Film Domain - freebase-schema/freebase GitHub Wiki

Table of Contents

  1. Music Videos
  2. Concerts
  3. Documentaries
  4. TV episodes
# What is a film...and what isn’t ?

If you were asked to identify if a topic is a film or not, you would probably say “no problem”. We all have an idea of what a film is and we can find a detailed explanation in the Wiki definition or the FB film schema definition in the Wiki . We all know without doubt that

<a href="https://www.freebase.com/m/07cz2"target=_blank">The Matrix <a href= http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UM5yepZ21pI" target="_blank">The Matrix is a film

In Freebase, the film type has many properties, including the cast and crew (all people who contributed to the film at some point), and many other details such as the release date,languages and run time. But before we assign the film type to a topic, we need to be sure that it is really a film. In this section, we will try to help you decide for some edge cases if a topic should be considered as film or not.

So let’s see if we can figure out if the following are films:

## Music videos

What about a music video like Smooth Criminal :

<a href= http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sj4zNWW2nvY" target="_blank">Smooth Criminal

Is that a film too ? Could we consider this as a short film, like Snap ?

Snap

At first glance, we would say yes, since we have actors and a plot. However, let us look at the first sentence of the <a href="https://www.freebase.com/film/film"target="_blank">Freebase schema definition for film : "A film is a release of a visual narrative composed of a series of moving images that is considered a complete presentation and is intended to be classified as a film". In the case of the music video, since it was created for the purpose of promoting the song, and not with the intention to be classified as film, it is part of the music domain and should be typed as music/music_video instead.

=> In short, a Music Video is NOT a film

## Concerts

What about concerts that were filmed like the Concert for Diana ?

<a href= http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QV2xGqapeHk" target="_blank">Concert for Diana

As we can read in the Github Wiki on films, "Musical concert films, often a special broadcast on a TV network, straight-to-video release or a special film event presentation are films". We should however note that we don't have actors. All musicians are entered as personal appearances with him/herself appearance.

=> In short, concert films ARE valid films.

## Documentaries

What exactly is a documentary ? From the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary"target="_blank">Wiki description we see that a documentary film is a broad category of "nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record". So a documentary is a special category of films .

In Freebase, documentaries are films with the <a href="https://www.freebase.com/m/0jtdp"target="_blank">documentary genre like <a href="https://www.freebase.com/m/05q7yr2"target="_blank">Food,Inc.

<a href= http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5eKYyD14d_0" target="_blank">Food,Inc

Many of the properties will be the same as for all films (producer, director...), but the big difference is that we will rarely find actors in documentaries :

  • People appearing in the documentary with him/herself role will ALWAYS be personal appearances, not actors.
  • The only time we will find actors in a documentary is when a scene is enacted, and then it will be clearly stated that the actors played the role of x.

=> In short, documentaries are films, but most of the time without actors, only with personal appearances.

## TV episodes

According to the Wiki definition, an "episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program". So a regular tv episode is not a film as it is created as part of a TV program and not as a standalone film. But what about a TV pilot like Little House on the Prairie ?

<a href= http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WxNBzhtOmdU" target="_blank">Little House on the Prairie Pilot

This episode could just as well be a film, it doesn't necessarily require the later episodes to be complete. For this kind of TV episode that can also be considered a stand-alone movie, we will consider the topic as a film and co-type with TV episode.

=> In short: TV episodes are films when they are also standalone films.

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