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Birth Year Conundrum for Steve Martin
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantAstrakan
Registered: Feb 12, 2000
Registered: March 28, 2007
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I've discovered a second Steve Martin. He's only ever acted in one thing (Babe: Pig in the City), but he was credited just like the more well-known Steve Martin and so the database thinks of the two as the same person.

So, I was going to add a birth year for the lesser known Steve Martin. Problem is, I can't find his birth year anywhere.

And it seems like a huge hassle to add it to the more well-known Steve Martin, considering his body of work outdoes the lesser known by quite a lot, and it would entail a fair amount of work to propagate his birth year to all his profiles.

I did, however, discover that the lesser known Steve Martin has done work as an animal trainer and stunt double. Sometimes he is credited as Steve E. Martin for that work. I checked my 12 Monkeys profile and he's listed there as Steve Earl Martin...

So my question to the community:

Should I go ahead and add a birth year for the more well-known Steve Martin and submit a bunch of updates? Or should I go ahead and change the lesser known Steve Martin's entry in Babe: Pig in the City's cast list to read Steve E. Martin with a "credited as" as "Steve Martin"?

I'm kinda leaning towards the latter myself, but since he's only ever acted in one thing I'm not sure what kind of supporting documentation I should provide...

KM
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorLewis_Prothero
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Registered: May 19, 2007
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This is a hard one, but I voted for option 2.
Provided your investigations are correct, you should give the supporting documentation just as you explained it here in the forum or give a link to this thread.
It all seems so stupid, it makes me want to give up!
But why should I give up, when it all seems so stupid?


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DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorTheMadMartian
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Registered: March 13, 2007
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This is a tought one, and similar to the 'Bruce Campbell' issue I had to deal with.  There is the well know one and another one, exact same name, that was in 'Double Jeopardy' and two TV show episodes.  The unknown is dead and I couldn't find a BY for him.  He had no other credits, that I could find, so I had to start propogating the famous Campbell's BY.

Needless to say, I voted for option 1. 
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DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorNewEnglander
Registered: 11/13/2003
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I voted for option 1.
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributormdnitoil
Registered: March 14, 2007
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Here we go with Harrison Ford, again.  Since we're being completely inconsistent with BY, I vote for any option that doesn't use it.  The stupid thing is more trouble than it's worth with our usage of it.
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributoreggerty
Registered: March 14, 2007
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If you are sure that his name is Steve E. Martin then I would use that and list him as being credited as Steve Martin.
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorVoltaire53
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Registered: March 13, 2007
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Quoting Astrakan:
Quote:

And it seems like a huge hassle to add it to the more well-known Steve Martin, considering his body of work outdoes the lesser known by quite a lot, and it would entail a fair amount of work to propagate his birth year to all his profiles.


But if you submit it with a birth year, and it's accepted into the main database, AIUI the download will propogate the BY into the downloader's local Db and therefore onto all of his films. In the same way it wil propogate to all of your Steve Martin films. Locally all you have to do is then create a 'second' Steve Martin with no BY for Babe

That said, in this case, if it's definitely the same Steve E. Martin (proven without relying on the IMDb which I've seen screw these things up royally before... including dead actors being credited in recent releases) that option does seem the easiest.
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 Last edited: by Voltaire53
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Registered: March 13, 2007
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Quoting Unicus69:
Quote:
This is a tought one, and similar to the 'Bruce Campbell' issue I had to deal with.  There is the well know one and another one, exact same name, that was in 'Double Jeopardy' and two TV show episodes.  The unknown is dead and I couldn't find a BY for him.  He had no other credits, that I could find, so I had to start propogating the famous Campbell's BY.

Needless to say, I voted for option 1. 


I agree with Unicus on this one.
Pete
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorT!M
Profiling since Dec. 2000
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My thoughts on the matter: never ever use birth years when there's an alternative. Try doing a full restore of a DVD Profiler backup, and then see what a mess the birth years have caused: huge problems arise when you had two actors with the same name, but only one of them had a birth year attached to him. Restoring a backup will attach the birth year to both entries.

