Template talk:Infobox film/Archive 9

This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Infobox film. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 7

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Proposed additions (2)

I previously requested Costume Designer be added to the infobox. Girolamo Savonarola thought this was "relatively reasonable," but nobody else responded and nothing came of it. I think Production Designer is a worthy addition as well. Does anyone else agree with these two suggestions? How does one go about adding them if there's a consensus to do so? Thank you. MovieMadness (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that adding these roles would unnecessarily weigh down the infobox. The problem is that there are a lot of different roles for any given film, so a case could be argued for any one of them. (Why not the casting person? Why not the visual effects supervisor?) My opinion is that what already exists is suitable because they are pretty general roles for any film. Not all films will necessarily utilize a costume designer or a production designer to the greatest extent. In addition, I think that biographical information about such crew members would be very minimal. In opposition, there are editors, producers, and cinematographers that have pretty extensive backgrounds. I don't have a problem with identifying people like the costume designer and the production designer in the article body itself if they contributed something particularly important to the film. However, having fields for them would suggest biographical articles, and I don't think there's much that can be said in them. We used to have executive producer and associate producer attributes, but they were not really substantial. That's my take on it, anyway. By the way, you may want to post a link to this at WT:FILM -- I'm not sure if many people in WP:FILM have this template on their watchlist. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

well well, ALL feature films use production designers and costume designers. what is the "greater extent" you are talking about ? Are you honestly saying that people like Alex McDowell, Ken Adam or Owen Paterson (production designer) are not worth while naming in the infobox ? Their "biographical information" is minimal ???? Interestingly enough i find films that you contributed to, like Spiderman, Hancock or The Dark Knight, that virtually LIVE of the production and costume design :)

To tell you the truth, the places of a written story never exist "ready for filming". Even if it is biographical, the places where it took place do not exist any more, their cloths are rotten, ... The designers develop this world, the visual look of a film, the colour scheme, the materiality. Even if the film takes place now, around the corner of your house, this corner was carefully chosen, fits into the streets shot before, and the room seen later. The designers make sure that the world in a film looks like "one real thing". --Breinane (talk) 12:14, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, a follow-up thought. The crew information is available at IMDb, so the credentials of any one of them can be explored without biographical concerns. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if you look at Academy Award for Costume Design, Costume design, Academy Award for Best Art Direction, and Production designer, you'll find a lot more blue links than you might have thought existed. MovieMadness (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The blue links aren't the issue so much as the template-creep. At a certain point, the infobox no longer serves its purpose - to show only the most salient data on the film. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

In that regard, I know I asked for TCM to be added to the template, but I wouldn't be adverse to removing both AMG and IMDB from it if it would free up space for designers and other personnel directly connected to the movie, such as, for instance, choreographer. Since the database links are set off from the main body of the template anyway, removing both of them would provide space for three or four names. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 07:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Ed. Since AMG and IMDB can be and usually are listed under "External links," they easily can be removed from the infobox to make space for what I feel are credits more pertinent to the project. MovieMadness (talk) 13:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the most prudent approach would be to keep our "default" the same but add some more parameters which are only used in special circumstances. Some films warrant greater prominence for these positions while others do not. gren グレン 12:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like to propose that a "Story by" section be added to the Film Infobox, for it would be a relevant addition to the already provided list of movie specifics and credentials. I am working on the What We Do Is Secret (film) article, and have spoken with its director, Roger Grossman, who feels that it would also be a worth addition. I thank you for your consideration. 6:09, 28 August 2008 (UTC) (DigitalDaiquiri (talk))

Hello all. I started the same discussion regarding the German Infobox Film. I simply think that Production Design and Costume Design should be part of the Infobox if you name others like the cinematographer. As a matter of fact their job has as much impact as the one of the cinematographer or the editor to a film. They operate on the same level. The decision of naming some head of departments and others not is not clear to me. What are the parameters? Why leave some creative heads in, and some outs. Either you name none (apart from the director) or you name all those that create the film together, and as such also hold copyrights on the product. What do you think ? --Breinane (talk) 10:34, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Image_size issue

It looks like something "funny" is going on with image_size. This parameter can be used to reduce the image size, but that's sometimes not working now. See for example Montana Sky. That has image_size = 200 px, which was reducing the size to 200 pixels until recently. To make things more confusing, I'm also seeing pages where it's still working, e.g. Black Scorpion (film) — Mudwater^(Talk) 11:52, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove the "px" from the imagesize parameter, that solves the problem -- I've doen it for Black Scorpion. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 12:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That worked, thanks! Do you know if there was a recent change somewhere that made things work differently? I'm wondering if a lot of other film infoboxes will be affected. — Mudwater^(Talk) 12:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

