Forum:Wolf crew template

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Opening Post

I strongly believe that a new crew template is needed to replace {{wales crew}} for the new era we find ourselves in. After all, BBC Wales no longer produce Doctor Who, and production has changed quite a lot since 2005. Many old roles no longer exist, while many new ones have been created, and I feel that the old template is now too complex to properly handle the new credits. I wanted to use this forum to brainstorm how best to present the layout of the new template (which I plan to call {{wolf crew}}) and to recquisite feedback from others about my ideas.

Firstly, I want to look at the main categories. Currently, these are "General production staff", "Script department", "Camera and lighting department", etc. I'm thinking something like the following:

• General production staff
• Script department
• Camera and lighting department
• Sound
• Art department
• Special and visual effects
  • This one will cause some issues. Discussed later
• Costume, hair and make-up
  • This is a merger of the current "Costume department" and part of the "Make-up and prosthetics" categories. Looking at the recent credits, make-up is more linked to costume than to prosthetics. Prosthetics would be folded into "Special and visual effects".
• General post-production staff
• Music
  • This is a new one. Currently, these are placed in the top section, but I feel they'd work better as a category in the main section. Not convinced here, though.

We also need the heavy hitters. The following are on the final page of The Star Beast's credits:

• Casting director
• Music by
• Editor
• Director of photography
• Production designer
• Costume designer
• Hair & make-up designer
• Financial controller
• Line producer
• Production executive
• Head of production
• Production executive for BBC Studios
• Executive producer for the BBC
• Commissioning editor for the BBC

Maybe I'm blind, but I don't actually see the general executive producers credited anywhere. It's very similar for Boom. I don't know how to deal with this.

We also need to look at the special and visual effects credits. Pretty much, for the specials, there are multiple effects companies credited for each episode, each for different aspects of production and sometimes with identically named credits. I would like to differentiate these companies and I feel that the best way to do this is, for episodes with multiple companies, to split the special and visual effects into it's own section at the bottom of the template with multiple columns and subheadings for each company. For stories without multiple companies, the category would take up the normal amount of space in a shared column as normal.

So far, all of this is just a rough sketch and further discussion will be needed. I just wanted somewhere to put some thoughts down and perhaps get some wider input. Bongo50 ☎ 22:08, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

Yeah, the full on EPs aren't in the credits, you have to get them from the BBC website. I'm not sure if a new template is the way to go or just modifying the old one, but some discussion is needed at least. Najawin ☎ 22:14, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I definetly think that a new template is the way to go. Updating the old one is a mess. By starting from scratch, we can cut out the old and now unused variables, make the template more maintabale and reorganise things to make them work better for the modern era without having to worry about those changes rippling all the way back to the TV Movie. Are there other positions credited in official places other than the end credits? Does that make those positions uncredited? This is way messier than I was originally hoping when I began to look at it. Bongo50 ☎ 22:21, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

The EPs are credited after the opening titles, aren't they? Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 22:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

The website is pretty barren. It just has the full EPs. Najawin ☎ 22:38, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Aquanafrahudy, so they are. That's very helpful. In both The Star Beast and Boom, the positions credited there are:

• Executive Producer
• Producer
• Director

Along with writer (which is in the title sequence), these are all obvious candidates for the heavy hitters section. The question then becomes whether we want any of the positions from the end of the credits sequence up here as well and, if so, how we decide who. Bongo50 ☎ 22:43, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Idea: all of the credits from the start of the episode go at the very top, in a similar position to EPs at the moment, like how there are multiple credits in that space on TDW 1 (using {{BTS crew}}). Then, all of the positions from the end of the credits go in the region below in the multiple-column arrangement. This seems like the least arbitrary way to do this. Bongo50 ☎ 22:47, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I like that idea – looking at the TDW page there's maybe a bit too much space in the producers section, but in this new season especially we're getting a lot of executive producers for some episodes, so something like that would work quite well. What if we had some of the last-page positions, like DOP or costume designer, appear in bold or something at the top of their respective crew sections, basically as heads of department? Something to recognise their significance without separating them so much from the rest of the credits; and then chuck the fancy-money-person types in their own mini-section.

Separately, would it be possible to add a flag to the template (either manual or automatic) for when some credits aren't displaying because they're new positions and the relevant variables still need to be added? I usually put the crew table up first thing after each episode, and I'm always paranoid that some well-meaning person right after will see it's not complete yet and redundantly add credits with inaccurate titles. Starkidsoph ☎ 12:40, 19 May 2024 (UTC)