Today I was a member of a roundtable session with executives from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) along with about a dozen other actors. We discussed what IMDB is to us, as individuals, how we use it, what we wish it would do that it currently doesn’t, etc.
The biggest topic was, of course, the “age thing”. Why do they list our date of birth? Why won’t they remove it if requested? It doesn’t affect me so much, because early on, back in the day, I entered my own date of birth June 28th, 19?? They acknowledged that having the age displayed can cost an actor a job in some situations; especially women. They’re trying to figure out a way to make everyone happy. Maybe placing it somewhere else within the profile and not on the front page could be an option. Maybe giving the actor control over it; I’m not sure I see that happening. The thing is that the casual viewer and some industry professionals do want to know an actors actual age. They’re trying to please many different groups of people. I’m not sure what the answer is, but they are looking into coming up with some sort of solution.
The StarMeter is a measurement of how many hits any page gets. It’s updated weekly. Pages get hits for any number of reasons some organic, some not so organic. No matter the reason, a hit is a hit and they all count.
Another hot topic was actors with the same or very similar names with credits that get mixed up with each other and the difficulty in getting them corrected. They recommended going through the traditional channels of adding/changing data and if that doesn’t work contact them directly. How do you do that??? Since you can’t really get them on the phone. How do you contact them directly? I think I have a few ideas. Plus, now I know where they live…or work rather.
That led to the issue of not being able to contact a human being on the phone. They discussed the notion of having a customer service department.
We spent a bit of time on the resume feature. Most of the actors in attendance didn’t use the feature, but the few that did gave their reasons why. Myself, I don’t use the feature. I don’t have anything against it; I’m just don’t feel I need to pay extra for it.
Why is it so difficult to remove a photo once it’s on the site? I don’t know; I’ve never tried to remove any photos. I didn’t really hear a straight answer to that. One actor said he was able to remove photos without issue. Being able to rearrange the photos was discussed as well.
We discussed being able to view credits in a different order other than chronologically. Also, the possibility of being able to highlight certain credits. Maybe, on your profile you could have something like “As seen on”; then have 3-4 of your favorite/best credits listed at the top of the page.
Another possible future feature that was discussed being able to have “favorites”. So if there is a group of 20 actors careers that you follow you can get to their profile very quickly with a single click. We talked about a feature of kind of a “Who knows who” type of thing. It might be similar to the degrees of Kevin Bacon type of thing, but more usable in the sense of being able to build and track relationships.
The tracking of commercials was brought up. I think that would be great. Yeah, now can put them in your “other works” area, but I think commercials warrant a legitimate category. That way casting/producers/directors etc. might have an easier way to track actors in commercials. Many film directors direct commercials as their “day job”. I think it would be great to compile that info as well.
I suggested being able to click on a director and, at a glance, be able to see what casting directors he/she has worked with. Same with producers, writers and the like. Most of this data is already there; it would just be making it easier to view at a glance.
We kicked around the notion of being to attach a video clip to a given credit – rights/clearance issues could be a problem.
Much more was discussed, but that’s about all my ADD-having ass can muster right now. I will say that it was an honor to be in the same room with the other actors in attendance. Some of them I knew, others I knew of but had never met and still others were brand new to me. I was proud to a part of such a sharp group of people who are very, very serious about their business. I also thank the IMDb executives for hosting such an honest roundtable to get the ear of us in the trenches.
After the meeting my agent informed that I am still being “pinned” for Grey’s Anatomy.
The biggest topic was, of course, the “age thing”. Why do they list our date of birth? Why won’t they remove it if requested? It doesn’t affect me so much, because early on, back in the day, I entered my own date of birth June 28th, 19?? They acknowledged that having the age displayed can cost an actor a job in some situations; especially women. They’re trying to figure out a way to make everyone happy. Maybe placing it somewhere else within the profile and not on the front page could be an option. Maybe giving the actor control over it; I’m not sure I see that happening. The thing is that the casual viewer and some industry professionals do want to know an actors actual age. They’re trying to please many different groups of people. I’m not sure what the answer is, but they are looking into coming up with some sort of solution.
The StarMeter is a measurement of how many hits any page gets. It’s updated weekly. Pages get hits for any number of reasons some organic, some not so organic. No matter the reason, a hit is a hit and they all count.
