubs are split) since infoboxes are just copy and paste jobs with no expertise required, just some effort in tracking down cast and crew. gren グレン 05:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Doing it by hand would be crazy but bots, and I have no experience in using them, but it should be possible to have a bot do all the sorting. It's hard to say how much good it would do but if it's easily accomplished it's worth a shot. And it might come in handy if we attempt to tackle needed pictures and synopsis's at some point... Doctor Sunshine talk 19:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, I'm so busy doing infoboxes that I could wait and see how it all develops, before doing anything about it. It's just that every day I have to scan several columns to see if any non-India film was added to a cleared letter and it's not always as clear as you say. Often it's Cantonese, Albanian, or other titles that might or might not belong to WP India. But you are right (Gren): even this daily searching is faster than going into all Indian films and adding a field. As for bots, I don't run one, but I don't think they can tell by themselves if the film is Albanian or Indian. They improve speed but someone has to be there and do considerable semi-manual work using them. Hoverfish Talk 22:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Splitting off an article on production history

I am currently putting The Devil Wears Prada through peer review with the hope of eventually reaching featured status. The main problem has been how to shorten up an article that at one point reached 91K and is probably still (at 80K after the "differences between film and book" section was prosified) the longest article on a single film.

It grew because, as I said introducing the article at peer review, there is just an unusual amount of information available about this film. I found a great deal of it to be relevant to the article, the sort of thing the project guidelines say we should include (i.e., actors and crew explaining the creative decisions they made, often in their own words) and much of it is in the production section, currently accounting for a third of the whole article.

When I was working on this, I realized how big it was getting and considered splitting off that section as a separate article, perhaps to be entitled Production history of The Devil Wears Prada. Essentially this would be a "making of" article and I could see how other films might benefit from having this possibility available (the Star Wars series, for instance).

Reading through the feedback I've gotten from two reviewers, both of whom seem to have read the article thoroughly, with one small exception no one seems to have found anything in that section to be unencylopedic. So I'm even more strongly in favor of doing so now. I've had the proposal on peer review and the talk page for a couple of days with no comment. If someone here has any reasons why they don't want to see this set as a precedent, or why this is a lousy idea, this is the place to say so. Daniel Case 17:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Very nice article. It was bound to happen that a production history of some film would become this large. Making a seperate page is a good idea. I would leave a condensed version of the prod hist in the page, with a link to the larger article. - Peregrine Fisher 19:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment (this article dominated my editing in December and January). Of course there'll be a link and summary, per standard practice. Daniel Case 01:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think production history articles are that useful. Wikipedia shouldn't be a guide to this type of content. If people want to learn the history of how the movie is made: they can go elsewhere. I would think there is some kind of guideline against this. RobJ1981 20:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't think these are useful? I don't know a single film where there isn't something from the production history that knowing doesn't enhance your appreciation of the finished film — that the screenwriters for Casablanca were a couple of scenes ahead of the actual filming for most of the shoot, that Dustin Hoffman ad-libbed that "Hey! I'm walking here!" line in Midnight Cowboy when that cab unexpectedly came into the shot, that The Blues Brothers cost as much as it did to make not only because of the car chases but because they lost whole shooting days waiting for Belushi to either come down or get coked up enough to shoot (actually, I just learned from the article that they really dropped a Ford Pinto from a plane at the end, and had to get a special certificate from the FAA to do it).

I think also of how, in the vein of productions shutting down because actors get sick, how Kubrick stopped Full Metal Jacket cold for a couple of months so Lee Ermey could recover from his car accident. We all know the story of what Lawrence Olivier said about Hoffman's staying up all night before a scene in Marathon Man The article on Heaven's Gate would be greatly enhanced if edited by someone who's read Final Cut (like how only midway through production, the studio learned Cimino was making money on the side off them by leasing land he owned to the studio for the production.

