NEWSLETTER #3

September/October 1995

edited by Col Needham

Welcome to issue 3 of the IMDB newsletter. The newsletter is intended to keep database users and contributors informed of the latest developments from the management team. Comments and suggestions are welcome and should be directed to me at the address above.

Sorry for the delay in producing this issue. Just keeping the database up to date continues to consumer more and more of our spare time.

See the further information section at the end of this file for more information about The Internet Movie Database (IMDB).

Contents

• Database statistics
• New title policy
• Introducing the LaserDisc list
• Introducing the Alternate Versions list
• Introducing the MPAA Ratings Reasons list
• New WWW Features
• New goof category
• Fido/Mausnet access
• More plot summary help required
• Boost for external links
• Future developments

DATABASE STATISTICS

This is a regular section giving information about the current size and growth of the IMDB. We receive between 15,000 and 30,000 additions every week from users all over the world.

   Number of filmography entries:   755,844
   Number of people covered:        243,615
   Number of movies covered:         54,748
  
   Size of the database (Mb):            62

Recent milestones:

• technical section boosted to over 40,000 entries
• actresses section passed 150,000 entries
• over 11,000 movies now have known complete cast listings
• 4,566 laser discs covered

NEW TITLE POLICY

Effective immediately there is a new title policy in the database. There are changes in two areas: primary title selection and capitalization.

Primary title selection: From now on the primary title of a movie is its original title in its country of origin. Other titles used before (eg the English title) become alternative titles. The majority of titles have already been swapped, however, if you notice any that still need to be done, they can be mailed in with the keyword AKA. I will catch the conflict and resolve it.

Capitalization: From now on we distinguish three types of capitalization for movie titles:

1. All capital letters at the start of words, with a few exceptions: English
2. All lower-case letters at the start of words, except first word and article at the end, plus some exceptions (names etc.): French, Italian, Spanish, Scandinavian languages
3. Mixed: German

If you have information about other languages (e.g. what type of capitalization is the norm in the context of movie titles in reference data bases, let me know. New movies are capitalized like that starting now. The titles already in the data base will be adapted if necessary in the following months

All contributors are herewith invited to take note of the new rules and mail in their data accordingly. Thank you!

INTRODUCING THE LASERDISC LIST

The long awaited laserdisc list is now ready for distribution. All access methods to the database are currently being updated, so it may take a few weeks, before you can access the laserdisc.list in the same way as you access the other lists. If you are interested in having the list now, you can just download it from the ftp sites and browse it with your favourite text editor.

The mail-server can accept submissions made with the keyword interface. A new LaserDisc template interface, which only deals with LaserDiscs, is under construction and will be available in the future.

If you have an Amiga, you can download the original database file for Datamat. (Datamat was sold in USA by Abacus under the name Data Retrieve). The file is called LaserDiscs.lha in the /amiga directory.

The LaserDisc list is basically a stand alone database, which is included into the movie database. It contains information about all kinds of LaserDiscs (e.g. Movies, Music Videos, Documentaries, TV Specials etc.). For each LaserDisc there are 33 attributes, which cover every possible detail about a title. Links from and two movies will be provied by the different access software packages.

The long term goal is to have a list with every LaserDisc which was ever released. We want to include also all information about out of print titles. Of course, this list will never be complete, but we can try to collect as much data as possible. If every LaserDisc user sends in the titles he/she owns, we will have many titles covered in a short time. To save time while submitting data, please check if the titles you own are already in the list and only submit new titles. You are however encouraged to send comments about the quality and corrections of existing titles. As soon as the LaserDisc template interface is online, you can send a list of titles to the mail server and get back all existing information about the LaserDiscs in your collection. Until today I have collected data of 4566 titles.

IMPORTANT NOTE on international characters: Starting with this list we support international characters with the ISO Latin 1 character set. If you do not want or are not capable of using ISO Latin 1 characters, you can process the laserdisc.list with the tool "stripiso", which can be downloaded from any movie database site. This tools will replace all ISO characters in this file with ASCII characters. Many Unix platforms, MS Windows and the Amiga support ISO Latin 1 fully by default.

INTRODUCING THE ALTERNATE VERSIONS LIST

The "Alternate Versions" list includes information about director's cuts, special editions, restored versions, censorship changes and deletions, unauthorized/unofficial cuts, television versions.

Contracts under the terms of the Hollywood Director's Guild allow about six weeks for a director to assemble a cut without studio interference. This is fully edited and has a synchronized sound track; however, it is usually not color-corrected nor density-corrected and may not have the final music and effects track. In more recent times, due to an expanding video aftermarket, the term director's cut has acquired a popular meaning that implies a finished final print, officially prepared by the director or with his consent, and usually including scenes not included in the original theatrical release. Many director's cuts/special editions are re-released in theathers or on video. Examples: Blade Runner, Aliens, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Classic movies are sometimes re-released (usually many years after their original premiere) with never before seen or long-lost restored scenes. Examples: Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, The Wild Bunch.

Censorship laws often impose changes or deletions before a film can be given a certificate and released. In the U.S.A movies are often cut after being submitted to the MPAA in order to avoid a X or NC-17 rating; sometimes the deleted scenes are restored for the video or laserdisc release, or are left intact in the European release. Other countries have different censorship standards: U.K. releases routinely cut any scene that suggests violence or mishandling of animals (ex. the mouse sequence in The Abyss).

Sometimes a movie is cut or otherwise modified from the original version without the consent or the knowledge of the filmmakers. A frequent occurrence is when a foreign distributor decides to remove scenes to reduce the film's running time in order to get more showings per day or to make it more appealing to the local audience, often by including a different music score.

