Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gavin Heffernan

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate wasThe result of the debate was - kept - SimonP 15:03, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Gavin Heffernan

What we have here seems to be a guy who shot a couple of videos which were shown at a few festivals. No distribution and no reported box office gross. "Expiration" was released on DVD, but as far as I can tell Hefferman released it himself, making it the equivalent of a vanity press book. Doesn't seem to be at amazon anyway. I'd call this article vanity or self promotion, but if Hefferman wrote it I'd expect he'd have more to say than this. Anyway, delete this as another guy with a video camera trying to get a start in the film industry. Good luck Gavin, come back when you succeed. -R. fiend 17:53, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Delete, and I know you get a lot of, erm, unusual people on IMDb but both Gavin Heffernan's page and his films have armies of sockpuppets in them, all active around May 2004. This is probably another example of extensive self promotion. Xezbeth 18:04, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and expand. --Spinboy 01:02, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Canadian Filmmaker's Festival. Notable enough for me. Keep. Bearcat 01:16, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure. I don't know much about the Canadian Filmmaker's Festival, but some of these festivals are pretty small and many of the entries win some sort of award. It's not unheard of for someone to bring along enough friends that they can stuff the ballot box, or winning by being the local favorite. We're not talking the Palme d'Or or Cannes or anything. I'll look into it a bit though. -R. fiend 02:50, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, as above. --Daniel11 02:35, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as non-notable or vanity (and the link on the Canadian Filmmaker's Festival fails to establish notability thereof, so presently fails to sway my opinion on this). Radiant_* 12:35, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as the festival looks fairly large, with some fairly major sponsors. Burgundavia 17:51, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. I seem to disagree on the definition of "large". According to the festival's website, it lasts four days (in 2005, from April 7 to 10); only 10 feature films are involved - this year, Ivan Reitman's "Meatballs" will be shown, evidently hours-concours; it has no tradition either: the first edition took place last year, when the winner was Hefferman. I'm sorry, but IMHO more than this award is required to make someone notable. VladMV ٭ ^talk 18:51, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Can you find out how many film were in it last year? If it's only 10 this year I suspect it may well have been fewer last year. Coming in best of 6 or 7 is not a terribly great accomplishment. -R. fiend 20:45, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I couldn't find anything on the official website, I suppose the contents from last year's festival were removed. This page lists the films: they were also presented in four days. Assuming some of those are documentary features, I think it's reasonable to suppose at most some 10 feature films were competing. VladMV ٭ ^talk 21:58, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Delete While the filmmaker may oneday be notable, the current work done to date is not notable enough for inclusion. The article can be re-entered at such a time as more noteworthy accomplishments have been made. --Lloydd 04:26, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: I was wondering, in general should not self-financed undistributed movies be treated much the same as vanity published books? I don't see a huge difference, except perhaps that a movie made along these lines is more likely to be purchased by a distributor than a self-published book is likely to be purchased by a publisher. Given that I'm not sure that's true, and that until such a movie is purchased the matter in inconsequential, I'm tempted to think movies like this, and the people who make them need to be held to some standard beyond some award at a small festival. Even the winners at Sundance and the like are basically significant only because the award guarantees them a commercial release. -R. fiend 23:18, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Not really. While the commercial aspect of cinema clearly is quite important, you'll find that there's a vast amount of interest in the art in general. For instance, google the indy in question, Gavin Heffernan, and you'll find quite a lot of hits, with many reviews of his commercially undistributed movies. --Daniel11 00:29, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.