New Reference Book/Kinejapan List

[Valerie Dhiver-Sugiura]

>From the south of France, I've been reading your messages about the New
Reference Book with great interest. I keep being impressed by the capacity
of work and volume of messages of everyone. Don't you never take holidays ?
Maybe just the French people as the reputation says... I feel kind of
guilty...

1) STEPHEN'S NEW REFERENCE BOOK
YEAR AND MONTH
I would suggest to indicate the production year (completion of the film) and
the date of first release in Japan (if available). As you mentioned, some
films are distributed a long time after their completion for various
reasons. Of course, it is more work but by indicating both dates, the data
would be more reliable and would enable you to have more flexibility. It
would also be an indication for the reader to grasp the problems of
commercial release. At last, I think a lot of distributors or producers
change the dates in their flyers to meet their needs: it looks better to
release a film of the year than the previous year...
INFORMATION ABOUT DIRECTORS
I think the KinemaJumpo directors' book has an interesting approach. It
indicates not only data (date and place of birth, education background,
filmography...) but also information about the directors' background and
more importantly the evolution of their work, style, inspiration during
their career. The articles have a critical approach which is interesting
when you want to check about a director within a limited amount of time.
When feasible, you could get the articles written from contributors who are
close to the director (researched, interviewed, interpreted or worked with
the director).
Just some thoughts. Good luck Stephen !

2) KINEJAPAN MEMBER LIST
When I joined the list about a month ago, I did feel I wanted to know more
about all the members: their occupation, location, motivation regarding
Japanese cinema.
A standard questionnaire to fill in by each (current members and members to
come who would receive the questionnaire automatically) is a great idea. 
At the moment, we can get a list with the name and Email address of everyone
but if a few more data could be added on that list, it would help newcomers
to communicate with each other (I believe it's quite of lot of work to
update this now but I would be happy to help.)
Best regards
Valerie Dhiver
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