NEWSLETTER #2

3rd August 1995

edited by Col Needham

Welcome to issue 2 of the IMDB newsletter. The newsletter is intended to keep database users and contributors informed of the latest developments from the management team. Comments and suggestions are welcome and should be directed to me at the address above.

See the further information section at the end of this file for more information about The Internet Movie Database (IMDB).

Thanks to everyone who helped with the request in the last issue to research missing directors - we're now down to 2,497 out of 50,000 movies. Let me know if you'd like to help with the remaining titles.

Contents

• Database statistics
• Movie database tour added to WWW interface
• New WWW mirror site
• Other WWW interface improvements
• New international title policy
• IMDB at the 19th Cambridge Film Festival
• Other database publicity
• Writers and genres lists back on track
• Clarification of rules for production designers section
• New Unix interface on the way
• IMDB quiz coming!
• Future developments

DATABASE STATISTICS

This is a regular section giving information about the current size and growth of the IMDB. We receive between 15,000 and 30,000 additions every week from users all over the world.

   Number of filmography entries:   665,811
   Number of people covered:        216,641
   Number of movies covered:         50,606
  
   Size of the database (Mb):            49

MOVIE DATABASE TOUR ADDED TO WWW INTERFACE

In mid July, the www interface to the IMDB reached the grand old age of 2, and to celebrate, err, it just continued with business as usual. The main server at Cardiff (UK), has served close to 30 million request (most, but not all for the movie database) in that time.

A lot has changed in 2 years, and I'm sure a few of the people who have been using the www interface since the early days have missed a few of the changes and enhancements, both to the www interface and the database content. An overview of what's available via the www interface is now available via the 'Tour'... a page with lots of links to examples of all the different types of information. This is primarily aimed at new users, but it's worth a look if you haven't seen it.

NEW WWW MIRROR SITE

A new WWW mirror in the USA has recently gone live at:

     http://rte66.com/Movies/

they are waiting for a change in IP address to propagate out so if the above doesn't work, please try:

     http://198.147.111.29/Movies

The mirror is part of The Los Angeles Webstation, a local information service for the Greater Los Angeles area, including a searchable index of cinema and TV schedules with links from each title into the database.

OTHER WWW INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS

In addition to the tour Rob has been busy adding lots of new features to the WWW interface, including:

• a graphical menu bar to aid navigation around the database and improve the presentation of the database.



• a new search method available via the search page to list the names of cast and crew who worked on a group of movies. This will be useful for finding the name of someone you recognise in a couple of movies, but can't put a name to the face



• the exact vote counts are now available in the ratings section so you can see precisely how many people have voted for each element on the 1 to 10 scale. See:



• the movie links information is now listed at the bottom of the title details page, allowing it to be formatted much more cleanly.

NEW INTERNATIONAL TITLE POLICY

This is a pre-announcement to warn of an impending change to the policy on non-English titles in the database. To reflect the increasing international focus of the database we are changing the rules governing which titles are used as primaries and which are listed as alternatives. The new policy will be to use the original title in the country of origin as the primary title with the English translation as the alternative. This shouldn't make much difference to the search process since in most of the interfaces also search the alternative titles database if a match isn't found in the primary index. The change should take place within the next month or so.

IMDB AT THE 19TH CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL

On 24th July Colin Tinto, Mark Harding and myself (the UK resident subset of the team) went along to the Cambridge Film Festival as invited guests on their "Internet and Film" open day. The day itself was in addition part of the 4th annual COMEX conference (COMEX is a national organisation of independent film exhibitors/distributors here in the UK).

I gave a 40 minute overhead projector presentation outlining the database and including a quick tour through some representative pages. The session was very well received with lots of questions from people who ranged from regular users of the IMDB through to some who hadn't really heard of the Internet before the start of the day.

As well as providing a rare opportunity for some of the team members to meet in person, we also made numerous contacts who were interested in supplying all kinds of information to the database. We spent the full two hour lunchtime and all the coffee break demonstrating and discussing the database with the attendees.

The programme for the Cambridge Film Festival, including links into the IMDB for each movie is available on-line at:

     http://www.gold.net/camfest/

OTHER DATABASE PUBLICITY

We're always interested to know of any existing magazines / newspapers / books which feature the database, or if you're an author planning to write about the database for such publications.

The IMDB had a very favourable write-up in the August issue of thr UK Internet magazine .net. The magazine covered movie sites around the web and included an interview with Mark Harding and myself on what goes on behind the scenes in the database. For details of the issue see:

     http://www.futurenet.co.uk/netmag/Issue9/Contents.html

The database also featured briefly in an article in the main national daily newspaper in Finland, "Helsingin Sanomat". Thanks to Kimmo Ketolainen for letting us know about that.

We've also been awarded a certificate of merit in the Point survey of the top sites on the web. You can read their review of the IMDB at:

     http://www.pointcom.com/gifs/reviews/710001.htm

other movie sites are reviewed on:

     http://www.pointcom.com/gifs/reviews/aemo.htm

We're currently listed top of the most visited sites list, joint second for top experience and joint third place for content:

     http://www.pointcom.com/gifs/topsites/

WRITERS AND GENRES SECTIONS BACK ON TRACK

After delays owing to work and study committments, both the writers and genres sections are now back on track and are being updated regularly. The processed backlog has resulted in a massive improvement in coverage, particularly in the genres section. We now have at least one major genre category for 1/4 of the database titles.

Remember you can always find out when any section in the database was last updated by checking here.

CLARIFICATION OF RULES FOR PRODUCTION DESIGNERS SECTION

Harald Mayr has asked me to point out a clarification in the rules regarding submissions to the production designers list:

Please do not send any submissions for the production designers section if the person is not specifically credited for 'production designer'. Production designers are usually credited at the beginning of the movie. Any information regarding 'assistant production designers', 'art directors', 'set decorators' or similar should be sent to the miscellaneous section.

Similar rules apply to the other sections regarding assistants and second unit crew, but note *all* producer credits are eligible for the producers section regardless of whether they are credited as executive, co-producer, associate, line etc.

NEW UNIX INTERFACE ON THE WAY

The explosion in growth of the database in the last few months means that another patched version 3.2 of the Unix interface will be released in the next week or so. The problem is that the number of titles is dangerously close to the 65,535 limit in the software. I originally stored the title key codes in 16 bits figuring this gave us years of growth but I underestimated significantly. If you use the Unix package look out for further announcements and an update on the ftp sites. This unfortunately means a large increase in the diskspace required by the package.

IMDB QUIZ COMING!

To celebrate the five year jubilee of the IMDB there will be a quiz, featuring 100 questions, all related to the world of movies. Participants can win prizes! Details will follow within the next months and be announced in relevant news groups and on the WWW servers.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

This is a regular section listing some of the enhancements we're currently looking at. Please bear in mind that some of these may take quite a while to come to fruition or even fail to materialise because the original volunteer decides not to proceed.

• a new business information section for the database to store distributors and rights holders contact details, box office grosses and other information concerned with the business side of the industry.



• an alternative versions section grown from the current holdings in the trivia section in this area. The section will cover details and differences between directors cuts, video versions, censored versions of movies in the database.



• a LaserDisc availability section. Note: this section will be strictly limited to LD's only and not grown into any kind of generic video catalog.



• a locally installable MS-Windows interface to the database is under final testing for those of you who want to reduce your phonebills!



• new "professional" looking icons under construction for the WWW interface.



• enhanced awards section for the database covering more international festivals, national film institutes etc.



• general support for alternative titles in languages other than English and the language of the original country.