Film critics and historians spend lots of time trying to talk to actors and filmmakers and research this stuff for a reason. If it wasn't important we wouldn't have production sections at all. Since it is, if one gets too long, we split it off. Daniel Case 05:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Rubbish. Most people like to know about how a film was made. WikiNew 20:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I would be fine with splitting it off as long as independent opinions can verify that the subsidiary article doesn't go into unnecessary detail about the production history. From what I've seen, the content seems fairly acceptable and comprehensive. Lord of the Rings has its own split-off articles because of the mountain of information available in regard to its own production. There's nothing wrong with a split-off article if the information is notable to the film's production and not something like, "Filming was cancelled on so-and-so date because the main actor was sick." —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 20:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't a whole new article going into unnecesary detail? It seems to be the excuse on Wikipedia (sometimes at least): if the article gets too long, then it's split into seperate articles. While this is helpful sometimes, other times it just makes crufty articles. At times, condensing should be the key. Long sections can be condensed in correct ways, without ruining the section and/or article. RobJ1981 20:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Not really. Many articles on main subjects often have subsidiary articles. For example, a country would have a "history of", "people of", etc articles. Film articles shouldn't be any different as long as the information is encyclopedic and not just an indiscriminate collection of information. —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 20:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Luckily this page is so well referenced, we can discuss this on the merits of splitting long articles, and not on what's cruft or not. It seems to me that Production history is the most encyclopedic info about a film that there is, beyond cast, dates, and maybe cultural influence. We're not talking about splitting off plot summary or something. If the resulting page attracts referenced editing, that's a good thing. - Peregrine Fisher 20:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to turn away such high-quality writing and references, but this just doesn't strike me as particularly encyclopedic at this level of detail. I feel like the section could be cut by a third or half without affecting the overall level of informativeness. There's a whole paragraph on the personal feelings of one screenwriter, for instance, which I see as review or interview fodder, not critical to the history of the movie. --Dhartung | Talk 21:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd be willing to cut once it was in a separate article, perhaps, to trim that down. Right now my priority is just to get this article to manageable length. It seems to me there's a consensus in favor here. I doubt the separate article would get much longer, other than discussing why a few scenes were cut (something helpfully cut from the main article by someone here.

I'll let this go a day or so longer before I split and condense, as long as the discussion continues its current path. Daniel Case 01:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Foreign language film title guidelines

I have attempted a rewrite of the naming conventions guidelines for foreign films in order to make them less vague. I would appreciate feedback; please offer opinions on the talk page here. Thanks. Cop 633 23:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you meant to give this link - yours doesn't work. Esn 00:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use images...

Use of posters or DVD covers to illustrate the article on the film is legit, right? elvenscout742 13:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, yes.--NeilEvans 16:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Just make sure to include a descriptive fair use rationale, a proper movie poster or DVD cover license, and the source where you got it on the image's page. Otherwise, it may be deleted or removed from the article. --Nehrams2020 19:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The Swordsman image has the basics. Although this may not be absolutely necessary, you can also add to subsequent uploads "for use only in (name of article)". If you don't see any mention that copying/using a movie poster needs a special permission, it's all legit. Hoverfish Talk 20:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Film characters comment and question

I believe I posted something about this a while ago (and didn't get many replies). So I'll try again. Is it necessary for all major (and some minor) film characters to get articles? I can understand for long running series such as Star Wars, Nightmare on Elm Street, James Bond, etc... but what about animation? Example: Category:Cars characters. Cars was popular, but it's still a one time movie. It might get a sequel (one could be even confirmed now?), but either way: articles for each character seem like a bit much to me. A list page for the characters would work better. Cars was 116 minutes (and even counting extra things that weren't part of the movie and so on), it's not much material. I'll use the Lightning McQueen article as example. 3 paragraphs about the movie, a little over a paragraph about the game (which wasn't that notable: many movie games come out all the time and flop.} Then there is an international names section, and a huge trivia section. When you remove alot of the cruft: the article would be a couple of paragraphs at best. This doesn't just apply to one time films, it applies to things such as Ice Age as well. Ice Age had 2 films: and it has crufty articles that would be suited for a list better. What does everyone else think on this matter about character articles? RobJ1981 06:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

See WP:FICT. Characters should only have articles if they are recognized and notable outside of the fictional context. Most times, characters taken from a single fictional source have articles that regurgitate information already found in the main article, so they have little reason to exist. -- Dhartung | Talk 06:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well from the looks of the Cars character articles: they do regurgitate information from the movie. This will need to be looked into more, before a list page is made I believe. RobJ1981 07:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There already is a list of the Cars characters, found at List of Cars characters. I think in the past, the list was even longer than it is now (don't know how that's possible), and some people suggested splitting these characters off. Then later they had merge tags on them to bring it back. So either they merged and split again or never merged. --Nehrams2020 07:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

