Discussions on Film

Hi all,

I have been using Freebase for a little while now to index my movie collection (where film information exist in Freebase) and, eventually, upload film information back to Freebase. I have subtitles for the majority of my films and think they would make a valuable addition to the Freebase Film schema (imagine querying for who said a particular line and in which films).

How would I go about adding a Subtitles schema to Freebase and linking it to the Films/TV schema?

Alternatively, if this schema already exists, could somebody point me at it? I searched but couldn't find it.

Cheers,

Ian

Some /film/film instances have multiple values under "initial_release_date" property.

An example is Gridlock'd [ http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000086440a ]

Usually there is a full ISO format date (e.g. 1997-01-01] and a year-only date (e.g. 1997).

Is this a bug?  The dates do not appear to be tied to a release in a particular country or anything like that. 

I added three properties to type Film on Sandbox with several supporting types that cover:

1. Production companies -- this is a simple relationship between type Film and type Production Company.

2. Distributors -- This connects type film to type Film Distributor through a Compound Relationship Type (CRT) called Film-Film distributor relationship which includes properties for the year of distribution, the film cut type (director's, special edition) and the medium of distribution (Theatrical, VHS, DVD).

3. Other film companies -- This connects film to companies other than production companies and distrubutors (which are normally accorded a special status, so therefore singled out.)  Type Film here connects to "Film Company" via a CRT called "Film-Film company relationship" which includes properties for the role or service provided by that company and which film cut type it contributed to.

Note here that I'm using a couple of new naming conventions.  First, I'm suggesting the use of "CRT" for Compound Relationship Type instead of CVT or Compound value Type.  This distinction will become increasingly important in the upcoming months as we bake a deeper distinction between these patterns into MQL.

Second, I've named these CRTs with a new convention that describes it as a relationship between two types.  For example, "Film-Film company relationship" connects the types Film and Film company.

Here's a film topic example that includes all three ne properties filled out:

http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f80000000000665b4

You'll have to scroll down to the bottom of the Film section.

Please let me know what you think. 

Some /film/film instances have multiple values for initial_release_date property.

Example is:

Gridlock'd [ http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000086440a ]

Is this a bug?  The dates do not seem tied to e.g. a release in a particular country, and generally I have noticed that there is a full ISO date and a year-only date value.

Costume Design as a trade is quite distinct from Theatrical Costume Design in areas of responsibility (gentle hint to those responsible for the Theater domain)

All to find a niche for the inestimable Edith Head.

When an actor plays himself in a film, the performance entry triggers the actor topic to be co-typed as:
- Film character
- Fictional character
- Film actor
- Person
OK, a little strange, but understandably so.

But the explosion of parallel and confusing properties that then appears on the actor's page becomes rather difficult to navigate:
- Gender, Place of Birth, Parents, Children, Siblings, Quotations, all appear twice (Person, Fictional Character)
- Married To (Fictional Character) vs. Spouse(s) (Person)
- Profession (Person) vs. Occupation (Fictional Character)
- Employment History (Person) vs. Employers (Fictional Character)

What amuses me is that the Person type has an Education property missing from Fictional Character, while Fictional Character has Powers or Abilities that we didn't give to Person. There are additional properties unique to each type.

This is an extreme case, but one problem is that it's hard to figure out which property belong to which type. Perhaps the actor himself is married with kids but plays a single version of himself on screen. And if he happens to have a brilliant line in the film (Quotation property), credit should be given to the writer as well. Perhaps a UI feature to indiate/group properties by type?

Another problem is duplicate properties (that belong to the same universe) that result from co-typing. But I guess the solution to that is at the schema level rather than any UI feature.

I wanted list the movies to AFI's Top 100 for the last 100 years. However, I need an extension to the Film Collection type. Ideally, Film List would extend Film Collection as an enumerated collection of films with a specific order. I need to state #1 is Citizen Kane for example.

I see it exists, but is not currently linked to within film...Is it meant to be a co-type to be applied when desired?

We need something like the Book Editions property for the variations in releases that can occur when movies have different running times for the various countries (quite common in the 30's through the 70's for foreign made films when they come to America they get edited down in running time) or when a movie is re-released later on with additional scenes and edits like "Close Encounters of the Third Time."

So I just noticed a Japanese name in the cast for a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western film which puzzled me until I realized he was used to dub Clint's parts for the Japanese theatrical releases. So I have added the "Seiyu" term to 'Special Performance Type' as the vocals-only performance in Japan of Anime and dubbing of foreign titles is specialized art form unique to Japan. But for dubbing maybe the artists should be listed in its own unique property distinct from Film Performance...Dubbed by? With language sub-property as well.