There was apparently a bug in a new version of the MediaWiki software. There was a notice about it for a couple of days at the top of my watchlist. Some infoboxes have been effected, but some haven't -- I have no idea why. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 12:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your help. — Mudwater^(Talk) 12:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:ClickFix for the technical reasons why it's happening. The bug does affect this template, but it's not very visible since the image_size parameter is used rarely. It's only supposed to be used when the actual image is smaller than 200px, and in those cases, the bug wouldn't affect anything (since the image would just be shown in full size, which is less than the 200px). If you see the bug happening a lot, please leave a note of it somewhere though. - Bobet 13:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional info. — Mudwater^(Talk) 13:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed it on many pages too. Wikipedia:ClickFix#Fixes explains how the template can be fixed so that it accepts both "200px" and "200" for the image size. Can someone who is able to edit this template do it? That way we don't have to go around to every film article just to remove the "px" from the ones that have it. For An Angel (talk) 14:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The line

[[Image:{{{image}}}|{{#if:{{{image_size|}}}|<!--then:-->{{{image_size}}}px|<!--else:-->200px}}|]] {{#if:{{{caption|}}}|<br />{{{caption}}}}}

should be replaced with:

[[Image:{{{image}}}|{{#if:{{{image_size|}}}|<!--then:-->{{px|{{{image_size}}} }}|<!--else:-->200px}}|]] {{#if:{{{caption|}}}|<br />{{{caption}}}}}

--Qyd (talk) 15:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Can someone who is allowed to edit this template do this? For An Angel (talk) 21:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Requested, as per above. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 23:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. - Bobet 23:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, everybody. — Mudwater^(Talk) 00:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Genre

I'm not sure if anybody has requested it before, but I think that adding a line for genre might be a good addition. ONEder Boy (talk) 21:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It's been discussed before: Template talk:Infobox Film/Archive 6#Genre. My opinion is the attribute may be too subjective or too varied to be part of a straightforward infobox. If there is a lack of clarity regarding the genre of a film, it can be outlined in the lead section. The infobox has pretty basic information, and while there are a chunk of films whose genre could be identified without a problem, I think that there's plenty that cannot be easily described in a "genre" attribute. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Many films cross genre lines, or can be considered to be in different genres depending on how you look at them. Bottom line is that genre is pretty subjective, and the stuff in the infobox is really objective data.

Besides, genre is almost always mentioned in the lede, and it seems silly to lard up the infobox with material that's going to be repeated just to its left (any more than in the case already). Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 00:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

More or less what the others have said but the infobox is to present a clear and concise listing of facts about the film. Genre is useful but it sometimes needs to be explained somewhat since many films cross genres. gren グレン 12:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Points well taken. ONEder Boy (talk) 13:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I still miss the genre option. A film could be listed with several genres. 88.88.106.99 (talk) 14:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

infobox

Regarding this conversion to use Template:infobox.. I don't see the point. Doesn't this make it harder to edit the infobox, with out any real benefit? It would be far easier to just use normal wikitable syntax and follow some kind of guideline for helping to standardize the template. -- Ned Scott 05:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, did it cause the change I'm seeing in film infoboxes, that the names in the box are smaller and stand out less from the page than the labels (Director, Starring, Producer, etc.) do? If so, it's not a change for the better, I don't think, since the actual information in the infobox has been downgraded. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 05:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but it's certainly a fairly major change to be making to a protected template without any prior discussion. PC78 (talk) 11:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, my intention was to make it easier to edit - by using the infobox template one doesn't have to take care to hand-craft table or parser function code to add new rows, it's less cluttered, and the styling is handled all in one place by style parameters. I'll add style parameters to make the template look more like it did before, hopefully that will help with whatever problems the change may have caused. I don't think changing to infobox had an effect on the relative sizes of the names in the box and the labels beside them, they're still just plain vanila "header" and "data" table cells in both versions. I'm not sure what's meant by the "information" being downgraded in this case. Bryan Derksen (talk) 23:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks better! :) Hopefully that will alleviate people's concerns. There does appear to be a greater amount of spacing between lines, but I don't see that being a major problem.PC78 (talk) 23:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! For comparison I've rigged up my template sandbox to display both the pre-{{infobox}} and the current (as of this moment) {{infobox}} versions of this template. You can find them here displayed side by side: User:Bryan Derksen/Template sandbox/test. The font sizes look exactly the same to me (I'm using Firefox 2), the only difference I can see is a slight change in the spacing between the rows of the table. Bryan Derksen (talk) 23:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the only real differences seem to be the spacing between rows, which is stretching the infobox a bit, and also around the edges, which is causing a few lines of text to wrap (I'm using Internet Explorer). Not a big deal as far as I'm concerned, but if it's something that can be fixed then it might be as well. PC78 (talk) 00:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I'd have to add a cellspacing parameter to {{infobox}}, or change it globally, which would be rather drastic. I'll wait until there's feedback on the tweaking I did with style parameters before diving into that. :) Bryan Derksen (talk) 00:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I still think it makes things needlessly complicated in the big picture. Infobox film doesn't have to be "easy to edit" for every single editor, and it's protected from editing anyways. There's tons of editors who easily understand how to edit the template, if an edit is needed. This used to be one of the very few templates that one could even copy onto another installation of MediaWiki without making any modifications, because it was a well crafted template.

