The Scottish Short Film Database Project
Become part of our Short Film Database Project. We need your help!
Something we always aimed for was a comprehensive database of Scottish Short Films.
Why?
1) Well, it's interesting.
2) For funded schemes it can show how effective they are/were,
3) It can show a progression in individual or group skills and careers.
4) Film is an effective medium for showing historical and social changes or developments in culture. A database gives immediate access to anyone wishing to research those areas.
How, What and When?
We've already started. You can access the v1.00 XML document below (as an aside more documents, guides and resources on all aspects filmmaking will be added soon):
It is open-source, which means that you can add to it or use however you like.
The data is raw. We have purposely not commented on or attributed any views to the data. This would achieve little. We offer no opinion on the success of any film or filmmaker. If you wish to research a particular filmmakers career IMDB.com is recommended.
It is important to stress that there are very likely inaccuracies in the data. This is not intentional. Not all festivals are accounted for, likewise not all awards are accounted for.
It's also important to note that not all past schemes are included yet.
It's very difficult to carry out this research with little resources. It was thought best to publish what we currently have in the hope that everyone can contribute to it - add titles, add schemes (Cineworks, 81/2, Tartan Smalls, New Found Land and many others) as well as student films. Napier, ECA, RSAMD have all contributed important and successful films to Scottish Filmmaking and they also deserve be part of the database. This is a large undertaking, but an important one.
We need help clearing up all the inaccuracies currently in the database, essentially in a similar way to how Wikipedia works, adding titles and researching festivals. And for that a more accessible access for group updating will need to be achieved.
We hope this data will help future filmmakers in many differing ways, and show the quality and development of filmmaking over the last 20 years.
