Database Fields Described

An explanation of what the fields mean. Not all database pages will have all fields and some fields may not be available in the current site. I am evolving the database as I go, so some fields may have slightly different names.

General Information

This is the information most visitors seem to like. It focuses on films I have seen for my project. These items are centered around IMDB (Internet Movie Database) comments I have written to remind me of various elements of the film. A few of these comments are interesting and even fewer clever, but people do like to explore different ideas about film.

Film Title

The title used here is exactly as used in IMDB with a few exceptions. I list their US title for non-English films with the original title in parentheses. I also list TeeVee movies and series differently. They use quotes; I do not. I list TeeVee shows and films the same way as theatrical films but append (TV). Direct-to-videos are treated the same as theatrical films.

Film Date

I use IMDB as the authority.

Ted's Evaluation

This is a personal report, much like anyone else's stars or thumbs or whatever. It is a rating of sorts if you wish to consider it so. It has three steps, each of which is self-explanatory: 1 of 4 = don't bother; 2 of 4 = don't bother unless you study films in which case you can add value to the experience. but it isn't in the film; and 3 of 4 = I consider this worth watching. The fourth category is different, representing films that I consider essential for cineliteracy. These are drawn from the "worth watching" pool. I will be adjusting the list to prevent any single filmmaker or year from having more than two.

IMDB Evaluation

This number is a little goosy. It is an integer from one to ten drawn from IMDB viewers. It is goosey in that the source number is not kept up to date. When I enter the film in the database, I copy the IMDB vote report. This is usually a decimal like 7.6. I do not try to keep that up to date, and the number changes over time. I use it as a very coarse metric of how the rest of the viewer world values it. The number you will see is a normalized number, that will be different than IMDB's. The reason is that virtually all the numbers are between 6.5 and 8.0. We run a calculation that divides all the films in our database into ten equal groups based on the IMDB number. That way there as many 2s as there are 8s.

IMDB Comment Title, Comment and Date Posted

This is the text of the original IMDB comment, minus the "spoilers herein" preface and the "Ted's Evaluation" at the end. Grammatical and spelling problems have not been changed, nor have I edited out stupidities I now regret. There will be an associated link to the comment in the IMDB context, which may be important to some readers.

IMDB URL

Following this URL will take you to the IMDB main page for the film. There you can discover other information.

Amazon URL Direct

Following this URL will take you to a specific DVD page on Amazon if one exists. These change all the time, but at the time of collecting represented the best choice if there were were several.

Amazon URL Computed

This is a computed URL search of Amazon and will report all tapes and disks of the title.

Folding Information

The purpose of the database is to report information on folding. Only simple (or "first order") folding is indexed in this version of the database. That's where there is a film within, or an actor is a character who is an actor -- things along those lines.

Folding Interest

A simple "Yes" or "No" denotes whether I found first order folding worth mentioning.

Folding Type

This is a rough indicator of the folding mechanism used, whether film within the film, films about photographs or writing or dancing and so on.

Folding Explicit?

Is the folding something that writer/filmmaker makes plain? Or is it less obvious. This is independent of whether the people involved intended (or even were aware of) folding.

Folding Competence

Regardless of folding type and whether explicit, was the folding done competently? This is somewhat independent of the quality of the film overall.

Nesting Device

The folding mechanism may be unrelated to the nesting device. Here we capture the difference if it exists. An example is "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," where the folding type is "Films that reference performing arts (and cons), including sports" and the nesting device is sex. (This field is a one word descriptor.)

Folding Comment

Here is my simple note describing the first order folding.

Second-order Folding Notes

Here are additional notes on other types of folding.

Other Studies

Depending on the layout, you may see information related to parallel and dependent studies. We think a redheaded female avatar may be useful, so we are slowly collecting empirical relationships between redheads and folding. There are similar studies involving architecture, water and fireworks.