Maintenance
Part of Television actors: role categories, pace, and a character still being written
5 honest notes on television actors by country
Television actors by country: why the production's country is the only defensible field, the four meanings of country, and how co-productions should be filed.
A by-country index of performers has a decision to make on day one, and most make it wrong. It can record where a production was made, or it can record where a person is from. The first is a fact in the production's own record. The second is personal information the index has no business holding.
This page builds the first kind. It names performers only as credits in productions and assigns nobody a nationality.
What to take away
- Record the production's country, never the performer's. Nationality, birthplace and heritage are not credit data and do not belong in a credit index.
- "Country" itself needs defining. The producing company, the commissioning broadcaster, the shooting location and the first-broadcast market can all be in different places.
- Co-productions belong to more than one country, and an index that forces a single answer will disagree with every other index and with the production.
The five honest notes, with examples:
- United States.Nielsen measures US television audiences, and the FCC regulates US broadcast television. Idris Elba appears under United States for The Wire, an HBO production with 5 seasons and 60 episodes. Typical US network season: 22 to 24 episodes. Typical cable or streaming season: 6 to 13 episodes.
- United Kingdom.BARB measures UK television audiences, and Ofcom regulates UK broadcast television. Idris Elba appears under United Kingdom for Luther, a BBC One production with 5 series and 20 episodes. Typical UK series: 3 to 6 episodes.
- South Korea.Nielsen Korea measures South Korean television audiences, and the Korea Communications Commission regulates broadcasters. Lee Min-ho appears under South Korea for Boys Over Flowers, a KBS2 production with 25 episodes. Typical South Korean miniseries: 16 to 20 episodes.
- Canada as a shooting location.The CRTC sets Canadian content rules. The Handmaid's Tale is a United States production from MGM Television and Hulu, shot in Canada, with 5 seasons and 56 episodes as of 2022. Elisabeth Moss appears under United States for it. Canada is not the producing country. Typical US streaming season: 6 to 13 episodes.
- Co-productions.IMDb, TMDB, and Wikidata list production countries, but they are user-edited leads, not sources. The Crown is a United Kingdom and United States co-production with 6 seasons and 60 episodes. Claire Foy appears under both countries for it. Typical co-production: 2 to 4 countries.
Why the performer's country is the wrong field
It is sensitive, and getting it wrong does harm. Reference projects that do carry biographical material argue their own case for restraint, and the policy on material about living people is worth reading before deciding you need such a field.
It is also not verifiable from the work, the only thing the index has evidence for. It changes, and a person can hold more than one, and it answers no question a reader of a credit index actually has.
"What British television has this performer appeared in" is a question about productions, answered completely by recording the productions' countries.
So the field does not exist here. A performer appears under a country because a production they were credited in belongs to it, and for no other reason.
Four meanings of country in one production
| Meaning | Where it is recorded | When it differs from the others |
|---|---|---|
| Producing company's country | Company registry; the production's own credits | A company based in one country makes a series for another's market |
| Commissioning broadcaster or platform | The broadcaster's or platform's published slate | A global platform commissions from anywhere and shows it everywhere |
| Shooting location | Film office records; the production's credits and press | Tax incentives and scenery send productions abroad routinely |
| First-broadcast market | Broadcaster schedules; platform release information | A series made in one country premieres in another, or everywhere at once |
A production can differ on all four. Storing one of them as "country" without saying which is the error that causes most disagreements between indexes, and it is the same failure as leaving the counting unit undefined, which the unit problem in a television list works through.
Four meanings of country
Producing company
- Where recorded
- Company registry
- When it differs
- Made for another market
Commissioner
- Where recorded
- Published slate
- When it differs
- Commissions from anywhere
Shooting location
- Where recorded
- Film office records
- When it differs
- Tax incentives, scenery
First-broadcast market
- Where recorded
- Broadcaster schedules
- When it differs
- Premieres elsewhere
Co-productions and global platforms
Two or three producing companies in different countries, a commissioning platform in a fourth, shooting in a fifth. That is an ordinary arrangement now, and the honest record lists every country with its role.
Global platforms make the first-broadcast market fuzzy, since a series can appear in most of the world on one day. For those, record the platform as the commissioner and the release as worldwide, rather than choosing a country by guessing where the platform's head office is.
Building the index
Fields: the production; the list of countries; the role of each country from the table above; the source for each. A production appears under every country it belongs to. Sorting and grouping are by production, and a performer's presence under a country is derived from the productions they were credited in.
Index fields to record
- The production
- The list of countries
- Role of each country
- Source for each
The page on how a television index chooses its unit applies the same discipline to periods. There, the label attaches to the production, and the person is a derived view.
Language is stored separately because it differs from country and is often the thing a viewer actually cares about. The page on reading a Korean cast list through subtitles shows how much a language does to what a viewer sees.
Why two by-country lists disagree
One used the shooting location; the other, the commissioner. One collapsed a co-production to a single country by an unstated rule.
One dated a series by its first local broadcast in the editor's own country and filed it there. One used the performer's nationality, unverifiable and wrong in principle, and it disagrees with everything else because it measures a different object.
When a production's country is genuinely unclear, the production's own credits and press describe it, and the description with its date is the record. The page on what a television performer's work consists of explains from the working side why a performer may never set foot in the country a series is "from".
Common questions
A performer has worked mostly abroad. Where do they go?
Under each production's country, and nowhere as a person. That is not a gap in the index; it is the index working.
Is a remake made in another country the same production?
No. It is a separate production with its own countries, linked to the original by title only.
A dubbed version aired in another country. New entry?
Same production, new market and new local air date, and a note that the version was dubbed. The credits of the original are unchanged.
A country has changed its name or borders since the production.
Record what the production's own record says, with the date it said it. A modern name can be added as an alias, not substituted.