Finally films, especially R-rated ones, are routinely cut or altered before they can be shown on network television or airline planes to delete objectionable language and frames or to fit a two-hour time slot. These changes are routine, don't necessarily represent alternate versions and will not be considered for inclusion in the list, unless very extensive. However, TV versions which add new footage (ex. 1941), significantly re-edit or change existing material or substitute new scenes (ex. Basic Instinct) in place of deleted sequences will be listed.

INTRODUCING THE MPAA RATINGS REASONS LIST

Earlier this year Paul Egge from the MPAA contacted us and offerred to supply up-to-date information from CARA, the ratings body for the US. We accepted his offer :-)

Each week CARA meet to discuss the latest film releases and rate them for US audiences. The ratings, along with a brief reason for the rating are packaged and sent to us for processing.

We currently carry information on all movies released in the US from the start of 1995 and are hoping to expand our coverage farther back at a later date.

Check out the MPAA's own web site.

NEW WWW FEATURES

Rob has been busy with a complete rewrite of the web interface recently so the only major enhancement to report in this issue is the addition of a new/upcoming releases page. The page is automatically generated from the release dates section of the database is broken out on a country by country basis, providing a convenient place to locate information on the latest movies in your local theatres. It's available as an option on the main search, or directly.

The web interface will be relaunched with many improvements and new features in the near future.

NEW GOOF CATEGORY

Suggested by Mark Brader, the Goofs list will now support an additional category for explaining scenes which are generally (and incorrectly) assumed to contain goofs.

Some of the fiercest debate over movie goofs centres on these kinds of situations: the "ghost" in 3 Men and a Baby (1987), the color of Thornhill's suit in North by Northwest (1959), and the authority of Charles De Gaulle in Casablanca (1942) are all generally considered to be goofs, but careful consideration and/or investigation proves otherwise!

In an attempt to dispell these misconceptions, the goofs list will now support a category specifically for these situations. Labeled with the tag "FAIR", explanations will be offered as to why the filmmaker's use of these facts/situation is allowable and not to be considered an error.

Contributions guides are available by mailing a subject HELP ADD FULL to the mailserver.

FIDO/MAUSNET ACCESS

The Internet Movie Database files are now available for request or download in the following mailboxes in Germany. We're trying to keep them in sync but remember that both Fido and Mausnet are hobby networks which are not designed to transport huge amounts of data on a regular basis. Therefore, the main list files will only be updated every couple of weeks, while the diffs will be uploaded as soon as I get them, which usually means a delay of 1-2 days from the Friday FTP release. Also to conform to the naming conventions of the FAT file system, I had to rename the files. Please retrieve the file list of the respective mailbox for further information. As a general rule for the diffs, a diff file like diffs-yymmdd.tar.gz transforms to dyymmdd.tgz where the first d represents diffs followed by the date.

One problem currently unsolved is a way to patch the diffs into the lists under MS-DOS. Every port of patch I tried failes on some of the lists, so if anybody knows of a working port that doesn't choke, please email me.

The files are open to download for everyone, but please respect the time limitations as mentioned below.

Kittis Box, located in Bochum (this is a Fido style mailbox so you need either a terminal to connect or a Fido mailer to request):

    RequestTime : 8.30-0.55Uhr
    Limits      : max. 60 minutes /  2400bps or above
    Line I      : Telelink IMS08   V32Terbo      ( up to 19200bps )
                  2:2448/53        0234/682887
    Line II (MO): ZyXEL E+         ZYX 19.2k     ( up to 19200bps )
                  2:2448/5000      0234/64963    13:490/2
    Magics      : FILES     - file list

Line 1 is currently tested with a V34 modem which will replace the Telelink soon.

Maus Osnabrueck (Germany), member of MausNet:

Number: 0541/597571, Modem: 1200 - 19200 Baud (V.32bis, V.42bis, TurboPEP)
Number: 0541/959941, Modem: ISDN (X.75)
available to all levels starting with guest, except 19:00 to 22:00 local time
Gruppenprogrammteil: MovieDataBase

MORE PLOT SUMMARY HELP REQUIRED

As ever, the summary list continues to grow, cruising past the 8000 mark, not even stopping for coffee and donuts.

But we still need your help... So, my choice of the plotless movies this time are:

Babylon 5 (1993) (TV)
Belle Epoque (1992)
Better Tomorrow, A (1986)
Boys on the Side (1995)
Cape Fear (1962)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
Death of a Salesman (1985) (TV)
Declin de l'Empire Americain, Le (1986)
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1939)
Joy Luck Club, The (1993)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Mortal Kombat (1995)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Orlando (1993)
Retour de Martin Guerre, Le (1982)
Running on Empty (1988)
Shirley Valentine (1989)
Thin Blue Line, The (1988)
Toto le Heros (1991)
Truly Madly Deeply (1991)

BOOST FOR EXTERNAL LINKS

The IMDB WWW interface has long supported links to other WWW sites that contain information about specific movies or movie-industry people. A recent search of the WWW has uncovered a large number of sites which the IMDB does not provide links to. There are 131 new "person" links, and 404 new "title" links that will be appearing soon on the IMDB WWW interfaces.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

This is a regular section listing some of the enhancements we're currently looking at. Please bear in mind that some of these may take quite a while to come to fruition or even fail to materialise because the original volunteer decides not to proceed.

• a new business information section for the database to store distributors and rights holders contact details, box office grosses and other information concerned with the business side of the industry.
• a locally installable MS-Windows interface to the database is under final testing for those of you who want to reduce your phonebills!
• new "professional" looking icons under construction for the WWW interface.
• enhanced awards section for the database covering more international festivals, national film institutes etc.
• general support for alternative titles in languages other than English and the language of the original country.
• a movie recommendation service which will use your vote records to suggest other movies you might enjoy. Intially available via an e-mail interface. Time to check you're up-to-date with your voting!