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Tuesday, December 26th, 2017

Where should dramaturgs be listed?

I was watching a Finnish movie and the last two credits in the crew listing are listed as "dramaturgs". Someone added these to the writers credits but after googling what a dramaturg is, this does not seem to be right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramaturge

Where do these credits belong?

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8 years ago

It might also be considered that the people who entered the credits may not have a good understanding of the term, which is very specific to theater, not movies, and somewhat rare.

In French, "dramaturge" is another word for playwright. so it fits perfectly with the writers credits.
Could you share the title where you saw it?

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It was Rare Exports (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401143/). I do not believe for this title that it is being used as "playwright" because they were the very last credits in the scroll and there was already a "written by" and "based on the original idea by". The story is not based on a play.

Looking at the wiki link and it seems more like a production type credit but I'm unsure. It would be really helpful if there was a list of positions and what department they belong to, especially for things that are not so common.

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8 years ago

Especially in Europe there can be ”dramaturge” (or similar) credits also in TV/movies. There are 7,958 ”dramaturge” credits already in the Writing-section, so I wouldn’t call it a rare occupation. If the actual credit says ”dramaturge” (or similar), I also wouldn’t translate it to ”playwright”.


Older programs can use slightly ”older” occupation descriptions. It’s not up to us to ”change” or ”translate” them to something else.

Sometimes these can be defined more broadly (whether it’s theatre, tv, movie etc):

”Dramaturgy may also be defined, more broadly, as shaping a story into a form that may be acted.”

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How does one see that there are 7.958 dramaturge credits in the writing section? Not that it is a compelling argument to keep them there just because they currently exist there. It could be a misunderstanding of what the position is. Also, sometimes IMDb changes its mind on what department they think things should exist in, like "story editor" which was moved to the writing section.

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69.2K Points

8 years ago

You see all the ”existing” occupations listed by clicking the ”arrow” (not sure what to call it to be honest) near the box where you write/choose the Attribute for occupation. Then choose the letter etc. For example, here are the occupations for Writing-section:

https://contribute.imdb.com/updates/f...


I see no reason to move these Rare Export credits and I doubt IMDb will move them. If they’re listed as ”dramaturge” (or similar) in the actual credits, they belong to the Writing-section. These are the persons who were shaping the story/screenplay (but did not do any real writing - at least enough to be credited as ”writers”). You can’t ”translate” dramaturge to something else (like a story editor, playwright or whatnot). We don’t invent the occupations, they’re already listed in the credits.

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60 Points

7 years ago

I just watched the same movie. Got here doing a Bing Search for "movie crew, dramaturg" - and that is the spelling used when they rolled credits.  I'm about to drop this on a mate of mine who's a retired key grip.  See what he says.

I think the movie sets itself up for a sequel, BTW.  We never did get to see "bad Santa" in action after all.

Title presented as Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale...and Rare Exports reads more like a credit to the production company.  Not so old, either.  Entered in Film Festivals in 2010.