for listing a film, the year of release is what counts, if we were to do it differently, weād be the only ones doing it. Some movies get produced and then shelved for years. Same with books, these arenāt listed by year in which they were written either. not saying the production year is not important, itās just not the number that defines what year movie it is
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Then why do most of my film books this different?
Why does Bruckner not use the release dates? He listed them all.
A good example is The Silent Stranger.
Released in 1975 it was produced in 1968, and it is better to list that one as a 68 film. (According to Bruckner 1969)
Listed as 75 film it like being Anthonyās 4th or 5th western, when it actually was his 3rd.
we could do both, but currently default for the swdb and the imdb and all other film databases on the internet is year of release.
We could add āCategory:1975 (production)ā or something, is that something weād want to do?
but the years used for films do not rely only on the release date, but also on the production date
surely not? The year noted always refers to the release year, it has always been that way.
This is the first time Iāve ever seen someone say that the year in which it was in production has an impact on the date. Would movies that take more than 1 year to produce have multiple years? What about movies that we donāt know anything about their production? Would the year be unknown? Makes no logical sense lol. The standard has always been year of release.
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Look at the Roman numerals on the actual print of any film, and itās almost always year of production rather than release ā¦ so thatās I what I go for. Copyright MMXXIV
I reluctantly agree with Stanton.
I know that IMDB handles it that way (but I never cared for IMDB), which has its advantages and disadvantages. I prefer what my books say.
Hereās Italian Wiki:
Other Wikis have other opinions as it seems, but it also says that the Spanish release was already in Nov 66, which would make it also for IMDB a 66 one.
imho it makes no sense to consider anything outside of the consumers perspective, the lore behind the films creation is not really relevant to the film itself. The year/s in which is was in production is just additional information for people who want to know what went on behind the scenes.
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Iām with hammerfist on this one. There are movies that were shot from November of one year to January of the other. Which year to we list? It makes no sense. It would make sense as an additional information, and Iām open to suggestions on how to make that more prominent/visible in such cases where, as stanton correctly points out, a few years to make a huge difference in how we contextualize the film
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I only can say that films are given with a certain year, and that is not always the release year, and this is the year used in most the books and also on several net sites. And that year for TBG is 1966. always has been.
You can check the links on the different Wiki sites, and you find enough with 1966.
Like OFDB:
There are a lot of links on the OFDB site, and most are voting for 66
Btw there are enough SWDB entries which still use the data from the books, and not just the release date.
In such a case both should mentioned prominently, but it clearly is a film from the 60s not form the 70s. And that should be made clear.
Easy, Iām sure in that case the year the film was finished was used.
Just use the usual given year. Iām pretty sure that most of the SWDB entries are still using those. In most cases it will be the same year anyway.
I think the Bruckner book does that right and can be trusted.
whatās the value of this information then. year of release is a much clearer case, and we could just make it more visible in those cases where that deviates from production, by either ensuring that we have the shooting dates in the appropriate section, or also in the first line of the page ātitle (1965, produced 1963 / Directorname)ā. was the the categorization, I wonder how many cases weāre really talking aboutā¦
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The context of an analytical book is different. Movies are categorized by release year, that has always been the standard. TBG was released in 1967 (in spain too im pretty sure, there seems to be an error on the italian wiki as it does not match other sources) therefore that is the year that should be associated with the film when looking at it solely as a film. Now, if thereās a book that analyses the context behind these films and notes the production year instead of the release year thatās fine, and makes logical sense in that context if itās looking into the stories and lore behind the films, but the films themselves are universally categorized based on year of release, that has never changed. Iāve never seen someone dispute the year associated with a film because it was in production before that year (like the majority of modern big budget movies are).
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Iām talking about film lexicons, encyclopedias, genre books, director biographies etc, they all have TBG as a 66 film. All books which look on a film solely as a film, like you say.
It obviously was not always the standard. Itās the IMDB standard, but OFDB stays with 66.
And hereās a Spanish source for the 66 release date in Spain:
As it was a Spanish co-production it is possible.
well theyāre wrong. I doubt ofdb has movies with years set to unknown or multiple years because of the lore behind their production being unknown or consisting of multiple years. I think it being considered a 66 movie is moreso a matter of it being a common misconception rather than people considering its production story.
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This is only one example, if I check the Bruckner book I easily can find several more, it is surely not a mistake. It was the common way for this film until IMDB took over things.
I checked other SW and western books. Frayling, Staig, Bruckner, Kessler, Hughes, Maltins, Hembus, Hardy, all 66, only the more recent by Grant opts for 67.
Maybe it is what Aldo says, the year the film copyrighted, and it could very well be that this is nowadays differently done, that they always use now the year of release, but in former times it was not always so.
I may have to rewatch Avatar. You know, the 2005 production, that was mostly filmed in 2007, not the 2009 release 
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Ha ha ok, but that is not the point, I only say that most sources list TBG as a 1966 film, especially all older sources, and that it is not cause it is a mistake.
For Avatar all sources say 2009. I donāt even say that for all older films it is always the production date, it may differ.
i think that was 29.11.67, or atleast thatās what wikipedia saysā¦ and that source isnāt any more credible than wikipedia, and wikipedia is in line with the usual stuff where italian release is first then everywhere else so its more believable.
To cut this long discussion short: letās stick with listing films by year of release, thatās also what people would expect the year to signify. Where the year of production and the year of release differ, it should be made clear on the page, or there should at least be production dates in the production section, which is an ongoing project to have more of that information in the swdb in the first place (along with production companies, and other data such as budget)
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