YIKES! That list page is a mess. Does it include all characters or what? In my opinion: list pages like that should be major characters and supporting characters only: NOT a massive guide to everyone/almost everyone. To reply to Nehrams: my guess is the merges didn't happen once the tags went on. I've seen plenty of times where people don't discuss merges, and then the tags just vanish due to lack of interest. The list page has had tags on it since July and November 2006...that's not a good sign either. RobJ1981 08:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

In a Cars related note: Cars Diecast Line is a listcruft of another matter. Is it that notable to list each car in the series? I somehow doubt collectors are using Wikipedia as a source to find out that information. As I looked at the talk page: it was in AFD (and basically got kept by default: everyone said keep except for one, if you don't count the person that nominated it). AFD isn't about votes: but in this case I think it was. RobJ1981 08:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Reviews

I cannot find an archive of Gene Siskel's reviews (been to his dot com, and chicago times where Ebert is), and I'm working on a film that was significantly panned by him, and it's subsequent sequels. I have two official books that discuss his review and quotes him on several things, but I don't have a source to the literal review. I was wondering if I can use the books as the source, or if I have to scrap him altogether because there doesn't seem to be an archive of his film reviews (at least not that I could find) since his death.  BIGNOLE   (Question?)  (What I do)  16:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with citing the books rather than the original review, as long as the books are reliable sources.Cop 633 17:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I just wasn't sure if that was going to be a problem. I'm still looking for Siskel's reviews, but it's good to know that I can fall back on the books.  BIGNOLE   (Question?)  (What I do)  17:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

William Monahan article under review at FAC

Hello. I recently self-nominated the article on the recent Academy Award winner for Best Adapted Screenplay, William Monahan at WP:FAC. Please read the article and comment, as well as copyedit if you wish. It's a fascinating read.-BillDeanCarter 20:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

One movie, five articles

In the process of adding infoboxes, I came across When Lincoln Paid and When Lincoln Was President, both marked as 1913 films. I merged them and redirected the latter. Now I've just found The Reprieve: An Episode in the Life of Abraham Lincoln, which is another almost identical article - with two changes, different year and imdb number. Now there's a fourth article Abraham Lincoln's Clemency with a different year and imdb article! I left requests there for clarification on which is the "real" date... any information from here on which is the right one?

• When Lincoln Paid
• When Lincoln Was President
• The Reprieve: An Episode in the Life of Abraham Lincoln
• Abraham Lincoln's Clemency
• The Sleeping Sentinel

SkierRMH 03:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I've also gone through the IMDb search when I came across Whem Linkoln Was President. They have also different directors. My impression is they are different short films shot at various times. The info we could give in various infoboxes would be minimal and I doubt the articles would ever grow beyond a few lines. Maybe it would be best to forget the infobox and merge them all in an article (Abraham Lincoln in film?) Hoverfish Talk 08:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems they're all listed in the Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln article. Perhaps that could just be expanded upon to include what little information there is? Chickenmonkey 12:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

My first inclination was to do a merge, but looking at Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln, it appears that this already does this, albeit in a more generic manner. As they seem to have minor differences (although the 1914 doesn't have an imdb listing), I'm just marking them as such and doing redirects if there's identical articles for the same year. SkierRMH 23:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Children of Men

Can an senior-type editor or admin mosey on over to the film article? Seems a couple groups of editors are bickering about the inclusion of a statement that one wants included in the article, while the other doesn't think it belongs in the article at all. The two editors are faced off against each other, and little else is getting done. Maybe some impartial help could step in and lend a judging hand? (although, not a hanging judge, coz' that would be a bit on the severe side).Arcayne 04:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to add that the need is somewhat urgent, as an editor who is not really impartial is weighing in on the matter. Please come and lend a hand.Arcayne 01:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Arcayne has gotten his impartial admin and is unhappy with the result. I invite review. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

A film's 'year'

My recollection is that somewhere we have a guideline saying that a film's 'year of release' refers to its first screening, not to its first wide release, so that a film screened at festivals in 1996 but not widely released until 1997 would still be called a 1996 film (following IMDB's policy). Am I right? and if so, where is this guideline and can we make it easier to find?! Cop 633 17:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines for release year slightly differ between Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films), {{Infobox Film}}, and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Films/Style_guidelines#Release_dates. --PhantomS 17:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