We're supposed to be dealing with parser functions, and we're supposed to be making hand-crafted changes (when necessary). Everything else can be covered in the infobox CSS class. This does more to limit future options and possible custom considerations, because we wouldn't be able to have any unique code. This is fixing a non-existent problem. I insist on reverting back to the previous code until we can discuss this some more. -- Ned Scott 05:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, since you insist. But I don't really see why this is such a big deal. Navboxes have been converted over to the {{navbox}} template virtually site-wide and it's done wonders for standardization and ease of use, and {{infobox}} supports everything that this template needs. Bryan Derksen (talk) 07:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Fix infobox

Could somebody fix this infobox, please?. It really doesn't look that good, and all the information is much smaller than it needs to be. The old version was the best, in my opinion, and I think we should stick with that one because it's easier to read and understand. --EclipseSSD (talk) 13:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added the old font-size style parameters to the infobox template, they should now be the same size as they were before. Bryan Derksen (talk) 23:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Language parameter

I'm no syntax boffin, but I'm guessing there's a way to stop blank language parameters from automatically adding Category:-language films. —97198 talk 13:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Granted, it's something that should be fixed, but I would think that in most cases language can and should be specified. PC78 (talk) 23:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Language linking

Could the wikilinking of the language be suppressed when it's the same as the language of the Wikipedia it's on? What we now have in the English wikipedia is an enormous number of film articles with links to English language which are never going to be clicked on, as the readers of the English wikipedia presumably already know what the English language is. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You make a good suggestion. Perhaps you can bring up this topic at WT:FILM? You'll have more attention to it. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 15:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion - I've just done that now. Colonies Chris (talk) 23:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I raised it there and the only comment was a request for clarification. The requester has not followed up on my reply, so there seem to be no objections, and my reading of WP:OVERLINK suggests that it should not be linked. Could this change be made to the template? Colonies Chris (talk) 08:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to echo the request for delinking the field. A link to the language article adds nothing to the film article in most cases. The template can be updated to include instructions to manually link the field in film articles where it would be of use (e.g. Apocalypto). Steve ^{T • C} 07:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Copyright

Is this template copyrighted? If it is, I will take it down from conservapedia. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.122.248 (talk) 17:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It is copyrighted but also released under the free content license GFDL. Garion96 (talk) 17:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Add an optional parameter called "broadcast_premiere"

{{edit protected}} request pending

Made-for-television films such as HBO's Recount don't have release dates, they have broadcast premieres. So I propose adding a parameter called "broadcast_premiere" to be used in such cases. I'll turn this into an explicit edit request after waiting a few days to see if its controversial in some way that I haven't anticipated. 67.101.6.13 (talk) 06:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC).

There is another infobox for made for television films, {{Infobox Television Film}}, that has that, though it also uses Release date for the wording. Its basically the same thing. The lead notes that its a made for television movie, indicating that release date = first aired. I dont't think another field is necessary.-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with AnmaFinotera here - it's a superfluous parameter which also borders on stepping on the toes of WikiProject Television. Plus, the existence of the parameter may be confusing enough that users start adding a TV broadcast premiere date to theatrically-released films' infoboxes. Let's keep things simple instead of going in the direction of instruction creep. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Location

Maybe there should be a location setting for the film. Mcanmoocanu

Image size coding

Current coding is:

{{#if:{{{image_size|}}}|{{px|{{{image_size}}} }}|200px}}

But {{px}} allows for empty as well as blank parameters, and allows for default values. Hence above can be simplified to:

{{px|{{{image_size|}}}|200}}

If no objections, I can insert the revised code. David Ruben ^Talk 14:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not as familiar with the code on this one, but I can always support more simplicity. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Genre missing

Why can the film's genre not be specified in the template? Socrates2008 (Talk) 08:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. A genre option would be very helpful and not confusing. 88.88.106.99 (talk) 14:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

