Okay we have to put a stop to non-professional media on IMFDB....
 

Apparently many student films, fan films, student shorts, and amateurish efforts (aka some guy makes movie in his backyard and self distributes the DVDs via Amazon.com) have made it past the screeners and end up in IMDB (Internet Movie Database).

I sadly believe that inclusion in IMDB can no longer be the benchmark of what qualifies to appear in IMFDB.

A recent Fan film (using all toy guys) and a recent home made film (using all airsoft weapons) made by young filmmakers have been put on the site, probably by the filmmakers themselves. Though I always encourage filmmakers to go out there and follow their dreams, we must not allow an avalanche of this type of material to be dumped onto IMFDB.

IMDB used to be a lot stricter on films or shorts for inclusion. Back in their early days, IMDB used to get a flood of non-existent or non-finished Amateur 'digital films' which were primarily unfinished student or amateur projects. They tried to stop listing those. But I still see films listed in IMDB that I KNOW (a) are not done (B) have no budget and are being shot on a consumer digital camera and (c) are purely amateur efforts.

I don't want to see every student project, fan film, amateur film dumped here on IMFDB just because they used airsoft guns (!).

I propose a rule which says that for any film which obviously does NOT use live firearms, IMFDB will only allows professional titles that have had mainstream RELEASE. Self release, self distribution does not qualify. Fan films showing at Sci Fi Conventions don't count. Rinky Dink 'film festivals' which no one has ever heard of before don't count (what? the Michigan High School Film Festival doesn't count?!?!?!?!)

Note that I said live firearms. I am always curious to see live gun use in non-mainstream projects, primarily because they are so rare with the advent of airsoft. And I mean live as in firing blanks onscreen as part of the story. A shot of Grandpa's rifle rack in the background of a scene doesn't count.

What do you guys think?

Sounds good to me.

Do blank firing replicas count as live-firing?

I completely agree.

Well this certainly colors my opinion of IMDB...

I say airsoft can be included if its part of a legitimate movie like in hurt locker where they stood in for m16s, but not if its just a movie of airsoft guns and cgi flashes.

Yes. I agree. I was unaware that some of those films had made onto imfdb.

What are the "movies" in question?

That's not what we're talking about. The Hurt Locker is a legitimate film and would be included regardless of whether the guns were all airsoft or not. Also mainstream films that only use airsoft guns and CGI will be listed if they have had a mainstream release, like in the movie theatres or on television or distributed on DVD by a well known distributor like Disney, or Paramount or Warner Brothers.

Wait, what about this movie?

http://www.imfdb.org/index.php/Metal...d_Philanthropy

It looks good but I know next to Nothing about this title. Does it have world wide recognition? Do people talk about it? Even though it looks like it has high production values, is there ANY indication that the film is using ANY live weapons, or all they all airsoft? These are the questions which I cannot answer regarding this title.

I CAN however, disqualify obviously crap titles and delete them. Have you seen this film?

How bout this crap?

http://www.imfdb.org/index.php/Talk:...el_to_Offshore

I know I'm late (as usual), but yes, clamp down on this. For those of you who are members: Tag for deletion, and/or alert an Admin.

How exactly do you tag for deletion?

Use the template {{nuke}}

then this gives mods a heads up or do they actually need to view page to notice it?

I don't think we can exclude fan films without including the MGS fan film. If you have to kill it to avoid a flood of bad fan films, it's a small price to pay.

Guys, we still need to codify the rules. Kinda sucks, but I hate deleting the work of some kid when AT THE TIME he uploaded the page, he WAS following the rules. I would post an (almost apologetic) note saying that "sorry, this page was deemed to not qualify for IMFDB inclusion by a blue ribbon committee of the moderators" "Feel free to continue to contribute work for all other professionally made, mainstream released media".....

And again, I will make exceptions if real LIVE guns were used. I remember seeing a very cool short film at a festival once where it was some story about a bootlegger in the 1920s. I was amazed during the bank shootout that all the guns were mint condition versions of the correct firearms for the period, including some really OBSCURE weapons. I don't remember the film much but I remember that.

And heavens, if some young filmmaker in RUSSIA ever makes a short or low budget indie film and he manages to somehow get a PRIBOR-3B or a 9A-91 for real, I would love to have a screencap of it.

There are always exceptions to the rule. Arghhhh. I see where this is going. You guys want me to update the Rules, Regulations and Standards again don't you? :eek:

It had recognition and even the creator of MGS, Hideo Kojima has seen it and that alone is recognition enough.

Unfortunately, It is not. Having been seen by the creator of MGS is not sufficient alone to merit a page. You don't even mention if Kojima even LIKED the effort. Either way. It is a fan film. Also I see no proof that any of the guns used were NOT AIRSOFT. If there is NO obvious sequence that disproves this, then it does not qualify.

Like I said before, there are MAINSTREAM films which have used all airsoft. I vaguely recall a film starring Ben Kingsley where the entire film had to use airsoft because where they were filming did not allow live guns (I think it was a historical site and they didn't want the shockwave of live blanks at all) so all the gunflashes were CGI. But those were EXCELLENT CGI jobs and many people were fooled, apparently.

Perhaps the best solution would be subjective based on the quality of the film?
It's far from perfect, but that MGS film looked like they at least cared, and not like a backyard shit-fest.

I have not seen the movie. Do they use live weapons? I don't know so I am not qualified to assess the movie, but the supporters have an obligation to support why it qualifies. BTW I've seen GREAT UCLA film school final year student films using all airsoft weapons. I mean they're really good and well shot and edited. Does NOT MEAN I will allow them here. :)

Well I think none of their weapons were real and all airsoft and gunshots and flying brass were post production edits.

Actually, I thought about it and there is no point to feature works that exclusively use Airsoft. There's really nothing to identify. Though internet denizens may still get curious about the weapons and wander over here to check, not finding the film would probably be no worse than finding it and seeing every gun labeled as "some Airsoft PSG-1."

{{nuke}} 'em.

If they don't find a page, they may be tempted to make one.

Perhaps we should have a page/roster of films that are deemed inelligible for IMFDB and if someone were to search that film it would redirect to that roster.

I like this idea.

I don't see how that would prevent non-professional media from coming in. You'd have to know of its existence first.

We were discussing how to prevent people from creating pages that are not deemed suitable for IMFDB. Not non professional media specifically.

But how would you know something is not suitable without having seen it first? There are only so few known non-suitable shows. According to the IMDb stats page, they have entries for almost 400K features, TV movies, TV series and video games.

You don't see what we are getting at.
If a page has already been on IMFDB but we have decided to delete the page because we have found it is ineligible to be on IMFDB it will be added on the ineligibility roster so that if someone searches for it they will be redirected to that roster and find that it does not qualify to be on IMFDB. Preferably a reason would be posted next to it why it does not qualify.

So pages that have already been tagged {{nuke}} and deleted would be added to the roster, we wouldn't tackle everything at once.

Ah, thanks.

The roster could theoretically grow to unmanageable sizes, but I think with the rate at which people create new {{nuke}} worthy stuff, we'll be able to manage.
One day in the future, when IMFDB is the most visited site on the net, we could have issues.
Until then, we take it one page at a time and keep the peace.

So will we go forward with this or what?

Also what will be the fate of that Metal Gear
Solid Philanthropy page? Has it been declared illegal for inclusion into IMFDB?

We talked about it, and then forgot about it, seems.
Inaction!