MykolaYeriomin's profile
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Friday, December 29th, 2017 8:42 PM

2

Photographs in Actor Filmography?

I have noticed a rather weird tendency of photograph appearances either disappearing from the acting filmographies or receiving "(credit only)" treatment. I don't know whether some SAG-AFTRA  standards are in play here, but I wonder whether cases in which photographs were actually made for the movie, as it is with Alfred Hitchcock in Lifeboat (1944) or Bruce Davison in Willard (2003) might still be listed. Technically, actors worked for a day showing up for a photo shoot (and in case of Hitchcock he was actually photographed twice for "before" and "after" photographs) which still should be listed (unlike the use of pre-existing photographs). 

There are also borderline cases - Liza Minelli is now listed as "credit only" in The King of Comedy (1982), because she only appears in a cardboard cutout in the movie, but it might as well have been "scenes deleted", because she had actual scenes shot, which were eventually deleted and that is the main reason why she has a cast credit.

So what are the rules in cases like that, or should it be decided depending on case? I should say that I have a few acting credits which are actually photographs, but they were credited and specially comissioned for productions. 

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7 years ago

Here is a link to the cast guide: https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/filmography-credits/cast-acting-credits-guidelines/GH3JZC...#

The pertinent part: "Animals and inanimate objects (i.e., Wilson the Volleyball) can be listed as actors if they appear in the credits as cast members. Please use your best guess as to gender. (After the new name page is created, you should probably also include a biographical trivia note (i.e., "Is a dog"). Exception: Corpses, paintings, still photographs, mummies, etc, should not be listed as cast members in any title."

Basically, still photographs should never show up in the cast listing.

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Great thanks for answer! I know the rules, of course, but there are a few rather weird options about still photographs that might transcend the case: a) such appearances are quite often credited, especially in no budget titles, which automatically makes them contradicting with a major rule of listing every factual credit; b) still photographs might be shown in screen-within-the-screen, effectively eliminating their object status and c) they may be animated as in case of Batman (1989), where actors were indeed listed (it is actually an example of both "b" and "c": photographs were animated and shown on a TV screen). 

In my humble opinion cases in which photographs were proven to be made for the film only might have been listed as exceptions, but it's just my opinion. Alternatively, people who modeled for photographs especially for the movie might be listed in "miscellaneous crew" (which is partially done as well, with photo doubles, additional voices, ADR etc.). The latter might probably be the best option as it won't bend the rules and will still give the person factual credit one might deserve.  

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Hi Nikolay -

Thanks you for posting your suggestion here regarding edge cases for still photograph credits.  I would encourage you to post a new Idea thread within the community with your comments about listing these credit types on the site, which will allow other users to vote and comment. Cheers!

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Sorry to bother you again, but I am still a bit inexperienced with GetSatisfaction. Should I just post a new Idea thread here, formulating it differently and providing additional details, or such discussions could be done somewhere else with a poll  attached? 

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Hi Nikolay -

I see that you successfully re-posted the issue in a new thread, as the issue involves our policies the post has been modified to a problem and will be reviewed by our staff shortly.  Cheers!

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Great thanks! 

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6 years ago

I came across with the mini-series where one of the characters is introduced in the first episode in a photograph only. He’s still credited in the end credits.


So, does this need ”(credit only)” attribute?

(Edit: ”Introduced” here means that the police is showing the mug shots of a character, who then actually appears in the second episode.)

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It looks like, for once, the cast guide is pretty clear about this one:

     People who appear only in still photographs can be included in filmography based on these guidelines:

    The content was created specifically for the title and

  • they do receive an on screen credit: they should be credited as reflected on screen with the addition of a (credit only) attribute.
So, yes, the credit only attribute would be needed.


Can we clean up the style of this part of the guide? It's a little hard to read where the first part isn't bulleted but the second part is.