For all practical purposes, it's best to state first screening. We should fix the guidelines accordingly. In some cases where a cut version was released and later the film was re-released uncut (like in some Soviet Union cases), it's best give both dates (see Andrei Rublev (film)). Hoverfish Talk 21:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I would go along with Hoverfish, but would lean more toward first public screening, rather than say at a film festival, as sometimes there is a long period between screening at a film festival and a film going on general release.--NeilEvans 21:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't a film festival a public screening? Hoverfish Talk 21:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well yes a film festival is a public screening, but what I meant was general release, as I said sometimes the time between film festival screening and general release can be few years, so I would go for the date when it was distributed on general release.--NeilEvans 21:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I hope we get more opinions on this soon. For one, we will not be in line with film databases (imdb and amg tend to give earliest screening). For another, more important reason, keep in mind that in our major film lists (by letter, years in film, by country) we have been meticulously giving first release in all ambiguous cases. We can clear this out in the article, even in the lead section, we can enter both dates in the infobox, but as far as naming, categorizing and listing, I would keep it by first release. I have also seen in the years in film a few double entries with mention of type of release in each year entry. Hoverfish Talk 00:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's better to stick with earliest screening, as per Hoverfish. It's a bad idea to get out of sync with IMDB and All Movie Guide on this, it would cause endless confusion. Also, as far as I can tell, there aren't any film articles using the 'general release' year, so if we settled on that we'd have to go and fix them all. Nightmare. Cop 633 01:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to rewrite the style guides listed above to make them consistent with the 'first public screening' approach since that seems to be the normal state of affairs in articles. Feel free to stop me if you disagree! Cop 633 19:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

OK never mind, it turns out the infobox styleguide is protected ... hopefully it can get updated soon.Cop 633 19:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sandy Olsson

Does anybody else think that Sandy Olsson should be deleted? Kris Classic 21:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure Danny Zuko redirects to the Grease musucal article. But Betty Rizzo has the start of what could be a good article with a bit more expansion. If someone was interested enough one could discuss the different interpretation between the musical and the film versions of characters. So really it could go either way.--NeilEvans 21:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

CineVoter (March 10, 2007)

File:Film Reel Series by Bubbels.jpg

You voted for the Cinema Collaboration of the week, and it has been chosen as Un chien andalou.Please help improve it to match the quality of an ideal Wikipedia film article.

--PhantomS 02:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Add professional reviews to {{Infobox film}}?

Someone asked about this at Wikipedia:Requested templates. I looked through the talk archives here and all I could find was a consensus against linking to community-created reviews like IMDB and RottenTomatoes, but nothing about professional reviews. These are often linked in {{Infobox album}}. I will relay the proposal and let you guys comment. —dgies^t_c 06:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Why isn't there a "Reviews" option for the film infobox? The album infobox has one, and when viewed, it appears as "Professional Reviews," where you can place the name of the reviewer/review site and the number of stars. This is how the "Reviews" option looks on the template in the edit pane for AC/DC's Back in Black: | Reviews = * [[All Music Guide]] {{rating-5|5}} [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wzaxqjkboj6a link] Now, let's say we added this to the template for the film infobox. The box for the movie Halloween would look like this: | Reviews = * [[Roger Ebert]] {{rating-4|4}} [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19791031/REVIEWS/40823003/1023 link]

Sounds like a great idea to me. It's actually one of the most important out-of-universe types of information that we could include in a film article. Make it optional, of course, so that we can slowly add it as we feel like. Imdb numbers will still be a no-no. - Peregrine Fisher 06:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean Imdb ratings will be no-no, to which we have agreed over and over again. Rotten Tomatoes does offer a rich variety of professional review links mainly (including Eberts as "Cream of the Crop", see [1]), but it was voted to stay in external links instead of the infobox. Imdb and Amg are given instead, mostly because of the data (cast, crew, tech) they provide on the film. Hoverfish Talk 07:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, the proposal is to add a new variable to the template for the purpose of listing only those reviews which satisfy WP:RS. —dgies^t_c 07:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, but the infobox may become overly tall. See below. - Peregrine Fisher 08:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It sound good to me too, but is this for Robert Ebert in particular, or for ANY link that could satisfy RS? And a question: does Ebert provide reviews for MOST films (even most foreign ones) or will this remain a field for few films? Hoverfish Talk 09:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ebert was just an example. Most newspaper or TV film critics meet WP:RS. This would be an optional variable to be used when a professional film review is available online. —dgies^t_c 09:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

