Marco's profile

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Thursday, April 16th, 2020 4:23 PM

Closed

Cast/Acting credits guidelines update for section G. Cast Orders

Currently, in section G. Cast Orders it says, among other things, the following about cast order in documentaries and talk shows: "Any narrator/host listed in opening or closing credits would be
treated as the first cast member, and would precede people identified only within the documentary."

The explanation of the attribute (credit only) (in section C. Cast attributes: Overview) "Someone is credited, but did not appear in the title. This is common in TV shows where regular performers sometimes do not appear in a particular episode but retain a screen credit. This includes news/talk/entertainment series with a person’s name in the title (e.g., The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Tucker Carlson Tonight), when a guest host appears."

Based on the explanation of (credit only) - with which I agree, I might add -, shouldn't the part in Cast Orders be changed to "Any narrator/host listed in opening or closing credits or the title itself would be treated as the first cast member, and would precede people identified only within the documentary or talk show."?

(for reference, here's the guide: https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/filmography-credits/cast-acting-credits-guidelines/GH3JZC...#)

Employee

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5 years ago

Hey Marco,

Thanks for getting in touch about this article.

Your comment makes sense, I've updated this to reflect the suggstion now.

Cheers,

Joel 

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Thanks for the response Joel. And also thanks for the little tweak.
However, and this is on me for not highlighting both changes I wanted, you only changed the last (bold) part instead of both parts: "Any narrator/host listed in opening or closing credits or the title itself would be treated as the first cast member, and would precede people identified only within the documentary or talk show."?

Can the "or the title itself" be added as well please?

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Bump. (yes, I know I'll probably have to start a new thread in a few weeks :))

Employee

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I have created a ticket for this to our Guides team. Thanks for letting us know.

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Thanks Grayson.

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I see this has now been fixed. Thanks!

Champion

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5 years ago

I'm curious because I just learned of this rule about narrators being credited first. Is there any documentary where the narrator is credited in the feature itself and not in the beginning or end credits?

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Is there any documentary where the narrator is credited in the feature itself and not in the beginning or end credits?

I can't give you an example of this, but given the fact IMDb lists over 650,000 documentaries, I think the answer is yes.
That said, for talk shows, there are quite a lot of examples where the host is not listed in the beginning and/or end credits, but has the show named after him or her. This was the main reason I started this thread.

Champion

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I don't watch many talk shows and the few I do credit the host so I was curious. This was an interesting part of the guideline that I didn't know about for a few years.