That is exactly what will happen when you have both a Steve Martin and a Steve Martin (1945). It all looks nice and good at first, but at some point in the future you will have to restore your collection from a backup. And right at that point, the distinction is lost again, and you'll have to go back and manually correct it. That's fine if it's just one set of actors, but I assure you it gets quite irritating when there are about a dozen of these. Until this matter is addressed, I would strongly agree to only use birth years if you can find them for BOTH actors. In this particular example, I would certainly use the middle initial to distinguish between them.
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantAgrare
Registered: May 22, 2007
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Additionally, hasn't it been suggested/asked for to have cast and crew linked? Pretty sure i've read threads asking for this. I don't think stunt doubles and animal trainers are currently credited in the database, but if they ever are down the line (or just done locally) using Steve E. Martin would link him to all his work done there.

just some food for thought

-Agrare
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the problem as I see it is that he will have to document that this Steve E. Martin is the same person as the other Steve Martin... keeping in mind he will need more then one source to show this. I mean IMDB shows well over a dozen people named Steve Martin.
Pete
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile Registrantwintermute115
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Registered: May 25, 2007
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Quoting Voltaire53:
Quote:
But if you submit it with a birth year, and it's accepted into the main database, AIUI the download will propogate the BY into the downloader's local Db and therefore onto all of his films. In the same way it wil propogate to all of your Steve Martin films. Locally all you have to do is then create a 'second' Steve Martin with no BY for Babe


Yes, it will propagate, and then people will re-submit cast lists with no BY attached, and then someone will submit with the right Steve Martin and people will vote no because it's not documented (even though it was thoroughly supported the first time around), and you end up with an unholy mess that lasts for years.

Harrison Ford, indeed.
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile Registrantwintermute115
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Registered: May 25, 2007
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Quoting Agrare:
Quote:
Additionally, hasn't it been suggested/asked for to have cast and crew linked? Pretty sure i've read threads asking for this. I don't think stunt doubles and animal trainers are currently credited in the database, but if they ever are down the line (or just done locally) using Steve E. Martin would link him to all his work done there.

just some food for thought

-Agrare


I would like to see this happen. It's going to lead to some disambiguation work (just as adding the birth years and "credited as" did), as people argue whether the Patrick McGoohan who started in The Prisoner and Danger Man was the same person as the Patrick McGoohan who produced Murder, She Wrote*, but most of the time, it's going to be pretty easy. And I think it would add some real value to the database.


*Yes, he was.
 Last edited: by wintermute115
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorBad Father
Registered: July 23, 2001
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Quoting wintermute115:
Quote:
Quoting Agrare:
Quote:
Additionally, hasn't it been suggested/asked for to have cast and crew linked? Pretty sure i've read threads asking for this. I don't think stunt doubles and animal trainers are currently credited in the database, but if they ever are down the line (or just done locally) using Steve E. Martin would link him to all his work done there.

just some food for thought

-Agrare


I would like to see this happen. It's going to lead to some disambiguation work (just as adding the birth years and "credited as" did), as people argue whether the Patrick McGoohan who started in The Prisoner and Danger Man was the same person as the Patrick McGoohan who produced Murder, She Wrote*, but most of the time, it's going to be pretty easy. And I think it would add some real value to the database.


*Yes, he was.


What is the point of adding a BY to Patrick McGoohan if the Cast & Crew databases are not linked?
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DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile Registrantwintermute115
What Would Batman Do?
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Quoting 8ballMax:
Quote:
What is the point of adding a BY to Patrick McGoohan if the Cast & Crew databases are not linked?


There wouldn't be one. But the post was expressing my support for the linking of cast and crew data.
 Last edited: by wintermute115
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorBad Father
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Quoting wintermute115:
Quote:
Quoting 8ballMax:
Quote:
What is the point of adding a BY to Patrick McGoohan if the Cast & Crew databases are not linked?


There wouldn't be one. But the post was expressing my support for the linking of cast and crew data.


Ahhh...gotcha .
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