IMDb, what fore art thou?

IMDb. Have you heard of it? I was talking with someone that is trying to raise money to shoot a film and they had never heard of IMDb.

Would you use a doctor that has never heard of the AMA?

IMDb is one of the best resources that an up-and-coming filmmaker/actor/etc… has. Even if you overlook the news and the message boards the site is indispensable. When we were crewing up and casting Phobia, the IMDb message boards were one of four places we posted and nearly ½ of the 200 candidates that we had came from there. But, I did say to overlook the message boards…

I had never been through a casting before; in college you use your friends and classmates. Once we had seen everyone and sat down to make our final decisions- I just was not sure who would be the best for some of the roles. To make matters worse, my producer, casting manager and I did not completely agree on who we liked. When I re-watched their audition tapes it didn’t help much. I then turned to IMDb.

I was amazed by people that handed me resumes with a long list of jobs that were not listed on the site. One person had a straight-to-video Tremors film on the resume but it was nowhere on his IMDb page. I understand that some jobs may be “uncredited” but you can still post them as “Other Works” or “Trivia” on your page.

Ultimately, the Phobia cast and crew totaled 50, with 27% having IMDb pages before our film was able to get listed and now 100% of the cast and crew have pages. When we were trying to get some deals and donations for our film it helped that we had that 27% listed. People saw that we weren’t just some fans trying to waste a few weekends making a “film”. We had some true cred because we had the people with credentials.

I am not sponsored by IMDb- and they pretty much have given me nothing but grief while trying to get the correct info posted for Phobia. However, it is one of the few websites that I do check every day- I check out the news, the message boards, get information on “that actor” that looked familiar on “that show” but was not sure who he was. I also like the fact that you can view people by birthplaces, etc…- I like this to help to develop possible contact information. The site also comes in handy when you're at home and your producer is at a red carpet premiere and calls and asks you who someone is.

If you have any interest in filmmaking, please... know what IMDb is.

Don.