No way. The film infobox is already drastically long. Reviews belong in prose, not a list. I also need to add one man like Ebert or Travers et al is undue weight to one opinion, especially if they may not represent a consensus. Ebert is known for hating the original Godzilla and Gladiator. WikiNew 09:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes is a site that offers plenty of links to such reviews and it has been decided that it stays out of the infobox and into section "External links", where also any other acceptable reviews can be given. But surely prose benefits the article (and Wikipedia) much more than listing external link. The value of seeking films in Wikipedia rather than Rotten Tomatoes, is that we have (or should have) our own presentation of each film, with references to professional reviewers where necessary. Now, some may think of the infobox as the big highlights, but actually the article is the main bit. The infobox is given only as a quick reference to identify the film. Even the very disputed links to imdb and amg serve merely as a cross checking accommodation. Any further data in the infobox (even budget IMO) is beyond its purpose. Hoverfish Talk 14:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It would seem that this should not go into the infobox, but should be in it's own section within the article as an "external link". I've removed several of these that were in infoboxes as "website" and put them into the external link section. And as others have said, the infoboxes can get a bit overly long at times! SkierRMH 00:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox can get really tall

I've seen a number of infoboxes that are longer than the accompanying article, which doesn't look right. Alice in Wonderland (1903 film) is one example. Have we had a discussion about how to deal with this? Template talk:Infobox actor has a bit about it, but I think we should really start thinking outside the box. Off the top of my head, maybe a template that goes at the bottom of the page? I know we can just add this stuff in prose, but I'd like to hear ideas other than that. You can say "just add a reviews section" but I don't see it happening that often, or being done that well. Another idea; a template that would go into a reviews section. How about a cast template that would go under a "Cast" section header. Something that would look like { {cast|actor1|actor2|...}} and expand into something that doesn't look like a table, but looks like prose. I think templates that people can just fill out, without having to think about complete sentences, would be good. - Peregrine Fisher 08:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It has been firmly established that an infobox should not replace the article. What is given in the infobox, should be in the article. In the case of Alice the article should normally grow to include all the info. As soon as a cast section is created, the cast should be moved there, and only 2-3-max.4 top actors should remain in the infobox. A review section would have to be created too, if we add the field in the infobox. Much better if we add a separate template for it (IMO), as the infobox template is obviously getting to be quite lengthy. As for this template for cast, don't forget the format should be *[[Actor]] as Role and this seems easier done without a template. Cast given in prose is also acceptable, but it happens mostly in more developed articles. Hoverfish Talk 09:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:Film

There is an important updated regrading this template. Please read the talk page and comment on it. Thank you. Shane ^{(talk/contrib)} 18:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

What is being discussed, is to reduce the box to a one line box with a hide/show, which also applies to the stub upgrading info. We need to get all concerned members on this, please take a look at the model that has been worked out and give opinion. Hoverfish Talk 23:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Dukes Of Hazzard The Beginning

Under Trivia, the user adds in a useful fact along with his opinion. Should this be edited or kept? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Daboss94 (talk • contribs) 04:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

I fixed it. --Nehrams2020 07:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Screenwriter/editor stubs

After consensus I closed the case on the long awaited stub categories and set them up Category:Screenwriter stubs and Category:Film editor stubs now exists. Sceen-writer-stub and film-editor-stub is the mode. If you could spread the word I would be grateful. I'll categorize the American-screenwriter tubs in the main cat above now ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 11:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Actors and Directors

I don't know whether you agree or not butI have always beleived that actors and directors and cinema characters are tied to our Film Project. Nobody can dispute the fact that they are part of cinema and films and I beleive we have at least some responsibility to upkeep them if they are directly linked from our film articles. However rather than setting up a seperate project what about Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Actors and Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Filmmakers. THis way they are a part (or at least tied) to our film project. Each page would highlight the articles that require most attention, missing articles etc for better project coordination. WikiProject Biography is so enormoous and I see hundreds of actor and director articles in very poor shape and neglect -Biogrpahy cannot work to effectively concentrate on hundreds of thousands of articles at once!!. The cinema characters would be a part of both projects. Ther is no obligation but it would certianly help to organize it all better, However if nobody wants it as part of films then of course they can be set up independently. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 18:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Biography needs to separate actors and directors from the arts and entertainment workgroup and place them into their own separate workgroup. --PhantomS 00:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Articles can be within the scope of several WikiProjects. I would suggest perhaps creating a Filmmakers work group to this project, which would focus solely on biography articles for those in the film industry. Girolamo Savonarola 11:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree fully with Girolamo -WikiProject:Filmmakers would incorporate direcotrs, cinematographers and editors and producers etc. But do mean include Actors into this? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 19:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with Wikipedia:WikiProject Filmmakers (there is already Wikipedia:WikiProject Screenwriters) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors, but as PhantomS says, these projects have to be dealt with starting from WPBiopgraphies. If such in-between projects are started, they have to align with both projects. I don't think they should be created as Film sub-projects (WP Films/Actors). My guess is they will grow fast and should stand in their own project namespace. Hoverfish Talk 20:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

