I wanted to bring up this topic to get some general discourse on Role mapping for Crew after some PM debate.

Sometimes there is a bit of ambiguity in regards to certain credited roles and how they map to the database roles. 

There is a statement in the rules that says-->

If someone is not credited with one of these roles (or direct translations of these roles), do not include them in the Crew section.

In specific, this mentions the idea of direct translations of these roles.

For a specific example there is some debate about the credited role of Ray Harryhausen as Technical Effects and if this should map to Visual Effects or not. This is for the film, 20 Million Miles to Earth: 50th Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray.

Rules state the following

[i]Individual Credits:
Visual/Digital/Special/Special Visual Effects, including Designer, Supervisor, and Director,
Special Photographic Effects


A Special Effects Coordinator can be added & credited when No Special Effects Supervisor is credited anywhere in the credits[/i]

In the above example the actual Role that Ray Harryhausen performed in the film could also be described as Visual/Special/Special Visual Effects/Special Photographic Effects but yet he was credited as Technical Effects which is nowhere mentioned in the rules.  For this film Ray handled the animatronics, framing, photography, special effects, etc etc and is widely considered the primary auteur for the entire film (thus the film being part of the Ray Harryhausen Collection boxset).

Furthermore for Ray's films and the one in question, he was the sole individual in charge of the Visual /Special Effects for the film.  I point this out as Visual Effects is the only Role where Ken makes a marked distinction in the rules by bolding the phrase Individual Credits and notating when to use and the difference between Coordinator and Supervisor. Which I take to mean the just the head person in charge of Visual Effects for the film as opposed to an FX company (like ILM or WETA)

So, does one map the Role function and input him as Visual Effects

OR

Since the specific Role credit was not explicitly stated in the rules (Technical Effects), input nothing in the database.

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My opinion is that some judgement must be used and thus why we have a voting system on submissions.

For instance if the Music Composer is credited as "Original Musical Arrangements By," it should be mapped to the proper database role and submitted as Music Composer (especially if the individual was clearly the only person involved with the music composition).

Otherwise if we only map explicitily stated roles as only listed in the table, we will have to constantly update the Credited As section of the rules.  What if a film states FX Coordinator or Special EFX Director -do we accept the abbreviations? So how hard does one enforce the rule?

Futhermore once foreign languages are involved the Crew Role mapping can get even more complicated and forces one to think on how to interpret "directly translates."

What I am asking is how does everyone here interpret the following rule-->

For each category, include only those people credited with the roles listed in the "Role" and "Credited As" columns. If someone is not credited with one of these roles (or direct translations of these roles), do not include them in the Crew section

While I hear and understand your argument, I don't agree with your distinction of Technical Effects and Visual Effects in the current database structure.  Which begs the issue be addressed of defining exactly what these roles are and what precisely they encompass.

In the case of Ray Harryhausen, I would argue that he was the entire Visual Effects department as he did everything himself. 

However to be more precise and listing him as Technical Effects (since he is one of the few folks to have this title) would of course be better.

My problem is how the rules are now. Now it is not entirely clear how to handle this credit and we are forced to either 1) map the role or 2) not include the crew listing.

Thus my reason for posting the poll and asking for feedback.

Not trying to force him in as much as looking at his job function for the film and stating he was the Special Effects/Visual Effects guy for the film. 

BTW the cover of the box jacket and disc jacket also refers to his work as Special Effects and Visual Effects yet the film credits say Technical Effects on 3 out of 4 films in the set (the other states Special Visual Effects)

Again should we map job functions or use the exact listed role titles?

While I don't own any DVDs with is work, I am a huge Ray Harryhausen fan.  As much as it pains me to say this, as he is one of the reasons I wanted a SFX credit in Profiler, Technical Effects is not allowed per the crew chart.

Quoting T!M:

Quote:
Quoting jpopusa:

Quote:
Again should we map job functions or use the exact listed role titles?

We should track certain jobs, rather than tracking certain labels, but unfortunately, it seems we don't, because it's too complicated for the average user.

I do agree on the first part (about the should), but I do not agree that it would be too complicated. Give a short and simple job description in the crew chart (like those on this page,
or maybe here) and add the usually associated role names (what we have in the acceptable column now). The rest would do our voting system with the screeners. The screeners would have an easier job, if the custom role names could be contributed in addition to the standard role name. In some instances we would have some discussion (and maybe even some fights) here in the forum. But I honestly don't think that it would be worse than what we have today.

EDIT: For foreign language credits, role association by function is already allowed with the direct translation clause. Everybody agrees that we are talking about translation by meaning and not about literal translation. Otherwise we could hardly enter any foreign language crew at all because the role names used are rarely literal translations from the English. Even though we have that system for those films, there are hardly any known problems and fights about those credits. I can't see why this could not work for (US-)English film credits.

Quoting CharlieM:

Quote:
With all the extensive crew roles in some of these movies (Alexander for instance), how much of the crew do we want to track, under the current limitations.

Alexander has

  Supervising Art Director
      Senior Art Director
          (2) Art Directors

With the current limitations (without the ability to contribute custom roles or open credits), do we need to contribute all the way down 3 levels?

Or do we continue to contribute, because we don't want to create exceptions, even though it waters down the meaning(no proper context) of the contribution?

Just questioning.

Charlie

From a functional point of view, it does not make any sense to list the art directors without listing the senior and supervising art director even though the senior art director is not listed in the chart.

If I could decide, I would only list the "chief" roles. E.g art director when no supervising or senior art director is listed and the supervising art director only if one is listed.

The update with the mapping to Visual Effects was just accepted (not sure if it was automatic  acceptance or if it was screened)

And of course Skip posted an update to take it out (which I agree is the right thing to do until a solid  ruling decision is made)

Of course I will vote NO against it per my previous posts above.  Maybe Supreme Court Ken will make a ruling as most of us have issues with the job mapping or Roles as it is currently stated.

Quoting jpopusa:

Quote:
The update with the mapping to Visual Effects was just accepted (not sure if it was automatic  acceptance or if it was screened)

And of course Skip posted an update to take it out

The perfect is the enemy of the good.