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Anthology Film Series on TV
posted by wheelpointSTAFFMOD on April 3, 2015 at 4:04 PM
I believe there needs to be a new policy that addresses films that originate on anthology television series. Often, these types of series have films that transcend the original format and are released independently on DVD. Two examples would be the PBS documentary series "Frontline" and the Showtime horror anthology "Masters of Horror."
One of the first things I saw deleted along these lines was the Frontline documentary League of Denial. The fact that almost 60 people on Letterboxd (http://letterboxd.com/film/league-of-denial-the-nfls-concussion-crisis/) have logged it to date speak to the value of this information being listed somewhere aside from an episode in the television section. "Masters of Horror" is perhaps an even better case since many popular horror directors did "episodes" that later sold as individual DVDs. They have all been deleted before as well.
Currently, the ESPN 30 for 30 series of films seems to be left alone. I'm not sure why there's a difference between it and the others I mentioned.
The most recent 30 for 30 film: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/328346-i-hate-christian-laettner IMDB listing: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4300028/reference
I realize there must be a line in the sand somewhere when it comes to the film / television separation, but I'm curious to hear what others think about these areas specifically. Thanks.
Reply by wheelpoint
on April 5, 2015 at 3:15 AM
I'm not making a case for duplication, this is a matter of categorization. All we're talking about is a marketing banner for individual films.
I think all of the examples I mentioned would be better served as individual film titles rather than episodes of a television series. Each "series" has individual films that fit under a larger banner (Frontline, Masters of Horror, 30 for 30) but no serialization or carryover of creative teams between the films. It seems to me that an easy fix would be to specify the handful of series that would be better served listed as individual titles on the movie side. It won't be a long list, but establishing a policy would give contributors a reference guide and save mods work.
Reply by lineker
on April 6, 2015 at 2:02 AM
Yes, there have been a slight ease up on how we interpret some of these cases.
I would agree that most of Frontline and 30 for 30 should be allowed and probably Masters of Horror as well - now that we are seeing these in a new light. If they are proper movies they should be added as movies. Still, we maybe need to have an internal discussion again to make sure we all get on the same page.
I think that would work, yes.