Reference: Primary Information Line

Rick Retro’s Reference Rundown #2: Header Block, Primary Information Line

Retro Reviews Reference

In the Header Block of each review, the title of the reviewed work comes first, with the year of initial public release in parentheses.

The next line is the Primary Information Line about the work.

If an important work initially was unpublished or unreleased, the title line will show the year of initial creation, and an explanation, e.g. (unreleased until 2020), will be included in the Primary Information Line.

This line begins by describing the type of work, for example novel or feature film.

If the work is a video work, such as a movie or television show, it is sometimes followed by a symbol describing the type of video. If there is no symbol, that indicates the video is standard live-action two-dimensional video in color.

Works are assigned symbols representing the primary type of video that best characterizes the film. Short sections of a film are not included unless they are numerous.

Video type symbols:
bw filmed in black and white
3D three-dimensional video
@ traditional animation
!@ stop motion animation
© computer animation
¶ puppets
/ preceding the animation symbol (/@, /!@, /©, /¶) means live action and the indicated animation are combined.

Note: Since a high percentage of live action films now include computer animated special effects and even characters, this won’t be noted as /© unless a) it’s an early noticeable use of combining the two techniques, or b) the live action and computer animation represent different concepts in the film, so that the computer animation is not intended to blend in and simulate being filmed on camera, indistinguishable from the live action.

On the Primary Info Line, after the video type symbol (if applicable), you will find a symbol indicating the original language and the national origin of the work. If there is no such symbol, the original language is English and the national origin is American.

For national origin, often a work is a co-production of multiple countries. I only recognize the most significant. This will be the first listed country by the Wikipedia and imdb articles for the work that primarily speaks the primary language of the work. If the two disagree, I will use my best judgment, based on the nationalities of the production studios, creators, cast and filming locations.

[Language] and Country of Origin:

[English]
no symbol = United States
£ Great Britain
¢AU Australia
¢CA Canada
¢HK Hong Kong
¢NZ New Zealand
¢SA South Africa

[Spanish]
¿AR Argentina
¿CH Chile
¿CO Colombia
¿MX Mexico
¿SP Spain
¿US United States

[German]
ßA Austria
ßCH Switzerland
ßD Germany
ßEG East Germany
ßWG West Germany

[Russian]
€RU! Russia
€RU-SOV Soviet Union
€RU-UKR Ukraine

€SA [Afrikaans] South Africa
÷IS [Arabic] Israel
¥BD [Bengali] Bangladesh
¥HK [Cantonese] Hong Kong
€CRO [Croatian] Croatia
€DK [Danish] Denmark
€NL [Dutch] Netherlands
€FI [Finnish] Finland
çF [French] France
¥ING [Gujarati] India
¥INH [Hindi] India
€HU [Hungarian] Hungary
€IT [Italian] Italy
¥J [Japanese] Japan
¥K [Korean] Korea
€LA [Latvian] Latvia
¥CH [Mandarin] China
€NO [Norwegian] Norway
€SW [Swedish] Sweden
¥TH [Thai] Thailand
¥V [Vietnamese] Vietnam

This list includes all languages/country combinations of films currently tracked in my personal film database. I expect to discover other films with language/country combinations not yet included and will update the list as I come across them.

Directly after the language/nation origin symbol, you will see the emoji 😝 for a foreign-language (non-English) film, to enable easy searching for all such films.

I prefer to watch foreign-language works with English subtitles, instead of dubbed in English. But if both versions are available I will usually watch and review both. No notation will be made for a subtitled version, but I add a Version Line for special versions of a work. So for a dubbed work, that line would be:
<dubbed> (year) #h #m

On the Primary Info Line, after the language/national origin symbol (if applicable), will be a parenthetical explanation of release year if different from the year in the title line, e.g. (unreleased until 2020).

The length of the work will follow next. That will be the number of pages for a literary work, shown as #p, or the length of time of an audio or video work, shown as #h #m.

🎖️ Stands Alone
When applicable, the emoji 🎖️ will follow the length of the work to indicate the work stands alone. This designation applies only to works of the same kind of media (literary, movies, television series) and length. TV movies and direct-to-video movies preclude this designation for related movies or related television series, but if there were a solitary film with only one TV series based on it, both would “stand alone”. So 🎖️ would mean, for example, that a feature film is not part of a film series, is not a remake and was not itself remade. There may be works or remakes of other lengths (such as a short film) or in other media in the same franchise.

A ⭐ emoji used on this line indicates that a Retro Roundup including the reviewed work is intended for future publication, and will serve as a linked list of related works. If a Retro Roundup has already been created, the relevant term(s) that describe the Roundup’s related works will be linked to the Roundup.

Originally posted to text group in three parts, 2024-12-18 (part 1), 2024-12-28 (part 1, updated and re-posted) and 2025-01-02 (parts 2-3)
Last updated 2025-03-28

Retro Reviews Reference Pages:

Reference Overview
Header Block:
Primary Information Line
Version Line
Secondary Information Line
Franchise/Series Lines
Opinion Block:
Grade Line
Entertainment Quality Line
Dark Whimsy Line
POPCAP Line
Left-Right Line
Footer Block:
Review Lines
Genre Line
Content Block:
Overall Content Line
Content Detail Line
Viewpoint Block:
My View Line
Christian Values Line
Biblical Values Line
Political Values Line

⬅️Previous (all sections) | Next (all sections) ➡️