Add principal units only, disclude any secondary units. If you can't figure out which is what, don't bother.

I personally agree with this, but what about the other roles that are listed in the rules Crew list?

Quoting AiAustria:

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films which have a main crew, but which use for one or more significant parts location crews, which are completely in charge of their work (examples would be most James Bond Movies).

Like where Vic Armstrong directs stunt or action units? He's often credited on-screen as "Second Unit Director" or "Action Unit Director" - that wouldn't really work, right? Many James Bond films form an excellent example of where a unit credited on-screen as a "second unit" is, in fact, a pretty huge unit, responsible for fairly large chunks of film (independently delivering entire sequences running over ten, twelve minutes), and I could understand a plea to somehow reflect his input in a DVD Profiler profile. But since his work is mostly labeled as "2nd" or "second" unit, it's consistently being ignored - even by the users who are in favour of location crew. And that's exactly where you're losing me: in such a case, I don't understand wanting to track a bit of location crew, whose impact on the end result is significantly smaller, while ignoring the much larger contribution of the second (action) unit.

Quoting AiAustria:

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Proposal for a definition: A unit is artistically in charge of their local work, if at least one of the following main roles are done locally (means there are different persons listed for these roles in different locations):
Director (excluding second unit directors, assistant directors, etc, but inluding a "London director" for a London crew)
Director of photography (excluding cinematographers) [...]

But many of the credits for 2nd/second units meet those demands, by including a unit director and/or a unit director of photography. Do you feel that those 2nd units should qualify for tracking in DVD Profiler? If so, that brings us closer to tracking *all* units, no matter how big or small. If not: how can we ignore one set of unit crew meeting the demands, yet declare that the next (smaller!) unit *does* qualify? The fact is that units aren't consistently labeled in film credits... What one film may call "London Unit", might very well be called "2nd Unit" in another film - while their jobs and the impact on the final film are exactly the same. After reviewing thousands of film credits, I really don't see how we can properly define this...

This is not so much a plea for including second unit crew - I'm just saying that I wouldn't understand ignoring huge second units while wanting to track much smaller splinter units. I can't help noticing that every argument in favour of tracking certain bits of location crew, could also be used in favour of tracking second unit crew. Or reshoots/"additional photography" crew. Or whatever. The principle is always the same, meaning that it's either all unit crew out, or all unit crew in. There's just no surefire way to semantically determe which ones are "important" enough to track and which aren't.

Quoting T!M:

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Like where Vic Armstrong directs stunt or action units? He's often credited on-screen as "Second Unit Director" or "Action Unit Director" - that wouldn't really work, right?

That's why I excluded any form of secondary unit/crew/anything up front. If a credit reads 2nd unit, then it is a helping hand and not an important crew/unit/anything, because the producer decided to list them as secondary.

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Many James Bond films form an excellent example of where a unit credited on-screen as a "second unit" is, in fact, a pretty huge unit, responsible for fairly large chunks of film (independently delivering entire sequences running over ten, twelve minutes), and I could understand a plea to somehow reflect his input in a DVD Profiler profile. But since his work is mostly labeled as "2nd" or "second" unit, it's consistently being ignored - even by the users who are in favour of location crew.

If we are not willing to draw a line, what is important and what isn't, then we will either loose important information or blow up the credits over the limits of being managable.

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But many of the credits for 2nd/second units meet those demands, by including a unit director and/or a unit director of photography. Do you feel that those 2nd units should qualify for tracking in DVD Profiler?

No I won't suggest anything like that. I don't want to list secondary nor technical crews! Never!

And for the records: No, only a very little amount of secondary/technical crews would qualify for these criteria (I know, that the production designer is a little bit risky, but the others are very seldom credited for a minor crew/unit; they are callled 2nd unit directer or stunt coordinator, or whatever; they are very seldom listed without a minoring pre- or postfix).

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How can we ignore one set of unit crew meeting the demands, yet declare that the next (smaller!) unit *does* qualify? The fact is that units aren't consistently labeled in film credits... What one film may call "London Unit", might very well be called "2nd Unit" in another film - while their jobs and the impact on the final film are exactly the same.

I'm totally aware, that we will never reach 100% of accuracy. But with a little research and will, it should be rather simple to reach 75% and not a really hard job to reach 90%. That's my goal.

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After reviewing thousands of film credits, I really don't see how we can properly define this...

Help us: how do you decide to list a crew/unit/anything locally? What is your critera?

Quoting AiAustria:

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Help us: how do you decide to list a crew/unit/anything locally? What is your critera?

That's exactly what the problem is: that really can't be put into words... "I know it when I see it" would be the best description, but that's no way to build a shared database - which is why I keep such stuff local. There just doesn't seem to be a simple set of criteria that ensures that we consistently track the "right" ones and leave out the others. "Do not enter unit crew" works, and "Include all unit crew" also works, but anything in between seems like a really bad idea.