Another hot topic was actors with the same or very similar names with credits that get mixed up with each other and the difficulty in getting them corrected. They recommended going through the traditional channels of adding/changing data and if that doesn’t work contact them directly. How do you do that??? Since you can’t really get them on the phone. How do you contact them directly? I think I have a few ideas. Plus, now I know where they live…or work rather.
That led to the issue of not being able to contact a human being on the phone. They discussed the notion of having a customer service department.
We spent a bit of time on the resume feature. Most of the actors in attendance didn’t use the feature, but the few that did gave their reasons why. Myself, I don’t use the feature. I don’t have anything against it; I’m just don’t feel I need to pay extra for it.
Why is it so difficult to remove a photo once it’s on the site? I don’t know; I’ve never tried to remove any photos. I didn’t really hear a straight answer to that. One actor said he was able to remove photos without issue. Being able to rearrange the photos was discussed as well.
We discussed being able to view credits in a different order other than chronologically. Also, the possibility of being able to highlight certain credits. Maybe, on your profile you could have something like “As seen on”; then have 3-4 of your favorite/best credits listed at the top of the page.
Another possible future feature that was discussed being able to have “favorites”. So if there is a group of 20 actors careers that you follow you can get to their profile very quickly with a single click. We talked about a feature of kind of a “Who knows who” type of thing. It might be similar to the degrees of Kevin Bacon type of thing, but more usable in the sense of being able to build and track relationships.
The tracking of commercials was brought up. I think that would be great. Yeah, now can put them in your “other works” area, but I think commercials warrant a legitimate category. That way casting/producers/directors etc. might have an easier way to track actors in commercials. Many film directors direct commercials as their “day job”. I think it would be great to compile that info as well.
I suggested being able to click on a director and, at a glance, be able to see what casting directors he/she has worked with. Same with producers, writers and the like. Most of this data is already there; it would just be making it easier to view at a glance.
We kicked around the notion of being to attach a video clip to a given credit – rights/clearance issues could be a problem.
Much more was discussed, but that’s about all my ADD-having ass can muster right now. I will say that it was an honor to be in the same room with the other actors in attendance. Some of them I knew, others I knew of but had never met and still others were brand new to me. I was proud to a part of such a sharp group of people who are very, very serious about their business. I also thank the IMDb executives for hosting such an honest roundtable to get the ear of us in the trenches.
After the meeting my agent informed that I am still being “pinned” for Grey’s Anatomy.
http://www.stephonfuller.com
4 comments:
Good report, Stephon.
The StarMeter is indeed bogus. All it takes is a web crawler trolling at night to bring up your rating. I've been a member for a couple of weeks, no credits, and my rating jumped up from about 3 million to 300k. I can't imagine what will happen once i get my credits on there.
Having my resume on there, I can upload or remove pictures from the main search as needed. That's one feature of the resume. Although, I don't think the money is worth it for an IMDB resume when there are other avenues to post resumes via casting sites etc.
It terms of improvement, I believe they are looking for features that will bring in more advertising dollars or revenue, so some of the nice thngs we actually need will have a low priority in development.
An RSS feed on certain person's in the database would be a better option than a favorites, You can mash up latest and greatest news. That would be pretty simple for those people to do.
My biggest gripe with PRO is being able to extract data for analysis. I would love to be able to download some select information into a database for my own use. I could write a custom web crawler to extract and follow a chain of pages, but thats a lot of work and maintenance.
Break a leg on that GA pin. I keep looking for your news on here.
AB
Thanks! I wish I could've added your thoughts to the meeting. Actually, I can probably get the RSS feed idea to the right people. And yes, at the end of the day it's about revenue.
Stephon
would have been an interesting meeting to be at.
good job on the grey's anatomy thing. hope they 'confirm' soon!!!
Yes, the age issue needs to be changed, immediately. They need to make that entirely within the actors' control, verification via frequently changed passwords or whatever. IMDB's policies are invasive and sabotaging, and especially prone to error. No one wants some website to interfere with his or her, and especially her, career in any way. The website has no reason to exist if it vexes the people who make up its existence. This business is hard enough.
Auditions are like job interviews. It's illegal for people to discriminate based on certain things, including age. The IMDB, however, can provide that info, and the actor will never know.
Post a Comment