See above and in the talk page archives; it's been discussed before. PC78 (talk) 15:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The previous discussion does not change my opinion. Socrates2008 (Talk) 22:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you haven't already contributed to past discussions, you haven't offered an opinion (though I can take a guess what it is). Personally I think it's a minefield of subjectivity, and not worth the bother. PC78 (talk) 22:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The infobox is too big as it is, but it generally tends to confine itself to objective facts, which keeps matters regarding it simple. Adding a parameter for frequently subjective matters such as genre (and subgenre) will only increase edits which may be considered tendentious, thus creating more edit wars precisely in a part of the article where there really should be a minimum of disagreement. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 22:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Girolamo. I think that the lead section and elsewhere in the article body are adequate places to identify the genre(s) and elaborate if necessary. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Can't get infobox to work

I can't get the infobox to work on this article: Miracle Dogs Too Schuym1 (talk) 23:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)schuym1

I've fixed it for you. You forgot one of the ] on release date. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:30, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Schuym1 (talk) 23:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)schuym1

24 City prompts a suggestion

A New York Times podcast review from Cannes 2008 noted the distinctive visuals in 24 City as a result of the use of a digital camera (and in this case, the use of digital projection). I've heard similar things mentioned about the use of 70 mm film. Shouldn't film_format (see List of film formats) be an optional part of the infobox? 67.100.126.110 (talk) 19:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC).

I think we try to limit the infobox to very basic information about the film. I'm not sure if film format is that commonplace to include. For what it's worth, we already have several categories for film formats, see Category:Films by technology. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Change release date(s)

Change release date(s) to Anticipated release date(s) for confirmed films which aren't yet released? Gnevin (talk) 20:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Or we could just edit the page as the information changes? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes but how does that indicate the date is Anticipated ? Gnevin (talk) 01:37, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

How about putting "(anticipated)" after it? Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 02:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I would imagine that the fact that it's a future date should speak for itself. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Rating??

I feel like this template should include a film rating. Too many times now I've scoured film articles looking for the rating, and it isn't there. -- Erroneuz1 (talk) 21:09, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Some editors use {{Infobox movie certificates}}, but we don't usually specify ratings. The large portion of edits tends to be only MPAA ratings, which is a systemic bias toward the United States. Some editors think it's better to only specify ratings if there is relevance to the film. For example, Hancock got rated R twice before editing down to PG-13. After all, if you're going to see a movie, all theater websites will show you the rating. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 21:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Erroneuz1. A rating would be helpful to our readers and would only be used when needed (like the rest of the fields!). And I don't see any "harm" in having it available. Smatprt (talk) 18:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

At first I thought it would be helpful, but looking a little deeper, it becomes problematic. Which rating system should be listed? The Motion picture rating system Wikipedia article shows 50 rating systems. Even if we restricted to English-language systems (which I don't feel is particularly valid) there would be at least a half-dozen. I think the best solution is to mention it in the article only if the rating is notable, such as movies that were re-edited to conform to a specific rating. --Danorton (talk) 20:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Minor fix

{{editprotected}} Can someone find where it says "date(s)" (as in "Release date(s)") and place it inside a {{nowrap}} template? This will prevent the "(s)" from wrapping onto another line. Cheers! PC78 (talk) 15:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Sorry, I meant just "date(s)", not the whole of "Release date(s)", i.e.

! Release {{nowrap|date(s)}}

PC78 (talk) 19:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The other fields use a non-breaking space ( ), so allowing "Release date(s)" to break would be inconsistent. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Language field

I am requesting the following change:

{{#if:{{{language|}}}|
! Language
{{!}} {{#ifexist: {{{language}}} language | [[{{{language}}} language|{{{language}}}]]{{#ifeq:{{{language|}}}|||[[Category:{{{language}}}-language films]]}} | {{{language}}} }}
{{!}}-
}}

to:

{{#if:{{{language|}}}|
! Language
{{!}} {{{language}}}
{{!}}-
}}

The reason I request this is that to my knowledge, this categorization cannot sort film titles that begin with "A" and "The". For example, if it was an English-language film called The Movie, then it would end up in the T section. It would require [[Category:English-language films|Movie, The]] or usage of {{DEFAULTSORT}} to categorize properly in the M section. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:35, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if this could be done in a week from today, that would be great. I'm finding that the automatic categorization of a non-linked field is pointing to a lot of articles badly in need of multiple categorization. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

As long as the article uses DEFAULTSORT, I'm fairly certain this isn't a problem. PC78 (talk) 18:42, 24 July 2008 (UTC)