The Directors Project: The Final Primer

Liza Minelli in Cabaret

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the wait. That's right. On Monday, June 23, we will officially be underway with The Directors Project. It is an exciting ordeal that I am proud to have worked on. For those that need a rundown, or even a primer, this post will serve as a reminder of all of the bells and whistles that will be going into the piece as well as some last minute revelations that need to be spoken of. There won't be too much information here that anyone that has been reading all of the updates on The Directors Project doesn't know. If that's the case, see you on Monday. For everyone else, read on.

For starters, what is The Directors Project? It is a project that I have decided to do at The Oscar Buzz in which I countdown my favorite directors. I have proven time and again that I admire writing up lists and have decided to do an unbiased sampling of the directors I love based entirely on point values that were determined by my personal ratings on the websites Flickchart and IMdb. Why did I choose these two? For starters, there have been few helpful resources for ranking films as well as Flickchart. Yes, the final order is unexpectedly different from my perceived notion of my own tastes, but it does help to create a structure. From the Top 1000, I have then collected points based on rankings in groups of 50's. Due to a technical error, the point values were changed in some sections to compensate for this error. 

The values are as followed:

1000-950 -- 50 points

949-900 -- 100 points

899-850 -- 150 points

849-800 -- 200 points

799-750 -- 250 points

749-700 -- 300 points

699-650 -- 350 points

649-600 -- 400 points

599-550 -- 450 points

450-549 -- 450 points
449-400 -- 500 points

399-350 -- 550 points

349-300 -- 600 points

299-250 -- 650 points

249-200 -- 700 points

199-150 -- 750 points

149-100 -- 800 points

99-50 -- 850 points

49-1 -- 900 points

In the circumstances of IMDb, I have gone with a more primitive point value system that features an increase of 10 points per star rating on a 10 star scale. 

The values are as followed:

1 -- 10 points

2 -- 20 points

3 -- 30 points

4 -- 40 points 

5 -- 50 points 

6 -- 60 points

7 -- 70 points

8 -- 80 points

9 -- 90 points

10 -- 100 points

Additionally, any film rating a 10 will have the director's entire score doubled.

There will also be perks given for various achievements within these titles. The most common is the perk of having a trilogy of films in the Top 1000. The catch is that every film within that trilogy has to be done by the same director. If one film is discredited from this, the entire list will not count. Also, while traditional trilogies will not be an issue, any "spiritual" trilogies that will come into play will only be awarded points if their collective relativism is in fact recognized by sources such as Wikipedia. In all circumstances in which these titles cooperate, these films will earn an additional 10 points.

Less common perks include the complete filmography. In these circumstances, all qualified films by any given director must place within the Top 1000 in order to earn these points. There will also be perks for any film that have this achievement within a smaller confine. This is a technique meant to help directors with limited films to their names.

The values are as followed:

All Place in Top 1000 - 50 points

All Place in Top 500 - 100 points

All Place in Top 100 - 500 points

In order to release these in a timely and effective order, I have mapped out an outline that is most effective in presenting this information. The pieces will be released Monday through Friday at midnight and feature information regarding the point totals, Oscars won, and personal blurbs on why I like their work. Since there are 50, this will be going on for 10 weeks. For a reminder of the scheduling:

June 23 - Official launch

August 29 - The conclusion

There is a chance that upon completion, I will be writing a piece containing my thoughts on the project. I will also be releasing an abbreviated "Bottom 50" list upon completion of the list to reflect those that missed the cut. Despite previous statements that these were to be released every 12 hours, I have researched everything and have discovered that this would create complications. Please disregard any statements involving this change.

And finally, I will give away some hints as to the list. There are a lot of surprising names that I didn't expect to see on there. While this is in fact the exact goal of the project, the results are staggering as you will see. With this said, everyone in the Top 50 have multiple films to their name, thus making it impossible for me to recognize newer talent. Also, there is a strong chance that those with a massive amount of films, even if they ranked low, will end up having success in the final standings.

With all of this said, I hope that you enjoy The Directors Project and if you feel like contributing thoughts or recommendations, please feel free to do so.