capdeac's profile

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Thursday, April 11th, 2024 8:18 PM

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Chris Farley Shrek videos

Years ago, some videos of Chris Farley's voice as the original Shrek wound up online. One is a storyboard (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21797660/) and the other a test animation (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21803526/). They were uploaded by people involved, from what I understand as animators, in the production. I contacted IMDB for deletion of these titles, because in my view, they don't belong on IMDB. For one, they are unauthorized releases, basically bootlegs. Not officially sanctioned by DreamWorks and uploaded on a Vimeo account by someone who worked on the project. They were meant for internal use only, and on one account I know the original uploader deleted his video after it got reuploaded on youtube. IMDB first said they'd 'carefully' looked at the case and saw a release date of 2013 on IMDB, indicating it was released and they weren't going to remove it. When I got back with some more of my reasoning, it again got declined. It still doesn't really sit right with me, so I'll just try to ask this here.

These titles never got out on an official basis. If we count that as official releases on IMDB, do we also count leaked videos of tv-shows as the original release date? As I said earlier, they were meant to be seen only internally while working on the picture and they did not get released by DreamWorks. Unofficially released videos. When I posted something about the wrongful early release of Bad Trip (2021) that got accidentally released on streaming a whole year earlier, it was decided that that earyl release date didn't count as it wasn't intended by the production or distributor. Does that apply here too? I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on this.

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8 months ago

IMDb's official policy is not to delete factual information as long as it's of public interest. The fact that these clips were leaked does not change the fact that they're out there and people have seen them. They are of interest to people due to the high profile of Shrek in popular culture. Fans of the film are aware of Chris Farley's early involvement and are naturally curious.

The release date might need to change, but these titles shouldn't be deleted.

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I can see all that, but I still think this is a bit sketchy. I wanted to add Eddie Murphy's voice is in the storyboard one. Neither Murphy or Farley (or his family) has signed off on the release of these videos. In that sense they're just illegal videos.

315 Messages

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7.2K Points

@capdeac​ Illegal or no, the page shouldn't be deleted. There are several titles on IMDb that are banned in certain countries, titles that no longer exist due to being destroyed, etc. IMDb is not meant to be a list of good movies, legal movies, or movies for people to watch. IMDb is a database and its purpose is to store data. Deleting these two pages from IMDb would be akin to declaring that they do not exist, never existed, and/or are not important enough to be mentioned. Neither of those things are true. The title pages have a valid reason for existing on IMDb.

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@timothy_gray_el34lojg1aih1​ You know full well what I mean with illegal. It's not like this video is legal in Europe and illegal in the US. I just mean that they have not been sanctioned to be released by the people behind it.

And removing these from IMDB doesn't remove the videos from youtube itself. IMDB doesn't need these titles to remind people Farley did Shrek. It's very well known. But I know very well of course, that it doesn't really matter what I think about it. I just felt enough unease about the precedent IMDB pages like this set that I posted about it. That's all.

(edited)

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Hi @capdeac,

Thank you for your problem report.

These title pages are eligible for listing per particular requirements detailed in our guidelines:

  • Released on video or the web or prints have been made available to the public
  • Made by a (now) famous artist or person of public interest
  • Made famous for some reason and is widely talked about/referenced in media or the 'film community' or is now of general historic interest for some reason

Furthermore, we could not find anything to suggest a lack of consent for the title's footage being released from those starring in them.

Also, this would not impact the release dates of "leaked" titles as suggested in your above comment, and doesn't set a precedent for titles to be listed, other than those that are eligible as per our guidelines.

I hope this helps!