My idea would be to unify Screenwriters into the Filmmakers project ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 11:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Year in film delinking

There is a user going around hitting many film articles and categorically removing the year in film links from the articles, stating the MOD on dates disallows it when it says no such thing, and causing much disruption to the work of hundreds. The user in question is User:82.3.252.147 and they appear to have a real grudge and point to make with these edits due to the fact they are the only edits made from this IP address. Ben W Bell talk 15:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let's see what we say as project to this (from discussions I have followed). The film infobox has it in its guidelines to link "year in film". The year in the lead, does not need to be linked as "year" or as "year in film". Any subsequent mention of year should be linked to "year in film" only if this link is in context and somehow helpful to the sentence (which is usually not the case). As for the fact that this user comes as IP with no account and states that there are "thousands of editors who don't want it" is another problem. However his/her edits cannot be considered disruptive, unless there are other cases beyond the year link. Hoverfish Talk 17:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally I'm against the delinking. If the lead describes it as a 19xx film, then a link to a summary article about film in that year is appropriate. The JPS^{talk to me} 17:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Well now that I checked, I see even the instructrions in the infobox have been changed and in a way not as per our above discussion (see section A film's 'year'). So someone has removed the instruction to link to year-in-film. Hmm... Hoverfish Talk 17:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I went into several archives but can't find the last discussion. As per JPS and Ben W Bell, there is a wish to link year-in-film in the lead and probably further into the article. Please, offer further opinions, including if we should have a poll about it. Hoverfish Talk 17:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

These were the instructions from the old Infobox Film Syntax Guide:

• Release date (Variable: released)

When was the film released? Or when will the film be released?

Use: if possible, the exact release date. ("May 18, 2008") Use the first public non-festival release in any country. This means any limited releases or openings before opening wide should go by the limited release date. If multi-country entries are necessary, you can put the flag icon before the release date for each country (see the 2nd Wiki).

Wiki: [[May 18]], [[2008]]

Wiki: {{Flagicon|United Kingdom}} [[May 18]], [[2008]]

--PhantomS 20:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, there was discussion on this, but never anything conclusive (one place for the discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Films/archive#Intro_format, that's the first archive of this talk page). However, the discussion was always whether to link to 'year in film' or just 'year' in the opening paragraph, not having a link at all wasn't ever really an option, so there really is a consensus to link to something. I always put a link to a 'year in film' in the opening paragraph, full date for the release date in the infobox (and a link to a plain year if I can't find a full date), and don't link random years mentioned at other places in the article. You can't use 'year in film' for full dates (ie. the release date), since as far as I know, it breaks the date formatting from user preferences. - Bobet 17:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

That's how I do it too and how I see it done most often in film (and otherwise) articles. Doctor Sunshine talk 18:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

That's also the same method I've been using for the last year when I went through tagging articles or adding infoboxes/images. --Nehrams2020 20:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it needs to be added in the Style guidelines to avoid further confusion.

• A [[2008 in film|2008]] film released on [[May 18]], [[2008]]. --Crzycheetah 22:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but stating it in that form would be redundant, plus I don't think the release date is usually relevant enough to be included in the opening sentences. How about you say "Use a link to 'year in film' for the first instance of the release year. Any further years should be left unlinked, full dates should be linked normally according to WP:MOSDATE". - Bobet 21:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

That was just an example. I wanted to show how to wikify. --Crzycheetah 17:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing article status

I've been doing some work on Will Hay movies today, creating articles for those without any and tidying up existing ones - particularly Oh, Mr Porter!. This is currently listed as a stub, and I wondered what the procedure was to get this changed to Start class or even get some feedback on what is needed to get the article to a position where a move to Start class would be possible? StuartDouglas 15:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

