Guest cast type

Morning_Star wrote:
I'm sure this has been brought up before, but what's with the option of selecting a different type of guest star, but it not making a difference? Whether adding or updating a type, they all show up in the same bag of guest stars. I sincerely don't know what the point is if it doesn't show any kind of difference. Seems kind of... pointless. This is the primary reason why I haven't really started adding guest stars, because I simply don't want to go back and update everything later; I'd rather get them sorted out as I go and move on.
Also, why is Starring not an option? This is applicable in two forms. One is shows that have actors whose names are listed in the first act (after the title sequence), but are specifically not guest cast. Shows like Battlestar Galactica and Millennium are examples. The other kind is usually anthology shows that distinctly credit the guest cast as Starring. And while I'm at it, Featuring is another option that should be added. There are quite a few shows that do make this distinction in the closing credits between this and Co-Stars.

this is in the works and will be added at some point, so that we all see the difference between, Guest Stars, Co-Guest Stars and Special Guest Star :)

Yeah, it's a bit pointless at the moment :) Grouping the guest cast by type on the episode cast page is on the list. Once that's done, everything you've entered so far will be shown correctly of course.

Okay, so I can now just start adding.

However, no one answered my question about adding other types. In addition to Starring and Featuring, I neglected to mention Interviewee, Musical Guest, and Guest Host. Any plans on that?

Morning_Star wrote:
Okay, so I can now just start adding.
However, no one answered my question about adding other types. In addition to Starring and Featuring, I neglected to mention Interviewee, Musical Guest, and Guest Host. Any plans on that?

David and jan have to decide if they want to add those :)

I don't think we should add those last three, they aren't really cast types and there would be dozens more like it. You can specify details like that in the character name; see http://www.tvmaze.com/faq/16/episode-extras.

We have an overview at http://www.tvmaze.com/faq/14/show-extras, stating that "Starring" should be considered Main Cast, not Guest Cast. Not sure how to treat "Featured" though.. thoughts?

Featured is primarily a variant of Co-Star, at least in the U.S. it seems to have been popular in the 60s through 80s or early 90s, and was used to indicate someone... less than a co-star? It appears to have gone out of style in the last decade.

That's again concerning just American shows. Other nations and networks may treat it differently.

Gadfly wrote:
Featured is primarily a variant of Co-Star, at least in the U.S. it seems to have been popular in the 60s through 80s or early 90s, and was used to indicate someone... less than a co-star? It appears to have gone out of style in the last decade.
That's again concerning just American shows. Other nations and networks may treat it differently.

To be honest, but it is pretty much the U.S.A only that specify guest stars and co-stars. In European shows, we pretty much add all to guest cast or main cast, depending on their role. Playing a super small role, they don't even bother to credit them

Yup, I'm familiar with the UK technique, with Doctor Who and Musketeers and all.

And US animation mostly doesn't bother with co-stars either. Or even main stars.

Well, in the UK, they have 2 type of opening credits. One like musketeers which has the main cast and may have "introducing This actor" if it's a new comer (they did that for in the club), they then list all actors either in credits order or in importance at the end or you don't have any opening credits à la broadchurch, everything is at the end but usually you do have a hierarchy, not always..

I don't watch the brit soaps, so i don't know how they do it, but they tend to have regulars as opposed to guest for these... The website is usually a good source.

Australia is the same. Either opening credits or not but they tend to list all at the end with importance of credits usually. Canada is all over the place for actors and crew (cause that changes very fast) from one episoe to the next. You can have an executive for the first 3, then another one etc...

France has opening credits, most of the time, for crew, it depends on the person doing titles..

But they also list the Musketeers/Doctor Who main stars at the end, which you don't usually see in live-action U.S. scripted stuff. At least for Musketeers, they then do in-order-of-appearance style.

david wrote:
I don't think we should add those last three, they aren't really cast types and there would be dozens more like it. You can specify details like that in the character name; see http://www.tvmaze.com/faq/16/episode-extras.

Okay, I'm going to be honest and say that I utterly fail to understand the concept behind putting people playing themselves, like in talk shows, as characters. That's a flaw in the system I can't get behind and will not add those guest credits as long as that's a thing. I also don't understand what you're trying to explain in terms of creating characters because there are shows where a person can appear as an interviewee and appear in other episodes as just a drop-in. Am I really supposed to add these as two different characters? Again, I can't abide by that and will wait that out until a better solution comes along.

As for Starring, I find flaws in the protocol laid out. If they weren't credited in the main title sequence, it must be for a technical reason and I tend to think there should be an effort to reflect that. I've bitched about the flaws in how The Walking Dead structures it, but I find that to be the exception, as they don't seem to distinguish between the regulars and guest cast, nor do they remove that cast member if they don't appear in that episode (well, until they are killed off). And, hey, that makes accepting them as Main Cast to be easier, and I can deal with that in that case, but other shows do only credit these types of guest stars when they actually appear. The best example is the actor who played Boxey in Battlestar Galactica. Outside of the miniseries (where the cast list is a different structure and therefore moot), he only appears in and is credited for one episode where his name falls into that post-title sequence/pre-guest star section. I'd feel better crediting him for one episode under Starring, then as a Main Cast member. There's also a two-parter on Da Vinci's Inquest where someone gets a credit that explicitly credits them under "Starring". I could provide more examples of how this system doesn't apply very well, but I don't want to make this a bloody essay. I will add, however, that your answer still doesn't address anthology shows crediting their guest as Starring.

