martin_695862's profile

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Sunday, July 21st, 2024 7:48 PM

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Capitalisation of "MacKay" etc when on-screen credits are all in upper-case

What is the house style where credits are displayed on-screen in all upper-case (or occasionally all lower-case) and the surname is conventionally written in CamelCase?

I presume that all lower-case is treated as an affectation and that a character "john smith" (on-screen) should always be converted to "John Smith". I realise that the capitalisation of titles is different, hence the correct entry for tt0161140 is "dinnerladies" (as written on-screen) and not "Dinnerladies, " DinnerLadies" or "Dinner Ladies".

For example, someone who is listed as MACKAY or MCKAY in the on-screen credits. Should that be transcribed as Mackay or Mckay, or as MacKay or McKay, with the latter camel-case being conventional way that a Scottish/Irish surnames are written because the Mac is a son-of prefix.

I can't see any mention of this on the character/cast help page.



Also, am I right to correct IMDB credits of the form "Head teacher" or "Security guard" where the second word has not been capitalised in IMDB although it *is* shown as "Head Teacher" (or "HEAD TEACHER") in the on-screen credits. There seems to have been a submitter or group of submitters who have submitted a lot of credits where all words apart from the first are not capitalised - and often I find that the on-screen credits do have every word capitalised apart from prepositions and articles, so it's not a transcibe-as-seen problem. Was IMDB's house style ever for "Head teacher" etc, at some time in the past?

Employee

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2 months ago

Hi @martin_695862,

Thank you for your problem report.

I have requested a review of the Help guide content pertaining to the "son-of" prefixes, which may lead to any required updates following the review.

Otherwise, I can confirm that the above on lower-case capitalization for characters such as "'john smith' (on-screen)" and titles is correct. Please see our guidelines on title capitalization formatting.

Additionally, we also have our guidelines documented for character capitalization formatting:

Please use standard English capitalization rules as used for titles in the database, so all words in a character name should start with an uppercase letter except for prepositions and non-leading articles, for example:

  • Security Guard

  • Police Officer

  • Woman with Dog

  • Captain of the Guard

  • Woman at the Auction

  • Jerry - Paramedic

Therefore, if you do see credits not following this formatting, you are welcome to correct them via the Contribution Form.

I hope this helps!

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Martin suggests words in titles can be lowercase as long as that's what's on screen. That is not what the guidelines say.

(edited)

598 Messages

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@Peter_pbn​ Ah, isn't it. I must have misunderstood. So the example "dinnerladies" (as it is always written in the on-screen titles) is actually wrong and should be converted in IMDB to Dinnerladies?

There is a film, whose title escapes me now, which is listed in IMDB with a trailing full-stop (period) because that is how it is handwritten in the title sequence. Again, I assumed the "transcribe-as-you-see-it" rule superseded any house style.

Then there is "BUtterfield 8" tt0053622 which is written with the capital U because it is the name of a telephone exchange which were written with the letters capitalised which corresponded to the digits that you had to dial/key for that exchange. Maybe (I'm being facetious!) that should changed to "Butterfield 8" in IMDB ;-)

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@martin_695862​ 

I believe exceptions have been made, but the guidelines do not mention it.

(edited)

Employee

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Hi @Peter_pbn & @martin_695862,

Exceptions are rarely made, with examples such as acronyms in titles. However, for example we do not capitalize Star Wars despite it being in capital letters on-screen. That said, if you come across titles that do not fit the guidelines for title formatting, please do submit a correction for our processing teams to review. 

Cheers!

Champion

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2 months ago

For example, someone who is listed as MACKAY or MCKAY in the on-screen credits. Should that be transcribed as Mackay or Mckay, or as MacKay or McKay

If it's a character name I would try to use the version used in the episode or in secondary sources, if applicable.

Sometimes small caps are used for the c or ac, which I think suggests that the K should be capitalized in those cases.

There seems to have been a submitter or group of submitters who have submitted a lot of credits where all words apart from the first are not capitalised

Discussed here:

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/capitalisation-of-words-in-character-field-of-a-titles-cast/64624350a4c6a26bcd0da9a2