Some of us...I believe James came up with the idea...use dividers to accomplish this.  We list the top billed actors, add a divider that reads "Cast in order of Appearance'...or something similar...then enter the cast per end credits below that.

I actually do it in reverse order so that I can contribute the 'per the rules' cast list and still have it the way I want it in my local.

Charlie:

Credits are not usually handled any particular way. Sometimes they will be based on "billing", other times they may alpha, still others will be Order of Apearance and others even will do their listing Broadway style. Sometimes films use a mix of styles. While I appreciate your idea it is another move towards the inaccuracies seen in other Dbs which have no bearing on anything one could call data, but pure figments of imagination. I remember the old days when users would even submit updates to credits based on their INDIVIDUAL perceptions of a given stars value that particular week. The Key words being individual perceptions...this is something that you have control of LOCALLY and are free to do what you wish. Tom Cruise should get Top Billing for "Goldmember", believe me there are those that would and did say yes to exactly that back in the day.

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But that is your opinion, Terry and you are welcome to it and you have exercised it correctly...LOCALLY. Personally, I think it says a lot about the personalities you refer to that they did not insist on billing and that is important as well, compared to some ego-driven nut jobs and we know they are out there. Just like some ummm Producers who just love to see their name up on the screen and come up with as many different ways to see their names up there as possible.

The end credits were chosen for a specific reason, largely related to Roles, because if you didn't have this to complain about then you would be arguing over your right to be able to interpret the Roles in any way you wish, "I saw ther characters name on a window." In short, it would change nothing.

So you are doing the correct thing, Terry. Bring the data in and customize it to suit your particular biases and preferences.

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Quoting CharlieM:

Quote:
Quoting Dr Pavlov:

Quote:
Charlie:

Credits are not usually handled any particular way. Sometimes they will be based on "billing", other times they may alpha, still others will be Order of Apearance and others even will do their listing Broadway style. Sometimes films use a mix of styles. While I appreciate your idea it is another move towards the inaccuracies seen in other Dbs which have no bearing on anything one could call data, but pure figments of imagination. I remember the old days when users would even submit updates to credits based on their INDIVIDUAL perceptions of a given stars value that particular week. The Key words being individual perceptions...this is something that you have control of LOCALLY and are free to do what you wish. Tom Cruise should get Top Billing for "Goldmember", believe me there are those that would and did say yes to exactly that back in the day.

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While I do appreciate your candor, i disagree with your description of it. 

In the credits section of the profile, they should be entered as credited at the end of the movie, in order.  I do not disagree with that.  My Idea would only add another check box (or some other tag) that would indicate which actor/ess were top billed.  That way when I do my full sheets, or movie prints I could get the actors that are the stars. 

For example:

when I print my full sheet for Glimmerman for the file,  I would like to have the Covers, Overview, audio video subtitles features and Primary actors Seagal and Wayans  and maybe the actors listed in the opening credits on that sheet. I don't need all 44 listed actors on that cut sheet.

I do not want to alter the data, just have an easy way to access the top billed actors A check box or a top bill number tag or something would do that without altering the data in any way.

NO FICTION
NO IMAGINATION
NO MAKING UP DATA
NO INDIVIDUAL PERCEPTIONS

Just the facts...

By whose choice, Charlie. Yours. the film's opening credits. I have seen in the past instances where people would disagree whether, for example, Richard Gere or Debra Winger was top billed. This would not eliminate any kind of arguments over such things, people would still find things to disagree about on such things, you weren't here during our Wild West days, but you need look no further than IMDb to find examples of what I refer to. The filmmakers make whatever choices they make for I presume artistic reasons, who are we to say No I want it to be this way, we did not make the dilm. There is a method to exercise your bias and preference, why does the Online need to demonstrate any bias other than the filmmaker's, that is the REAL data. It has worked for over three years now, quite successfully, we have a database that is far more accurate than it once was and i daresay, even with its shortcomings is more accurate than any of its competitors and the only bias that it follows is the people who made the film. You are majung a request which pardon my being candid, but is born of a personal preference and there is already a way to deal with that, but you want that to be reflected in the Online as well. I can't support it, I will however fully support you customization of the data oi meet your needs locally


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Hmmmmmm.

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I can't see any reason why something like this can't be introduced for people's local collections. Maybe a space next to each credit where you can type in an order number, or an area in the edit cast screen where you can drag and drop names (where they are copied not removed from original credit list).

As to whether this is made contributable or not, I suppose then depends on how popular the idea is. I can certainly see credits for TV series getting very messy if it is. But for local I see no problem with the idea.

Quoting northbloke:

Quote:
I can't see any reason why something like this can't be introduced for people's local collections. Maybe a space next to each credit where you can type in an order number, or an area in the edit cast screen where you can drag and drop names (where they are copied not removed from original credit list).

As to whether this is made contributable or not, I suppose then depends on how popular the idea is. I can certainly see credits for TV series getting very messy if it is. But for local I see no problem with the idea.

Why should it not be contributable? Why should anything get messy? It would just be one check box per credit which would indicate that the person has been credited twice for the same role (once in the standard credits aka end credits and a 2nd time in another part of the credits, mostly opening credits).

Quoting northbloke:

Quote:
I can't see any reason why something like this can't be introduced for people's local collections. Maybe a space next to each credit where you can type in an order number, or an area in the edit cast screen where you can drag and drop names (where they are copied not removed from original credit list).

As to whether this is made contributable or not, I suppose then depends on how popular the idea is. I can certainly see credits for TV series getting very messy if it is. But for local I see no problem with the idea.

I think a local solution would get messed up everytime there is a cast update from the online DB. My assumption is that the list gets updated as a whole (thus the killing of custom crew) and not line-by-line.

The matching process would also be somewhat cumbersome: What if a name gets demoted to "credited as" and gets a new common name or the cast gets re-ordered?