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Support → General
Crew Job Request
posted by Torq00STAFFMOD on June 20, 2014 at 8:26 AM
Hi Travis,
Wondered whether we could add the following jobs :
Carpenter
Casting Associate
Hair Department Head
Thx
Mod edit:
You can request missing crew jobs in this topic. The new crew jobs have to be English and free of spelling mistakes. Please specify in which of the following departments each new job should be created: Directing, Writing, Editing, Camera, Production, Art, Costume & Make-Up, Visual Effects, Sound, Lighting, or Crew.
Kindly try to avoid making duplicates job requests (search the last few pages), or requesting crew jobs that are already added to TMDb.
Reply by Travis Bell
on August 7, 2017 at 4:55 PM
Yes, you can! Let's get all the ones we're thinking of now added
Reply by janar
on August 8, 2017 at 2:29 PM
@ZurichGnome said:
Okay, I had a sh**** day at work, so I did a little experiment, just out of curiousity - and to feel better.
I took the last 10 English-speaking movies that I watched, all of them not older than 2 to 3 years, and searched for this specific job in the opening and end credits. Here's a list of those 10 movies:
So, that makes 8 out of 10 that use the job description "Director of Photography" in the credits! I know my little experiment isn't representative, but that reflects my general impression from my experience watching (English) movies. I don't agree with you on this one; my experience is quite different.
Yes, this is correct, I agree. I think this is because of historical reasons: Over the years, filmmaking itself became more and more complex, with many dozens, hundreds or thousands of people involved, all working together on a single production. I mean, if you read this long job description about the skill set of a DP, you'll get the impression that she/he has to deal a lot with management tasks that regard the cinematic view of the project, less with the actual process of the actual shooting. That's what I meant in my earlier post: It depends on what she/he actually does specifically on a show or in a movie to define if she/he is "only" a cinematographer or a DP.
I found the following webpage on which different professionals from the business answer the question "What is the difference between a Cinematographer and a Director of Photography?":
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-a-Cinematographer-and-a-Director-of-Photography
It's quite interesting to read all these opinions; many of them say there's practically no difference, and if you want to make one, you have to make "pretty arbitrary distinctions". So, if you still want to differentiate, the most sense to me made the answer by Satsuki Murashige (I cut some of the details here):
So, I guess there had to be some kind of differentiation in the job titles historically, and the title "Director of Photography" might have been invented and used to reflect these changes properly - similar to what you quoted from wikipedia. The major organizations still use their traditional names, but it got more complex over time.
Yeah, it's quite confusing if it doesn't appear to be consistent. For example, here on TMDb, look at the page of my example no. 8: Bryan Loftus. Currently, he has 3 credits as "Director of Photography" in the section "Camera" and also 2 other credits as "Cinematography" (not "Cinematographer", the job title!) in the section "Crew". That doesn't make any sense to me. Why are these credits in different sections, and why is the art of cinematography a job title? lineker explained above here in this thread how this happened historically here on TMDb, but it still seems confusing to me as it is.
Yes, I agree with you, that would also be my preferred way of contributing. Alas, the weird thing about definitions/rules is: Everyone has to know about them, understand them, and follow them to make the database more accurate. Another example from above - let's take a look at no. 5: Christopher Bye. His credit for this movie above here on TMDb reads as follows:
2017 Pitching Tents … Cinematography
I checked the opening credit of this movie: It definitely says: "Director of Photography". So, that's an incorrect contribution. A few days ago, lineker replied here in this very thread:
So, moderator lineker would change such a credit because she/he thinks that's incorrect - according to her/his rule. The weird thing is: This specific contribution to this movie in example no. 5 was done in March 2017, by another moderator here on TMDb who just cracked 1'000'000 contributions in total. Which means: the Moderator probably/most likely follows a different rule than moderator lineker regarding this specific job title - her/his own rule (that's my assumption, I don't know exactly what rule they follows, to be honest).
I know, it's only one simple example, but it shows how worthless rules are if they're not known/followed/unclear/whatever.
Indeed, the predefinition limits your options as a contributor. On the other hand, it's probably easier for everyone to contribute? It would be nice to have a mix of both methods, but I assume it's technically difficult to change this completely now.
I feel the same; I can't imagine to contribute movies in Japanese or Chinese and find correct job titles. Often, it's even hard for me to "translate" native German expressions! I'm also glad I'm not a content mod ...