As for Featuring... well, I feel like that issue has mutated in this thread to the point where I can't really get a foothold anywhere, so I'll simply state that, if need be, I can list a dozen shows - all scripted, American, and ranging from the late 80s all the way to just a couple of years ago - that include Featuring credits.

There was another thread where it was noted that listing someone as playing "Himself/herself" as a character doesn't work.

It would also seem to be kinda confusing. So for a talk show, I add Jennifer Aniston as Herself. Then I add Jennifer Lawrence as a... different "Herself"? And so on, and so on, for each female actress who appeared as Herself as a guest star. Multiple that by every female guest star appearing as themselves on a talk show, and you have a near-infinite number of female "characters" all with the same name as Herself.

It also means that since characters aren't shared between shows (even if they'll eventually be cross-referenced somehow), there's a Jennifer Aniston with the character Herself for Talk Show A. And another one for Talk Show B, and C, and D, and E, and F...

(That's if I understand how the system works.)

Gadfly wrote:
But they also list the Musketeers/Doctor Who main stars at the end, which you don't usually see in live-action U.S. scripted stuff. At least for Musketeers, they then do in-order-of-appearance style.

That's what i said, either 1. they list them in opening credits and end credits or 2. they don't list them at all at the beginning and list them all at the end. Australia does the same.

I don't think Downton abbey list them again at the end...

Morning-star : I've bitched about the flaws in how The Walking Dead structures it, but I find that to be the exception, as they don't seem to distinguish between the regulars and guest cast, nor do they remove that cast member if they don't appear in that episode (well, until they are killed off).

We've settled that one with the amc website because of the way the walking dead production communicates about the cast. If you look at the premiere of episode 6, you have the opening credits, then a bunch of also starring, ending with "and Tovah Feldshush" and then after a slight pause it starts again. Diefinitely there is a distinction that i never paid attention before. However on the website, they ilst all the main cast both in opening credits and after.

I totally agree with everything you (morning-star) said about the rest.

Please try to stick to one topic per thread, otherwise it's so hard for me to keep track. :)

The current system for adding credits as him/herself is indeed not very straight forward. I would like to improve on that in the future, but I'm not sure how yet. Right now, the technical requirement is simply that each (guest) cast credit needs both a person and a character. If the character would be left empty, various things would break. For now, every kind of appearance can be added when you want to.

The situation regarding guest cast vs. main cast is just messy, because there are so many different terms used. I think adding "Starring" as guest cast type would be very confusing, as "Starring" usually refers to Main Cast. I fear that this would cause people to incorrectly add Guest Cast entries for people that should be in the Main Cast instead, don't you think?

It's about 50/50 whether Starring refers to Main Cast or not. And as with so many things, it often comes down to opinion anyway. Were James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig "main cast" on Trek? Most people would say they were because that's just how folks think of them. But they were either Starring or Co-Stars in the actual 60s credits.

For many anthologies, it's the opposite. The 60s Twilight Zone did indeed list the main actors in each individual episode as "Starring." But most people would tell you, "Yeah, Serling was the only "star" of the series."

If you want to go by what the credits say, then all you can do is make it so people can list what those credits say. You may have less errors from confused contributors, but then you're going to have more errors where what is listed here doesn't match what is in the credits.

I wish I had a better answer for you. But IMO you're going to drive yourself nuts trying to idiot-proof the site. Some contributors are going to be confused no matter what.

All you can do is decide the best way to display the information the way you want, and go with that. If you don't think Starring is necessary, don't add it. If you do, do.

Gadfly wrote:
I wish I had a better answer for you. But IMO you're going to drive yourself nuts trying to idiot-proof the site. Some contributors are going to be confused no matter what.
All you can do is decide the best way to display the information the way you want, and go with that. If you don't think Starring is necessary, don't add it. If you do, do.

Agree 100%!

Tonks wrote:
We've settled that one with the amc website because of the way the walking dead production communicates about the cast. If you look at the premiere of episode 6, you have the opening credits, then a bunch of also starring, ending with "and Tovah Feldshush" and then after a slight pause it starts again. Diefinitely there is a distinction that i never paid attention before. However on the website, they ilst all the main cast both in opening credits and after.
I totally agree with everything you (morning-star) said about the rest.

I noticed that when I was adding the credits for last week's episode, the first time I've delved into it since the season started. I wish it had been that simple from the beginning. And again, that has a resolution I can get behind because it's backed by an external, official source. Though, I still find it odd that the actor who played Gareth is considered main cast for three mere episodes, but... I can still live with that.

I understand that this is a messy issue. After all, if you want to be technical, these kind of credits don't have a specific title as they simply appear onscreen with no header. If they did, we wouldn't having these debates. However, Starring does have some legit uses outside of that, as I've given examples that shouldn't be contentious at all, like anthology shows. And I'm sincerely trying not to sound confrontational about it when I point out that you still haven't addressed that. I can't offer an easy solution, but the Starring credit shouldn't be dismissed entirely. The only possible resolution I can dream up for dealing with shows that dole out this type regularly is to add the type Regular. It's not anything official or explicitly listed onscreen (at least not that I've seen), but I believe it to be a nice middle ground that help settle most of this, as while it's not main cast, it still dignifies them as above guest stars. Just an idea.