Submission Guide: Title Formats

General rules



• We use the original title of a movie/show in its original language as it appears on screen (on the title card) in the opening credits. So all alternative titles found on posters, DVD boxes, reference books, trailers, websites, re-releases, etc. are irrelevant. They do NOT define what the primary title should look like. All titles must include the year of first public screening enclosed in ()'s as explained further below.

Title types/formats



• All titles are assumed to be theatrical movies unless indicated otherwise as follows:

TV-series and mini-series are enclosed in double quotes. For example, "Dallas" (1978)


TV-series episodes are composed of a series part and an episode part within {} (braces/curly brackets). For example, "Dallas" (1978) {Secrets (#3.4)}. The episode part is either a season-number.episode-number combination or the actual title of the episode, or the title and the number (which is the final and preferred version) or only the first air date in (YYYY-MM-DD)-Format for cases where only the date is known.


Made for TV movies and TV specials have a (TV) tag at the end. For example, Fail Safe (2000) (TV)


Made for video movies have a (V) tag at the end. For example, Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996) (V)


Video games have a (VG) tag at the end. For example, Tomb Raider (1996) (VG)

• If you are uncertain how to categorize a title (series, TV movie, theatrical, etc.), please see this guide.

Articles



• Articles are now always left in their "normal" position -- at the beginning of the title, if that's where they appear. This was a change in policy in April 2009.

Years and roman numerals



• The year in ()'s should be the year of first public screening of the title. For TV- series this is the broadcast year of the first episode/pilot. For movie titles this year is either the year of general release or of a festival presentation if earlier (note that closed screenings for the crew or the media/buyers/sellers or test screenings of the unfinished product for marketing reasons do not count as public screenings).
• Please note that we do usually NOT create separate new titles for each season of a TV-show so the year used is the year the show first aired.
• If two films have the same title in the same year we add a "/" followed by roman numerals after the year as necessary. For example, Twilight (2008/I) and Twilight (2008/II).

Capitalization and character sets



• Capitalization is language dependent. If a title is a mix of languages the relevant language is the dominant language which is the associated language of the dominant country (for alternative titles this is the country/region the title belongs to and for primary titles the most important of the producing countries). If there is only one language but it's not a language of the corresponding country the rules of this non local language apply as well unless the title can be interpreted in the language of that country using 'foreign' words. So for example titles of English films which are made from non-English words which are proper names or common expressions as in El Cid or La Bamba are treated as English titles. Currently the following policies are used:

English, Portuguese, Hebrew, Indian languages:
All capital letters at the start of words, with a few exceptions:

English language words which must begin with a lower-case letter (unless at the end of a title) are: a an and as at by for from in of on or the to with

French, Italian, Spanish, Scandinavian languages, Hungarian, Dutch, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Greek:
All lower-case letters at the start of words, except first word plus some exceptions (names etc.)

German: Mixed

• The character set of all primary titles is ISO-LATIN-1. Original titles using other character sets (ISO-LATIN-2, Chinese pictograms, Cyrillic letters etc.) must be transliterated to ISO-LATIN-1. If you are unsure about the rules to follow check examples from the same country to see how it's done. For titles in Russian, there is a special guide available.

Possessives



• One exception to the "as it appears on screen" rule: Author or filmmaker possessives such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Disney's The Kid, or Andy Warhol's Flesh are used only in alternate titles with the attribute (complete title).

Subtitles



• Subtitles are separated from the main title with a colon for English titles and a '-' for German titles IF the title on the 'film' uses no separator. Other languages are not (yet) standardized. If the title on the 'film' already uses a separator it is used.
• A subtitle can be identified by either appearing on a separate screen from the main title, or being in a significantly smaller font.
• When there are 2 or more subtitles following each other use alternatively : and - unless the title card has its own.

(Film) series titles



• For titles in a series (not regular TV series), particularly for short films, only the title of the individual episode is to be used as the main title if the series title is on previous title cards. If series and episode title are on the same card, the primary title is the full title on that card.
• Primary titles that do not include the series (by the above rule) should be submitted with alternate titles that do include the series. The alternate title should be the episode title, separated by a colon from the series title, and should include a "series title" attribute. Episode numbers should be included in primary titles only if the number appears on the (last) title card. If the episode number is implied at the end, it can go to an alternate title.

DVD extra/bonus feature titles



• The title type should be video.
• The title format should be DVD title: DVD extra title
• The DVD extra title should be as it appears on screen during the bonus feature itself, or as it appears on the DVD menu if this is not available.
• Please add 'dvd-extra' as a keyword.

Modifiers



• Certain type modifiers are controlled by genres or keywords. The "Short" and "Documentary" modifiers are taken directly from the relevant genres. In addition, the keywords tv-mini-series and tv-special cause different display of what would otherwise be a TV series or TV movie.

Episodic Videogames



• Episodic Videogames, such as those developed by Telltale Games, do not fit neatly into any of our existing title types.
• In order to avoid duplication of credits we would prefer to list the collected episodes of a season as a single title. EG The Walking Dead: The Game - Season 1.
• Individual episode titles should be submitted as Alternate Titles with the attribute (videogame episode) to distinguish them.
• For example - The Walking Dead: The Game - Season 1 would have akas of 'The Walking Dead: The Game – Season 1. Episode 1: A New Day', 'The Walking Dead: The Game – Season 1. Episode 2: Starved for Help' etc
• Individual release dates of these episodes should be listed in a similar fashion, again distinguishing between them with attribute for each episode - in this case (videogame episode 1), (videogame episode 2) etc.

Examples



• Example titles to illustrate these rules:

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Schindler's List (1993)

"The X Files" (1993)

Der blaue Engel (1930)

Uma Vida Normal (1994)

Un amour de Swann (1984)

Uncommon Valor (1983)

Uncommon Valor (1983) (TV)

La strada (1954)

Les enfants du paradis (1945)

Ugetsu monogatari (1953)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Feindliche Schwestern - Wenn aus Liebe Hass wird (2000) (TV)

"20 heures le journal" (1981) {(1999-08-18)}

"Lost" (2004) {The Long Con (#2.13)}

"The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" (2005) {(#1.116)}

Twilight (2008/II)

Tomb Raider (1996) (VG)