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3 Messages

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90 Points

Monday, December 5th, 2022 11:21 PM

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Answered

Whose filmographies are they anyway?

The folks at IMDb customer service suggested I post this over here. I wrote to them about the current approach to actor filmographies. Time was, once I wrapped a shoot, I could post the credit on my own resume. After all, the IMDb resume or filmography or whatever you want to call it, is a reflection of my work. Ditto for all the other actors out there. Then, later on, when production  got around to posting the credit – if they ever did – the credit would appear under a verified filmography section. That worked for me. Posting the credit to my own filmogrraphy was easy. One and done.

Now, it doesn't seem possible for an actor to easily post their own credit on their own work history. The steps you have to take to do that are cumbersome, you have to know a lot about the production, it's far from easy-peasy, and you end up not being able to post. Meaning you have to wait till production posts the credit, if it ever does.

I'm not sure how other people feel about this but, as a paying member, with a IMDb Pro membership, I think I should  be able to post my own work onto my own IMDb page. Ditto for everyone else. We all know there are people out there who make things up but, anyone looking for talent surely knows this goes on and, if they want, they can just concentrate on the verified filmography or look at both. I have a great many credits that production never bothered to post and if  I couldn't put them up there myself, they wouldn't have been listed. I think the current approach on IMDb forgets that there are independent productions out there and student productions and others where the directors/producers are probably never going to put the credit up.

I think it's time IMDb changed and let us go back to the old system where we can list our own work – surely that falls within our First Amendment rights? – and then, if someone later adds the credit so it becomes "verified", so much the better.

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

2 years ago

Even at the risk of being branded as nitpicking, I'm fervently driven to point out the fact that the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States only prohibits the ratification of law allowing for people to be sentenced to death, imprisonment, forfeiture or any punishment at all, likewise convicted, prosecuted, jailed, fined, indicted, accused or taxed to begin with, for expressing themselves, their faiths, their conjectures, their hypotheses, their theories, their mockeries, their parodies, their criticisms, their grievances or roughly whatever. In no way does the first amendment impose an obligation upon anybody to publish or propagate any form of expression, let alone to carry somebody else's expressions. If anything, the first amendment prohibits such a thing from becoming the law.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Which is pre-reenforced by the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States:

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

Which is reiterated in the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The long story short: nothing about a person's ability or inability to supply his or her filmography details to IMDb has anything whatsoever to do with the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, unless that person is trying to invoke a statute, a treaty or other law inferior to the Constitution yet contradicts the Constitution.

3 Messages

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90 Points

@jeorj_euler​ Thank you for your comments. Your citation referencing "abridging the freedom of speech" is what I was referring to. Right now, the imdb set up either makes it difficult for us to "speak freely" through the posting of our own work or makes it impossible. I do not think the Fourth Amendment applies. But, again, thank you for following up.

(edited)

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

No! The IMDb company is not abridging anybody's freedom, as it has neither the power to seize anybody's person or property, nor the power to siphon money from anybody's bank account! If it did, even then it wouldn't have such powers with impunity like the government does! IMDb is not our slave! The IMDb company is not obligated to make it easier for you, me or anybody to "speak freely", except as to in whichever ways it previously vowed to do so! Understood?

3 Messages

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90 Points

Thank you for your further thoughts. Any of us paying for an IMDbPro membership should be allowed to add our own work to our own profile, which is no longer possible as it once was. This is what I posted about.

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

Well, well, well. Looks like the IMDb company had decided to be generous some time ago, and they've implemented more mechanisms of control over the information found on name pages, as now provided to show business professionals: Sprinklr post 6398881090844c35240ee041, IMDb Help article GSPE4URAA93PW6C9, AWS whitepaper IMDbPressRelease_121322IMDbUpdates.pdf. Like I stated before, such is a freedom had by IMDb.

Employee

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500 Messages

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42.2K Points

2 years ago

The process to submit content to IMDb has not changed in decades and is the same regardless of whether the submission is sent by an actor, or a producer, or anyone else: submitted data is processed by IMDb staff and accepted or rejected, typically based on a number of criteria which vary depending on the credit itself, the reliability of the source, the title being submitted to etc.

If you have submitted a credit and it has not been accepted, the most likely reason is that we were not able to confirm its eligibility to be included. This could be due to lack of availability of the title or lack of evidence provided with the submission, or a number of other factors.  If you have had problem adding credits to your page, I recommend trying again and including additional evidence to support it.

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

Yeah, I didn't recognize that the creator of this thread might possibly be unaware of the way IMDb already works. There is a mention of resume data in the original post of this thread, and I remember complaining before (with the last software platform migration, years ago) that resume data was no longer visible to folks who don't have IMDbPro subscriptions.