English names for the roles.

[p.i.klein]

In your DB often English names are used for the characters the actors play. On the various releases of a film those names can be different and if you watch the film with the original language you don't hear those names. I would like to have the original names with the translated names between ().
In legend of the mountain: Hsu Feng character is Yue Niang (pinyin) it means: music girl and it's translated with 'Melody' and in your DB with 'miss Mandy'. So I like to have:
Hsu Feng: Yue Niang (Melody, miss Mandy)

Shih Jun plays He Qing Yun. Qing Yun means blue-green cloud, but it isn't translated with 'cloud'. Zhang Ai Jia is called 'cloud'. Her name is: Chuang Yi Yun, it means near to the cloud.
The maidservant (who is she?) is called Xiao Qing, it means little blue-green. It's translated with Blue Maid.

[MrBooth]

I agree, but my Cantonese/Mandarin are not good enough to be able to pick out the Chinese name with any reliability, so I'm something of a slave to what the subtitles say

[p.i.klein]

Most of us will have the same problem, so have I. It's that my wife is learning chinese, that I'm able to replace those silly English names sometimes.
Hope there are chinese reading persons, who will read this topic and I hope they will be so kind to give us the real names of the characters.

[Gaijin84]

I tend to agree with MrBooth - since I assume most of the people (me, for example) using the English database are versed enough to listen and translate the Chinese being spoken, the best way for us to identify the actor or actress is by what the subtitle says. As long as the translated name you are adding does not replace the subtitle version, I have no problem with it.

[p.i.klein]

The main problem is:
that names used in subtitles or dubbings are not always the same if you have different releases.

Okay, if you want to be complete, you can put more names (Mandarin, Cantonese, French-dub or sub, English-dub or sub, Australian-dub or sub) after the actors name (a hell of a job), but watch out for double roles!

[Gaijin84]

sorry - i meant that most i thought most people, including me, were not versed enough in Chinese to translate

you're right - it would be a huge job, and the character limits make it tough

[MrBooth]

I sometimes include a brief description as well as the role name , e.g. "Bob (sister)", "Wong Fei Hung (teacher)", which might be a help in the event of different translations (the main reason I do it is because I can never remember character names, so it's very helpful to have a short reminder!).

The character limit does make it difficult to fit anything much in though...

[p.i.klein]

I'm very happy with those descriptions. Often they are more helpful then the names.

[bkasten]

The character limit does make it difficult to fit anything much in though...

I've bumped up the field size for English roles from 30 to 40 characters. Let's see how it works out.

[bkasten]

By the way, I think this is a great thread as it helps us realize that due to the variety of (bad) translations, subtitlings and dubbings between the various film releases, etc., that putting a generic role description in parenthesis is extremely helpful!

I have been putting together some editor guidelines for all of us, and I will definitely add this.

Actually the more I think about this, maybe we could add a new field for role descriptions in addition to role names?

[p.i.klein]

Wow!

That would be great!

If you're gonna make changes to your DB there's one thing more I miss.
You got a person credited because
- (s)he's credited on the original filmcredits
- (s)he's credited on the filmcredits of a dubbed version or something like that
- (s)he's named in an other source (an other DB, an article, aso)
- (s)he's spotted on a still of the film
- (s)he's spotted in the film
For those who check and update your DB this important knowledge, only in the first case you're almost 100% sure that he or she is realy in that film. It becomes less and less sure, when you get further down the previous list. A column with a one-letter code would be enough for this information.

How do you think about that?

[Gaijin84]

Actually the more I think about this, maybe we could add a new field for role descriptions in addition to role names?

I think that's a great idea - it would be especially helpful for descriptions of where actors appear, even if for a few seconds and someone has ID'd them with a still shot or such

[STSH]

The character limit does make it difficult to fit anything much in though...

I've bumped up the field size for English roles from 30 to 40 characters. Let's see how it works out.

Thanks ! Could you bump it up to 50 please ?
There are some credits where both [cameo] and [uncredited] are needed, and I hate shortening those attributes.
It'll make it easier to extract, when later they become a separate field.

[Brian Thibodeau]

The inclusion of "role descriptions" sounds like a great idea. I'd could probably add dozens, if not hundreds of "role dscriptions" although the "character names" thing might be better left to others as I generally stick to the subs unless it's blatantly obvious the character name is something else via the spoken dialogue (which is most of the time, I'm sure!)

Could us non-editors just pop such info into a thread like this one from time to time for later inclusion in the database?

[bkasten]

So the question now is do we add a new field, or expand the current one and be disciplined enough to properly use parenthetical descriptions.

[MrBooth]

Whichever allows for quickest editing That's probably using the existing field with tags at the moment?

[bkasten]

The additional (description) field could be a pull-down attribute sort-of thing...and that could potentially be faster.

[Gaijin84]

i think a pull down attribute would be too limiting - IMO it should simply be an additional text field for a description

[p.i.klein]

Nice too see, my post made you think about it.

[STSH]

The additional (description) field could be a pull-down attribute sort-of thing...and that could potentially be faster.

To adding a new field - definitely a good idea

To making it parenthetical - put parentheses around it when displays

To using a drop down list - Good idea, but would need more than one e.g. for actor who is both [cameo] and [uncredited] - and there are plenty of them. Or [extra] and [uncredited]

Putting it all together, how about this :
* One new field for role descriptions e.g. Spear thrower
* Drop down menu containing "cameo" , "extra" (.... any others ?)
* Drop down menu for "uncredited".