Live Poll: Cinematic Cities

Indeed, it was a old idea, but I just strated working on it last week. I hope its ready soon.

I was believing that. But my research has not shown this. My guess is, that while there may be hundreds of films filmed in this places, they have not been correctly submitted to IMDb, and since that is the source of my information, I can't add them.

My way of selecting the cities is to check the menu of more common filming locations that appears when you submit information to a title.

That list goes from Buenos Aires with 46,447 titles to Istanbul with 2,114. Then I made an advanced search for each location in order to exclude tv or shorts, and limit the number of titles to feature films.

Every city in the most common list made the cut, with the exception of Melbourne, Australia, which got reduced from 9,250 to barely 42 after the advanced search.

In order to fill the rest of the spots, I'm researching the complete list of locations letter by letter, and double checking all entries with over 1,000 titles filmed on them.

I am actually surprised by the low number of films some cities got. But if that's the information the IMDb gives, I don't have other source of authority.  Beijing, for example, barely got over 200 titles, so its currently in the brick of elimination.

Various aspects of Hayes' story were fictionalized or added to for the movie:

• In the movie, Billy Hayes is in Turkey with his girlfriend when he is arrested, whereas in the original story he is alone.
• Although Billy did spend seventeen days in the prison's psychiatric hospital in 1972, he never bit out anyone's tongue, which in the film led to him being committed to the section for the criminally insane.
• In the book's ending, Hayes was moved to another prison on an island from which he eventually escaped, by stealing a dinghy and rowing 17 miles in a raging storm across the Sea of Marmara, and then traveling by foot as well as on a bus to Istanbul and then crossing the border into Greece. In the movie, this passage is replaced by a violent scene in which he unwittingly kills the head guard who is preparing to rape him. (In reality, Hamidou, the chief guard, was killed in 1973 by a recently paroled prisoner, who spotted him drinking tea at a café outside the prison and shot him eight times.) The attempted rape scene itself was fictionalized; Billy never claimed to have suffered any sexual violence at the hands of his Turkish wardens. He did engage in consensual sex while in prison, but the film depicts Hayes gently rejecting the advances of a fellow prisoner.

During the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, Alinur Velidedeoğlu, a Turkish advertiser, met Billy Hayes by chance and interviewed him on the film Midnight Express. Hayes expressed his disappointment with the film adaptation, especially its portrayal of all Turks as bad, and his regret that Turkey's image was negatively affected by the film. Hayes also displayed a deep affection for Turkey and İstanbul. Although the Interpol warrant for him had by then been set aside, he explained that while he wanted to return, he hesitated to do so out of concern that many Turks might blame him for the negative publicity the movie had generated.

The video was made available on YouTube. Hayes did finally return to Turkey on June 14, 2007, to attend the 2nd Istanbul Conference on Democracy & Global Security, organized by the Turkish National Police and the Turkish Institute for Police Studies, to amend the negative implications of his book. He held a press conference on June 15 and made an apology to the Turkish people.

I'm pretty sure Baltimore won't make it to the final version. It is already on the 35th position, and I'm barely checking locations with H. It was there while more common places appeared.

With 298 Pittsburg seems unlikely to be on the final list. But in case it is enough I'll use one of the images you are suggesting.

About cinematographical. I found the term as a valid one in a Google search, it says is a variation of cinematographic, which apparently is also valid.

However, english is not my first language, so I'll change it if cinematic is a better, more accurate or more common term.

Dan. I currently have Washington DC on my list with 490 movies. I have found another problem to have the more accurate list is that popular cities appear as divided entries under sligthly different names.

While I'm researching I'm also trying to merge some of the entries in order to make the IMDb location list more accurate and help the databse in the future.

FYC, P.S.Needs a backlink.

Yes it does. I'll add it when the final version is ready. That means having the final list of cities with better images. I did not add it now to prevent it going live by mistake.

I also would be careful about how you word your proposition, as the IMDb totals are likely underestimates or in some cases overestimates. The IMDb list of movie locations is far from complete or accurate

It is definitively far for complete or accurate. However it is the best source of information I have, it is already a lengthy investigation for a poll and anything more would be impossible for Me.

I've been trying to play it on the safe side by writing in the description that all information is according to IMDb.

Also in every entry I write that a city is a location of over whatever number I get, as I take it for a fact that it more movies that have not been accurately submited where also filmed there.

However, I'm open to suggestion about better ways to word the poll or make the information as accurate as possible.

My vote Boston, Massachusetts, USA has 23 distinct neighborhoods, including some former municipalities each with their own movie listing that does not reference Boston. Los Angeles, New York and other cities will have the same issue.

That is a big issue, but it is one I'm not able to overcome. I have been checking each location in the IMDb in alphabetical order, and I have noticed that many if not all cities have their location information divided in at least two entries. Sometimes due to ortographical mistakes, sometimes due to a missing comma, sometimes due to differen entries giving different information or spelling something different.

In the case of foreign cities, they are often divided in entries both in english or in their original language, and historical cities that have changed name or borders or countries in tiem are also divided by those criteria. And that's just considering places with the same name.

If besides that I consider metropolitan areas or different buroughs, I would have to accurately know the list of every place that might be considered part of a larger city, following the criteria of different countries, and making countless addition for each and every location at IMDb. It is simply impossible.

I've been trying to merge some locatons that are obviously the same (for example Bucharest, Romania and Bucarest, Romania), and I have updated the IMDb in order for them to merge them in their lists. But besides that, the poll will have to go without much detail about each metropolitan area.

In any case, the information about the main location or entry, allows us to assume the addition of neighbour towns would keep the list with the same cities. Or I think it does.

Sure. I never took it as critics, but as suggestions, I just wanted to give a complete answer. Sorry if it seemed otherwise.

I have already added New Orleans, Vancouver and Mumbai to the list and they all seem to have a high enough number of movies to remain once the final version is ready.

Nigerian cities do not have enough entries at IMDb. I suppose that is due to the lack of information about that cinema.

As for the suggestion of eliminating the number of movies. Seems like a good idea that will also avoid the poll from getting dated as soon as new information is added. I'll keep the numbers while I remain working for reference. But will remove them before publishing it.

Yes, all pictures are neutral right now. I haven't took the time to find acutually good images as I am still refining the final list of locations. Once that is done, hopefully in the next couple of days. I'll try to find images with iconic views of each place, or at least an iconic scene occuring in each city.

If you have suggestions in the meantime, they would be a great help.

Those are indeed great suggestions. I already had the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate for Paris and San Francisco, but they look much better in the images you propose so they have been changed.

The only one I'm leaving out is Rome, since that Colisseum is computer generated, so I preffer an image of the real one.

I loved to see Amsterdam, as well as other cities like Bucharest, Helsinki or Copenhaguen on the list as they gave variety. Unfortunately as I keep researching I have been forced to take them out in favour of places with more movies filmed on them.

At this moment Lisbon is the 35th place on the list with 495 movies. But I still have to check letters Q-Z, so I suppose there will be a couple of changes in the final list.

I'll use Slumdog Millionaire for Mumbai, but a different image as I preffer to show a view of the city when possible.

I'm looking for better images for 5 more cities: New York, Los Angeles, Rome, Toronto and Buenos Aires and maybe New Orlenas and then it should be ready.