I hear you ...
Best wishes,
janar
"Love [...] is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being." - Ellen Page
Reply by lineker
on August 8, 2017 at 2:43 PM
Well, it's both positives and negatives. Overall more positive for sure, even though I usually need to take a week off now and then.
And I fixed the examples you mentioned. (Sorry.
)
As for moderators, we are all different. Some of us are very active in daily internal discussions, while others don't bother with that at all. And some are a bit in between the two extremes. There is a lot of freedom in being a moderator and you can choose how to use your time.
Reply by janar
on August 8, 2017 at 2:53 PM
@lineker said:
Oh nooooo, now my post looks like I'm making all those things up - how dare you!
Yes, of course, I understand that. However, if 2 moderators seem to follow 2 different, even opposite rules, like in this specific case, it certainly confuses me. I mean, this isn't something major important, it's just confusing ...
Anyway, back to topic.
Reply by Banana
on August 8, 2017 at 10:14 PM
@travisbell One crew job that I wanted to request is a "Stage Director" credits for filmed plays.
Well, I guess we could add either "Videojournalist" or "Video Report" in Camera. That last one might confuse users, but we will have to remember it was added for super reporters that can be send to a location for a documentary/new report to do the work of a small team all by themselves.
What is the difference between VFX Coordinator/Director/Producer/whatnot and Visual Effects Coordinator/Director/Producer/whatnot?
What about these :
@mods: can we like build a master list of all the crew jobs + list any alternative names they have? I agree it's really hard to find the right ones when you're inexperienced.
Reply by lineker
on August 9, 2017 at 4:35 AM
What department? I would probably suggest Crew since it's an outside credit in a way.
I think they are the same, but should be fine to keep both if that's how they are credited in the movie.
The credit exists so should be fine also.
Since we keep casting jobs in Production it's probably where it should go.
Another help would be if the job was recognized even if you didn't start with typing the first word in the job. So if you type "re-reco.." sound re-recording mixer would appear, or if you type composer, original music composer would appear.
I'm not sure how hard this would be for Travis to implement, but it would be helpful even for experienced users and moderators.
Reply by janar
on August 9, 2017 at 10:24 AM
@banana_girl said:
I only want to reply to this right now because it might be of help. I just built a list of all current crew jobs for myself. It took me a while to format them and sort them alphabetically, and I might have accidentally deleted one or two doing that (it's a boring exercise). So this is the full list - without any further comments from me about things that look wrong or with alternative names:
Art
CAMERA
COSTUME & MAKE-UP
CREW
DIRECTING
EDITING
LIGHTING
PRODUCTION
SOUND
VISUAL EFFECTS
WRITING
Reply by lineker
on August 9, 2017 at 10:45 AM
Thanks Janar!
Here are some suggestions for Crew jobs that can be moved to other departments.
To be moved to Writing:
Additional Dialogue
Additional Writing
Poem
Series Writer
Radio Play
Now my head started spinning, but others can perhaps continue. There are some obvious production, art and visual effects jobs that can be moved. I know this is a slightly different focus, but it's always nice to have the correct job in the correct department.
Finally, would anyone be against removing Script, Steadycam and Cinematography completely? Whenever I see Script added it is in the Screenplay meaning, but sometimes also instead of Script Supervisor. I think we can survive without it. Steadycam makes little sense as a credit when we have the correct Steadicam Operator already. Without a Cinematography credit to add, more users would take a minute and see which job they should add instead. So that could be helpful, in my opinion...
Reply by janar
on August 9, 2017 at 11:52 AM
@lineker said:
I agree with you that all of those should be moved. In general, I think the whole CREW section includes a lot of jobs/titles that could be moved into other sections. I'll take a look at it later or tomorrow, 'cos that will take some time (I think I don't know half of the jobs that are available, to be honest ...).
Yes, there are. What I was wondering about immediately - Banana asked a few posts above:
In the section CREW, we have:
In the section VISUAL EFFECTS we have:
Obviously, the 3 CREW jobs have to be moved to the other section. But we could also add the double-versions of those one's that are missing to make sure there won't be any confusion in the future. I mean like this:
I think that would make sense and might help contributors, no? Something similar could be done with SFX/Special Effects, I think.
