Methodology

Two tiers of curation

Every production in CineCanon carries a data_tier field that reads either curated or imported.

• Curated — hand-written editorial dossier. Multiple named scenes with synopses; per-scene lighting setups with cinematographer motivation; color pipeline (camera log → IDT → working space → ODT → deliverable); post-house attribution; stunt sequences where applicable; locations with coordinates; awards slate; at minimum 3 primary-source citations.
• Imported— TMDb-sourced metadata only. Synopsis, cast/crew names, poster, backdrop, year, runtime, genres. No editorial commentary. Flagged with a banner on the production page so readers can't mistake imported for curated.

Imported rows can be promoted to curated as the editorial pipeline adds depth. Curated rows are never silently downgraded — a last_verified_at stamp tracks freshness.

The four-tier confidence rubric

Every cited source carries a confidence rating. The rubric is deliberately simple — a working pro should be able to internalise it in one read.

PRIMARY

Direct testimony from the person who did the work, OR a peer-reviewed trade publication (American Cinematographer, British Cinematographer, fxguide, befores & afters, VFX Voice) citing the person who did the work. Highest weight.

SECONDARY

Reputable industry coverage (IndieWire, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Vulture) reporting on details one or more steps removed from the source. Standard weight.

MANUFACTURER

Vendor marketing — ARRI case studies, RED user stories, Sony cine press releases, equipment-house tech notes. Useful for specs; discounted on subjective claims about use or aesthetic intent.

SPECULATIVE

Crowd-sourced (Reddit, forum threads, Lift Gamma Gain), or inferred from visual analysis without primary confirmation. Lowest weight; flagged in the UI with a dashed border.

Where multiple sources disagree, CineCanon labels the claim conflicting rather than silently picking a winner. The dispute trail stays visible on the entity page.

Link-rot policy

Every external URL is health-checked on a rolling schedule. When a URL returns 4xx/5xx or otherwise becomes unreachable, CineCanon automatically resolves a Wayback Machine snapshot and surfaces the archived version inline. The original URL is preserved in the database so a future re-check can promote it back if the publisher restores it.

This means a 2018 American Cinematographer article that the magazine later removes stays citable on CineCanon indefinitely.

Dispute & correction flow

Every production and scene detail page carries a Suggest a correction button. Submissions land in a queue triaged by the editor. Anyone — credentialed or anonymous — can submit; corrections that come with cited sources are prioritised.

Corrections that change a claim's confidence rating, swap a primary citation, or remove a deprecated source are recorded in the revision history below.

We do not publish a public dispute log per claim (yet). When the claims + evidence schema is fully wired into the editorial flow, each claim will carry its own per-claim history page.

Freshness & review cadence

Curated production dossiers display a last reviewed stamp. The bar:

• Each curated production reviewed at least once every 180 days — confirms cited URLs still load, awards remain accurate, no new editorial-grade trade coverage has changed the canonical account.
• On a notable event (Oscar win, DP appointment, gear change confirmed by an interview), the relevant pages get an out-of-cycle pass.
• The Atom feed at /digest.xml emits every editorial update so downstream consumers can keep pace.

How to contribute

The fastest path is the corrections format the bottom of any film, scene, crew, or VFX-house page. For a deeper contribution — co-curating a film's editorial dossier, contributing as a verified DP/coordinator/colorist with editorial bylines, or seeding a new discipline — reach out via the link in the footer.

Verified industry contributors (ASC/BSC/AOP/CSC/AFC/BVK members) will, in time, get a profile + named bylines on the claims they approve. The verification flow is on the roadmap; it is intentionally cautious to avoid the “everyone claims credit” failure mode.

Methodology revision history

• 2026-05-11

  Methodology published as its own page. Citation-rigor tiers formalised. Public dispute channel surfaced via the corrections form on every detail page.

• 2026-02-15

  Polymorphic media model — every URL stored once, back-cited across entities. Link-rot monitoring with Wayback Machine fallback. JSONB references migrated to media_associations.

• 2025-12-10

  Claims + evidence schema introduced. Each editorial claim attributable to a specific source with a confidence tier.

How to cite CineCanon

For AI engines, academic papers, and trade-press citations, the canonical attribution is:

CineCanon. (2026). [Page title]. Retrieved from https://cinecanon.com/[path]

The license on editorial content is CC BY 4.0 — attribution required.