[libdb-develop] Still Fighting with Movie Expressions

[Morbus I. <mo...@di...>]

I'm still having conceptual problems breaking a part a movie
into WEMI. It's relatively "easy" when the movie is "known",
like with a Kubrick or Spielberg or similar. But, stuff like
SWIMFAN, MOTEL HELL, STACY, etc., I simply can't figure it out.

I originally suspected it was purely of ignorance and the fact
that no one has published their own approaches to movies under
FRBR, but the more I read, the more I see the same sort of thing
over and over again: "expressions are difficult".

Most recently (in my reading, not publication-wise)
is the Humphry Clinker examination by the OCLC:

  "While it was possible to identify works and manifestations,
   identifying expressions was problematic ... Enhanced manifestation
   records where the roles of editors, illustrators, translators, and
   other contributors are explicitly identified may be a viable
   alternative to expressions ... With the enhanced manifestation
   record ... the FRBR model provides a powerful means to improve
   bibliographic organization and navigation.

How evil and destructive is it, for the time being, to not
support expressions, at all, within an FRBRized application?

If I have a movie called SWIMFAN, is that a work? It is
a "distinct intellectual or artistic creation", but it is
also the REALIZATION: it's audio/visual committed to film.
The only way I can think to get "one higher" than "realized
through film" is the actual shooting script used. The
audiovisual elements of a shooting script are REALIZED
through the work of many people: the directory, the
cinematographer, etc., etc.

But, the shooting script won't work... because FRBR says:

  "By contrast, when the modification of a work involves a
   significant degree of independent intellectual or artistic
   effort, the result is viewed, for the purpose of this study,
   as a new work. Thus paraphrases, rewritings, adaptations for
   children, parodies, musical variations on a theme and free
   transcriptions of a musical composition are considered to
   represent new works."

Taking a script and turning it into film seems like a significant
degree of work to me, so a film would have to be a work. Treating
a film as a work is correct, because FRBR says/infers as much:

  "Translations from one language to another, musical
   transcriptions and arrangements, and dubbed or subtitled
   versions of a film are also considered simply as different
   expressions of the same original work."

An expression "exclude[s] aspects of physical form", so I can't
treat the expression of a movie as a DVD release. If I had two
different translations of the movie, I don't think there's a problem:

  W1: Swimfan
   E1: Swimfan (English language)
    M1: The DVD from Paramount Pictures.
   E2: Swimfan (German language dub)

The above seems sane to me, and seems like the answer to my
problems. In fact, FRBR says the above is sane in it's description
of the work entity, which I've already snippetted above.

But, I feel the model is "dirty" when I don't have multiple
expressions. If SWIMFAN ONLY had an English translation, then it
"feels" like there's absolutely no difference between work and
expression:

   W1: Swimfan
    E1: Swimfan (English language)
     M1: The DVD from Paramount Pictures

In the above model, there's really no difference, whatsoever, between
the Swimfan work and the Swimfan expression. Is there? Or am I being
too granular? Should I treat WEMI as buckets, with an intended
revisiability and extensibility of "always"? Should I always assume
(nay, hope!) that someone WILL translate SWIMFAN into another
language? Should I, in the face of seemingly duplicity, always
consider "language" the shining difference between a work (where
language is not defined) and expression (where it is)?

I feel like I'm running around in circles on this expression
thing - toeing the line between "yes, that's how you do it!"
and "noOOOo, you've got it alLLLl wrong, bucko!".

Any tips are appreciated.



-- 
Morbus Iff ( i put the demon back in codemonkey )
Culture: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.gamegrene.com/
Spidering Hacks: http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005776/disobeycom
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