I thought the same about Script and Steadycam - it's misleading and useless in my opinion, I agree with you. I'm not so sure about Cinematography - I would actually move it to the CAMERA section (because there are actually on-screen credits that explicitly say "Cinematography by"), and I would add "Cinematographer" as well to this section. Personally, I would like that more than banning/removing the label entirely - but I'm also okay if we define that TMDb only uses Director of Photography for all movies/shows. But it's definitely wrong in the section CREW. Also, in regard to this, in the CREW section, there's also a label "Second Unit Cinematographer" -> that should also be moved/removed.
EDIT: Also, one of the new suggestions in Travis's list above in the section CAMERA is "Additional Cinematographer" -> maybe this shouldn't be added, then?!?!? The weird thing is: That was actually my suggestion, and in this case, the show had 1 person credited as "Director of Photography", and another person credited as "Additional Cinematographer" in the same episode. I wouldn't know what to do without this credit - and I'm honestly not sure what to do?!?!
One thing I also spotted immediately:
Those are all expressions in plural - they should all be in singular.
And what I was wondering about immediately: What does "Songs" mean in the section SOUND? When would I use this ever, in what context?
More later or tomorrow ...
Reply by Marr 🇳🇱
on August 9, 2017 at 4:16 PM
I'd suggest moving Creative Producer to Production. Like any other production jobs.
Also, I request for Creative Director to be added. I think it should be in Directing department.
Reply by janar
on August 9, 2017 at 4:53 PM
So, I just went through all my files with job titles and credits, and I put together a list with all the crew jobs that I'd like to be added to TMDb. However, the comparison with Travis' list drove me almost crazy
- so I decided to take his full list and put my suggestions under his per each section. Does that make sense? 
I also added all the other suggestions from Banana, lineker and Marr from in between. But I have big problems to decide in which section to put each job. It's hard to decide, especially with the EDITING and PRODUCTION section - I'm a bit lost and very tired, so ... here's the updated list:
ART
Travis:
janar:
CAMERA
Travis:
janar:
COSTUME & MAKE-UP
Travis:
janar:
CREW
Travis:
janar:
DIRECTING
Travis:
janar:
EDITING
Travis:
janar:
LIGHTING
Travis:
janar:
PRODUCTION
Travis:
janar:
SOUND
Travis:
janar:
VISUAL EFFECTS
Travis:
janar:
WRITING
Travis:
janar:
Reply by Banana
on August 9, 2017 at 11:30 PM
Woah, Janar!! THANK YOU!
I'll try to create a new topic later tonight. (Also, you were not kidding. You list of new job really is ridiculously long. 
)
I have a few more:
Reply by janar
on August 10, 2017 at 1:46 AM
@banana_girl said:
I don't know exactly what you mean by creating a new topic - is this one full and we need a new one?!? Or, do you mean a new topic for the current list to sort things out, (re)move some labels and add alternative names and so on? Such a new topic would be great; maybe it could even serve as a glossary for the future, and everyone could help to add one or two sentences per each crew job to explain what it means (for example, I never heard of a "Jimmy Jib Operator" in my life - sounds like a machine to put jam on toast
)? Just an idea - I think that would be fun and helpful ...
Yeah, you could say that!
And I stopped weeks ago writing new one's down because it just got to confusing and I got frustrated ... 
I dreamed about those crew jobs last night, and here's one recurring point that I still don't know how to decide:
There are several similar examples (Music Producer, Set Production Assistant, Sound Editor, and some more) - would it be better to put all editing/production jobs into these 2 specific categories or should there be exceptions when those jobs belong to other sections as parts of specific jobs? That's something that really confuses me when I go through the list in general.
Also: Jobs in Post Production -> do they belong to the section PRODUCTION?
Best wishes,
janar
"Love [...] is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being." - Ellen Page
Reply by Marr 🇳🇱
on August 10, 2017 at 12:40 PM
Did we already add "Original Casting"? Department: Production.
Those are the guys who casted the main characters for a TV show (pilot) but then moved away from the show. Oftentimes they still are credited in subsequent episodes as "Original Casting by"
Reply by Banana
on August 20, 2017 at 11:25 PM
One more: Red Tech (Camera)
I've read a bit about RED vs DIT vs whatnot. I think "Digital Imaging Tech" may also belong in Camera?
edit: