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Film Credits Database By Arthur G Pettifer |
AN EXPLANATION FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE INTERESTED.
You will find many films are in quite a bit of disarray, with people doing the wrong job, with bits of names and some rubbish. The vast majority of this has happened during the import of data from the old Clipper file to Access. Also, my old dBase database was in a bit of mess due to space limitations in the fields. You will find many mistakes, no doubt, for reasons many and varied. Most likely, I could not read the credits on my television set because:- 1. They are too small to read, 2. They are in someone’s awful handwriting (Possibly a Doctor !), 3. They clash with the background, 4. They are in a similar colour as the background, 5. Their colour is red, green or blue which are very hard to read on a television set, 6. Parts of them are off the side of the television set screen that I read them off.
Other reasons could be :- 1. I am usually in too much of a hurry to check what I have typed (I am only human), but these days, I am checking each film that I edit or initially enter. 2. I have made a typing error, I was never a trained typist. Two fingers it is, 3. I am getting tired of pounding the keyboard, 4. Due to changes in the last twenty years, I have not had time to redo all films yet.
There are other things to watch for. Because of inconsistencies in title makers methods of doing their job, e.g. take the name Joe S. Bloggs. This may be written in different ways in different films, Joe Bloggs, Joe S. Bloggs, Joseph Bloggs or Joseph S. Bloggs. Take the name McCulloch. I can find 64 different ways to spell it. FOR THE SAKE OF CONSISTENCY, so that I can remember how to write a particular name:-
1. A ‘*’ on the end of a name means that the person who wrote the credits may have made a mistake but that is the way the name is spelt as I read it on the television screen. If I know a mistake has been made, I have put the incorrect name in brackets after the correct name. 2. A name such as Delahay is written De La Hay and that name is considered to be Hay, not Delahay and is to be found in the H’s not D’s, 3. A name such as Vanderbeer, is written Van De Beer and that name is considered to be Beer not Vandebeer and is in the B’s not the V’s, 4. A name such as Lefevre is written Le Fevre and that name is considered to be Fevre, not Lefevre and is in the F’s not the B’s. 5. All hyphens have been dispensed with, so Jean-Philippe Dubois becomes Jean Philippe Du Bois and Wilfred Hyde-White becomes Wilfred Hyde White.
A major reason for incomplete film data is that most television stations today, MUTILATE some of the films they broadcast by CENSORING some of the end credits. They also omit the film studio logos at the start of films. ITV1 is the worst culprit, closely followed by Channel 5, BBC2, BBC1 and Channel 4. I feel so frustrated about this. They also squash up the credits to one side of the screen, making most of them unreadable. If you feel frustrated about this too, please send email messages to the relevant station with a complaint. If enough messages were sent, maybe these stupid practices would stop. Please feel free to pass any constructive comment about the database. I am also particularly interested if you are able to correct a mistake on a COMPLETED film, that is to say, a film which has [Credits Complete] underneath the title on the search page. Please feel free to contact me, via the Contact page, with a correction identifying the name of the film, the copyright date and the name and job identification which has the mistake.
If there are any TITLE makers out there who are reading this and would like to make a comment, please do so. I make these comments as constructive criticisms, not to be rude to you. Mind you, many many times, when I have not been able to read a particular film’s credits, I have been very rude to you in the privacy of my study. The air has often turned blue. You only have to look for yourselves at film credits to see why.
To the Title Makers I make these suggestions :-
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