I have to agree with John on this one... I would much rather have the accurate info even if it is harder to document.

Quoting skipnet50:

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As always it depensds on how one chooses to define accuracy. Conflicting release data is clearly INACCURATE by definiton. Trying to say Theatrical Rel;ease is more accurate than Copyright Date is akin to  the numerous arguments  we have over how people want toi list Cast data. And if you are going to use Theatrical Release where are you going to stick the yardstick in the snow, Does a Cannes showing qualify, How about the December Oscar Parade which gets WIDER release in January.

I am not saying Theatrical Release is bad, it has a serious weakness (some sources give conflicting answers) and that has to be addressed if we are to use it.

Skip

Seems rather simple to me:  A Theatrical Release (whether Limited or General) is when the movie is open to any Joe Blow civilian who walks in off the street.

Special Premieres, Special Showings, Festival Screenings, etc., are NOT Theatrical Releases.  They are for special selected audiences, NOT the general public.

There has also been some discussion in the past about movies put into Limited Release in order to qualify for the Oscars.  That also qualifies as the Theatrical Release date for that movie.

That's been my understanding of those terms since long, long before I ever heard of Profiler.

Since it has been reported that there are 500,000 users of DVDP, it is fairly evident that the number participating in the forums is a tiny minority, and those participating in a specific poll would be an even smaller minority.

I can't speak for others, but I see contributions from people who do not participate in this forum all the time.

If you are going to quote specific percentages or making sweeping generalizations, you should be prepared to back them up.

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
As always it depensds on how one chooses to define accuracy. Conflicting release data is clearly INACCURATE by definiton. Trying to say Theatrical Rel;ease is more accurate than Copyright Date is akin to  the numerous arguments  we have over how people want toi list Cast data. And if you are going to use Theatrical Release where are you going to stick the yardstick in the snow, Does a Cannes showing qualify, How about the December Oscar Parade which gets WIDER release in January.

I am not saying Theatrical Release is bad, it has a serious weakness (some sources give conflicting answers) and that has to be addressed if we are to use it.

Skip

What do you mean 'if we are to use it'?  This has been in the rules since the rules were written.  If you are not entering the Theatrical Release date into this field, you are breaking the rules. 

Quoting GSyren:

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Quoting Rifter:

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Copyright year might be easier, but it sure as hell isn't necessarily more accurate.

What's accurate depends on what you are trying to document. If "Production Year" is taken to mean the year the film was shot (which is how I see it), then first public showing isn't necessarily very accurate.

True enough BUT, according to the rules, we are trying to document "the year of the original theatrical release."

Quoting hal9g:

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Quoting Unicus69:

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True enough BUT, according to the rules, we are trying to document "the year of the original theatrical release."

Which is why the filed name should be changed to "Theatrical Release/Air Date" and an additional field added for those of us who think the copyright date is as if not more important.

You won't get an argument from me on that point.  Your suggestion, back on page 2, made a lot of sense to me.

Quoting GSyren:

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Quoting Unicus69:

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Quoting GSyren:

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Quoting Rifter:

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Copyright year might be easier, but it sure as hell isn't necessarily more accurate.

What's accurate depends on what you are trying to document. If "Production Year" is taken to mean the year the film was shot (which is how I see it), then first public showing isn't necessarily very accurate.

True enough BUT, according to the rules, we are trying to document "the year of the original theatrical release."

Yes, I'm not questioning what the rules tell us at this time. The question is, what do we really want to document? In the case of Cani Arrabbiati, assigning 1995 as Production Year seems meaningless (especially since Mario Bava had been dead for 15 years at that time). And even if you call it "Theatrical release date", is that really the most significant date for the film?

Clearly, this is an anomaly.  The Rules cannot be written to cover every possible scenario.

Personally I'd use the year that it was filmed.

I'm not discussing what the current rules say.

The important question for me is - what is it that we want to know about a film if we associate a date with that film?

1) When it was filmed
2) When it was copyrighted
3) When it was first shown publicly

I would venture a guess and say that most people would answer "When it was filmed".

The problem with that is that it is seldom very easy to find an indisputable answer to that question. And since we want to have rules that don't invite ping-ponging, we need a good compromise.

So the question is - which of alternatives 2 and 3 is the better compromise? Well, in my opinion copyright date is usually easier to document than Theatrical Release Date. This is especially true for direct-to-video titles.

How would we handle direct-to-video titles? DVD release date? That could be different for different regions? So if a title is released different years in different regions, would we assign different production years to them? That doesn't make much sense if our goal is to track when they were filmed. Or would we assign the date it was first released to video anywhere? That would make more sense, but would be much more difficult to research.

So, my preference would be that the field remains named Production Year and that copyright year is the preferred method to use, unless you can document that actual production year is significantly different.

When I say significantly different I mean that - for example - if a film was shot in the fall of 2006 and copyrighted in 2007, then we should use 2007 as production year. I guess the voting process would determine what is "significant".

So, there is no perfect answer. Right now I can't see a better compromise that the one I have outlined above. But I'm always willing to listen to other views...