When to change an article from stub to start is up to whoever wants to make the change. You can read about the criteria at Category:Film articles by quality. I would say the Mr Porter article is start class, myself. - Peregrine Fisher 17:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The simplest way to determine if it is a start class is to look at the Stub to Start template on the talk page. It lists all of the criteria the article needs to reach start class (infobox, image, cast, plot, good intro, proper cats, and two other sections). If the article meets the criteria, you can reassess the article yourself to start class and the template automatically goes away. We added the template to help improve the quality of the articles, and have achieved some success so far, even though it is at a slow rate due to the large number of articles that are added each day. If you also don't agree with a particular assessment you can ask for a proper review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment#Requesting an assessment. The article mentioned above is definitely a start, so I'll change it right now. Good job and keep up the good work. --Nehrams2020 20:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion of new subproject

For reasons of keeping conversation threads in one place and relieving this page of the extra load, I suggest starting Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/List and navigation management. Like this we could also decide on some guidelines and coordinate better the activities of several members working in film lists, and associated navigation templates. Please offer opinions. If there are no objections, the subproject will start on the 20th of March. Hoverfish Talk 07:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea to help set some parameters and clear guidelines for creating and modifying our film lists and prevent the continuous cycles of editors outside of WP:Films who like to remove them (although at times, they do remove some really bad lists). This will help to organize the lists and determine if there are any we should get rid of based on approved guidelines. Who knows, maybe we can get a list or two featured. --Nehrams2020 08:29, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong support THis is a very good idea -wise words again! It would help very much to have such a page to involve other members of the project rather than conversations dominated by Hoverfish and myself. WHilst I do like personal discussion from time to time the majority of film list talk should approprirately be done here. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 11:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Some recent discussion and deletion review of the film country templates resulted in talk being spread out over many talk pages. A project like this would hopefully consolidate that and provide a reference for editors outside WP:FILM. — WiseKwai 12:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a proposed policy, Wikipedia:WikiProject reform, that may or may not have some impact on this. Doctor Sunshine talk 20:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Very interesting proposal. In this case all our activities will be completely within the WP Films scope. If you understand better than me the notion of tiers and task forces, how do you think we should organize this best? As for extra tags, we don't need any. Basically, we will be taking care of all WP Films Class=List articles. And by the way of Nehram's comment, it seems to me a list is destined to remain class List (no chance for GA's or FA's here). Hoverfish Talk 19:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I probably don't understand it any better than you—I just skimmed it. The gist I got is that it's to reduce the amount of time people spend setting up project pages and replace project banners with tags such as WPBiography's work-group tags (as well as streamlining efficiency). I just didn't want to see people pour too much work into this or the filmmakers projects mentioned above only to see them gutted or overhauled should the policy become official. I think making it a subsection of this project, such as .../List and navigation management, is fine and what they're getting at. Doctor Sunshine talk 20:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Generally, task forces and work groups are set up to cover specific articles by content. Maintenance and style groups would be considered departments. Girolamo Savonarola 21:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Girolamo for putting things where they belong. So, that will be a department, just like the categorization one. And by the way, I just discovered I am wrong about lists: there ARE featured lists !!! Hoverfish Talk 22:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

New WIKIPROJECT FILM BIOGRAPHIES

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals I am proposing a new wikiproject which if it was allowed to develop would become a major project. I have noticed that as a member also of WP Films that articles on actrors, film directors, producers, cinematogrpahers, etc are often to much for Biogrpahy to deal with and are often neglected with no real focus for improvement. I strongly beleive we need an institution on wikipedia to take care of all Film people. I propose Wikipedia:WikiProject:Film biographies. If I created the tag for this project each time you would mark it as WPFilmmakers it would automatically put it is Biography articles and maybe film people as well . Please let me know what you all think. THanks ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 14:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea, and I see that you've already posted it on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals. However, IMHO, it should probably be setup like WP Musicians. --PhantomS 14:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

FYI - standardizing Category:Years in film

Just a heads up, so people don't panic if they notice the changes. I'm in the process of standardizing the format and expanding and cleaning up the subcategories for Category:Years in film. I noticed that while Category:Films by year is pretty well organized, Category:Years in film seems to use a slightly different set up, was missing a number of subcats and didn't use templates for boiler plate syntax.

