Introduce Yourself : IMDB website by Peter Trengove

it's up to the powers that be at IMDb to approve you, but you can submit yourself and you have to have done something! Ideally in a released movie or TV episode. Sometimes you have to submit a couple of times. Easiest way is to find the listing of the movie or TV show you've been involved in and see if you're listed on there.

Ah right. Thanks for this.

A related question ... when you sign up, is there a way to ensure that your login is associated with your existing page (assuming you have one)? I received credit and a default page there for a couple of short films I did music for, and when I sign up, I don't want to end up being forced to create a new and separate user. Anyone know about this? I couldn't decipher an answer from the site's FAQs, help, etc.

You make your own profile. You can add yourself to projects that are listed that you've worked on, there's a vetting process for proof. To add a project like a short, you need proof that it played at a known film festival, as people were inventing projects and giving themselves credits that didn't exist.

Thanks, Rachael. What happens to the existing profile with my name? I don't want people to find that one when searching for me. Any thoughts?

i opted for the automatic option, where any film i've scored that's submitted adds a credit to my page.

That appears to be happening already with the existing page with my name. So I am now wondering, if someone submits a film crediting my name, and I have set up a separate page as mentioned above, how can I ensure that it is posted to my new one and not the old one? Also, how then would I "transfer" the existing ones over to my new page so that those credits appear there instead of on the existing page (which IMDB would supposedly not have linked with my login ID)? I think I may end up having to send an email to their support.

I believe there is a "claim this page" link somewhere on the page of each person

I dunno, dude. There's a credit of mine going to a different 'person' (same name, other person is still me) that I haven't been able to move to my page.

you need to make sure the executive producer (or director) knows which page is your page. support are very helpful, they usually reply in a couple of days.

If you join IMDB pro I'm told you can submit credits for projects "in development" but to me that's like padding your resume with phoney credits. In today's world it's too easy to see who is faking it with a little due diligence.. If you're making films and posting them on line you leave a digtal foot print and there 's nothing more embarassing to me then being called out as a fraud especially to the world wide web. I had writer friends who would put title for non existent screenplays on their resumes and directors who listed films they never made but that was before a few key strokes could tell you if it played anywhere or won anything. Anybody who is worth knowing doesn't care about some script you wrote unless it's been produced and distributed and that goes for films as well. The festival circuit is the least of what you should be able to accomplish and it's not that impossible with over 5000 festivals world wide and more coming on every day, somebody will accept and screen your film and then Viola instant legitiment IMDB credit .

@Mark - you have to have some serious paperwork to make that fly, easier for major production studios.

@Rachel Saltzman I wouldn't know I've neve attempted to do it - This is what I've been told- It's like creating your own Wikipedia page- It can happen but it takes some work. Personally I find it easier to just make the film and enter it in some festivals- They've relaxed the guidelines to the point where don't even have to get accepted to a festival anymore just submitting gets you a page pretty sad if you ask me. Like giving a kid a medal for coming sixth place.

That's unfortunate. They got a lot of flack for being completely unreliable before they tightened up the criteria. This will just make it really awful again. The reason to put anything in development on, is to build buzz. Last I knew, you needed proof of budget, signed affidavits from the actors, completion bond, etc. - so it would be rather time consuming to recreate all that crap. IMDB was never reliable, and it still isn't - plus it doesn't list commercial or industrial work.

@Paul I had to do this as well - you have to contact support - http://www.imdb.com/helpdesk/contact_form and they can assist with the claim, then you will be able to update info - pictures- etc...

Great! Thanks for the info, Travis.

I think it is still very manually edited. So if you send a request carefully and clearly worded they should help, including collating any double entries or profiles. It's still an odd site in many ways, I upgraded to pro for a fee which has improved my interaction and response time and does give you useful access to stats and other things. Their rating system is bananas though, it's weighted in some peculiar way to stop people getting their friends to rate everything 10 out of 10, but how they can tell that is a mystery. For WaterWalk we have a lot of ratings in the 8s and 9s our average is about 7.7 but their weighted rating is 3.5, very frustrating

James, what would you say are the advantages of an IMDB Pro account over, say, just making your professional web site informative, and directing people there?

a IMDB pro account allows you to look up contact information of people like producers and directors where as a regular accountdoes not give you access to that information.So if you wanted to package a picture you could connect with producers to link with your film and see their credits.

And you see what's in production. You should have your own website as well. It's a good place to direct people to. But for good and for bad people in the industry use imdb as the place to check out talent and look up what people have done to check their credibility.

Sounds good. I was just trying to figure out if the pro account was worth it. I'd be wary if the main idea was "access" to directors and producers, etc., because in most cases I'd think that lesser-sought-after professionals are easy to get a hold of in other ways, and more-sought-after professionals aren't going to answer you just because you paid a little money to a web site focused on the industry. Seems like most experienced individuals have a personal web site where you can check out their talent and look up what they've done, and there are trade magazines dedicated to letting you know what productions are being planned, who the music supervisor is, etc. But if other folks are finding it very useful, I definitely want to consider it.