| Registered: March 18, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 1,601 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting T!M: Quote:
Quoting rdodolak:
Quote:
Except the rules for Alternate Version method state not to in shorts and there is simply no way to submit them without using the alternate version method.
Yes, that's exactly what I tried to explain. A "Bonus Feature Film" child profile is the only option, but there's no agreement on where the cut-off point between "Short" and "Bonus Feature Films" lies, exactly. It's lovely to be able to say that shorts aren't allowed, but what we need to establish is at exactly which point something stops being a "Short", and crosses the line to become something that *does* qualify. The rules don't give any guidance on how to make that call, and the userbase doesn't seem to agree, either. And the screeners seem to accept pretty much any "Bonus Feature Film" child profile that is submitted, so that doesn't give us an indication either.
Again, have a look at a previous topic on this subject, in which I gave a couple of examples that I encountered myself, here. Agree that this site doesn't define the length of a short film. For those releases that list the item as a short, I'd argue that it should be considered a short. However, this would probably be a good rule to use: https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/91aa_short_films.pdfQuote:
A short film is defined as an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits. |
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  | T!M | | Profiling since Dec. 2000 |
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 8,667 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting rdodolak: Quote:
this would probably be a good rule to use:
https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/91aa_short_films.pdf
Quote:
A short film is defined as an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits. It could be, but as of yet, there's no consensus on that. In the thread I linked to, SpikyCactus makes a valid point in that some disc's main features are very short, and that it would be somewhat inconsistent to allow profiles to be submitted for main features running for just a couple of minutes, but to suddenly refuse similarly short things when we're talking about "Bonus Feature Film" profiles. My shortest regular main feature (not including such bonus feature film child profiles) runs for only 6 minutes, and then I've got 10, 14, 17, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38 minutes (five different ones of 38 minutes, actually), 39 minutes (that one happens to be 'Romance With a Double Bass' with John Cleese and Connie Booth) minutes - before I arrive at the 40-minute point. All those are normal, valid profiles that should be, and have been accepted into the database. If we allow these as stand-alone profiles, why wouldn't they, or similar things, be acceptable as "Bonus Feature Film" child profiles? As I wrote earlier, the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Alexander Payne's 'Election' contains Alexander Payne's 49-minute UCLA thesis film 'The Passion of Martin'. That would, by that Oscars-criterium, not be called a short, so that could qualify. But the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Mike Leigh's 'Topsy-Turvy' contains Mike Leigh's 1992 short film 'A Sense of History', which runs for only 26 minutes. To me, these two examples are pretty much the same thing: they're both a significant enough part of the director's oeuvre that makes me want to track them in DVD Profiler. So why would one be allowed into the database, while the other would be denied? Even shorter: the UK DVD of Ed Blum's 'Scenes of a Sexual Nature' contains a lovely short by the same director, called 'The Last Post', starring Maureen Beattie, Richard Hope and Bill Thomas. There again, I've created a "Bonus Feature Film" child profile for that in my local database, but as it runs for only 8 minutes, I've kept it local for now, and haven't contributed it into the online database yet. But to me, it's pretty much the same thing: it's a significant and separate work by the same director, with some high-profile cast members that also appear in some of my other profiles. To me, these three examples are exactly the same, despite their different running times: each of these three is interesting enough for me to track - so that's what I do. Whether I choose to contribute them is another matter. Again, if there's a clear set of rules that allows one and forbids the other, I'm happy to keep some of these child profiles local, but the reasoning behind creating such a child profile in my local database in the first place, is the same whether it runs for 90, 60, 50, 40 or even only 8 minutes. Either it's something significant that I want to track locally, or it's not. The running time isn't my primary concern there - I only take that in consideration when it comes to deciding to contribute it into the database or not. |
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