What I've done is create a new template Template:infilmyr which is similar to Template:filmyr for the Category:Films by year subcategories. I am changing or creating each subcategory of Category:Years in film using the standarized format in Template:infilmyr, and am also moving each Year in film list article (eg 2003 in film) to the corresponding category (eg Category:2003 in film). When my work is completed, you'll have a subcategory of Category:Years in film for every year for which a film related article exists. Individual films will still appear within the corresponding subcategories of Category:Films by year. Finally, as a minor note, I'm removing some of the redundant categories from articles to make sure an article doesn't appear simultaneously in both a category and one of its subcategories (eg an article shouldn't appear in both Category:Years in film and Category:2003 in film since "2003 in film" is a subcategory of "Years in film").

What I'm doing is fairly straightforward, but will take a little time to complete. Any feedback or questions, please feel free to let me know, but in the end this should make "Years in film" better organized and more consistent in style to "Films by year". It will also make it easier to change the format of these categories across the board by allowing an editor to simply edit the template. Dugwiki 16:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, this issue belongs to the Films categorization department, so we'd better get all relevant threads there. I will copy your message there, so we can take it from there. Hoverfish Talk 17:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Three Stooges

I believe that there is a need for a Three Stooges WikiProject. Three Stooges information on Wikipedia needs significant improvement, and an organized project to help further this goal would be helpful. Is anyone else interested? Fleagle 03:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I moved your comment to the bottom, as we are used to look here for new messages. In Category:Three Stooges I see about 90 articles only. It's not advisable to create a WP for such a narrow scope. Please, see also the new WP reform proposal, particularly section "Scope and critical mass". Hoverfish Talk 06:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Cast list for foreign language dubs

It seems unnecessary to me to list voice actor for foreign language dubs in the cast section, even if the film is animated and the original actor isn't apparent on screen. See The Incredibles#Voice cast, for example. It creates an unwieldy table that's probably irrelevant to most readers. How should it be handled? Leave as-is? Fork to list-type article? Move to articles on corresponding-language Wikipedias? There has to be a better way than making an exhaustive list in the main article... I checked the archives, and this doesn't seem to have been discussed here before, though. --Fru1tbat 14:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the information is worth noting. It does seem that this is in need of a standardization, though. Just look at the articles for the many Studio Ghibli films. Even those don't have a standard way of doing this. Chickenmonkey 15:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

In a film article notable information is about the original work, and since this is the English Wikipedia, it is conceivable that for foreign films we could mention some additional info about the English version. In this case the film is American and how it was dubbed around the world is beyond the scope of a film article. This huge and mostly irrelevant table within a film article is a catastrophy for the quality of the article. Now I understand someone spent some time doing it, but even a forking to another article wouldn't be advisable as the information will be considered irrelevant. Please, remove the table. Hoverfish Talk 15:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the table should be removed, but the information is good. I think it should be placed under a seperate section "around the world" or something; not completely removed. Something, in prose style perhaps, that mentions the more notable dub cast members (if they're are any, such as Shah Rukh Khan in the Incredibles dub cast). The point is, it is encyclopedic. Just like it's encyclopedic that some of the Japanese articles include the English dub cast of Studio Ghibli films. Chickenmonkey 15:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

CineVoter

File:Film Reel Series by Bubbels.jpg

You voted for the Cinema Collaboration of the week, and it has been chosen as Casino Royale (2006 film).Please help improve it to match the quality of an ideal Wikipedia film article.

This is an automated notice by BrownBot 21:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Unsorted stubs

I've trimmed the unsorted stubs down to about 50 or so, if others would mind taking a look at the rest to see if they belong to another sub-category, or if there should be another sub-category made... perhaps "film terminology", as that's what the majority of them seem to be! Thanks!! SkierRMH 09:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Lil' Pimp

I've finished expanding the Lil' Pimp article, and I believe it should be ranked as Start-Class now in the quality scale. Could somebody see it and tell me what do you think?--Orthologist 22:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Normally this should be brought up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment, but I think it is very close to a start class. I'd recommend expanding the Criticism section (maybe a RottenTomatoes ranking or a few quotes from some notable reviewers), any possible awards, or any other information you think is pertinent. Also, the cast section looks like it needs one of the columns removed, you may have have an extra formatting piece in their somewhere. --Nehrams2020 03:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I started Love Conquers All (film), any help/suggestions would be very nice! --Ari 12:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)