# Artists Manager for OTT Platforms | Cast and Crew Metadata | Vodlix **Source:** https://vodlix.com/features/artists-manager **Summary:** Store cast and crew as real records. Import artists from TMDB, cover the whole production credit list, translate per artist, and let viewers follow a name through your catalogue. **Publisher:** Vodlix --- Artist management for linking content, roles and artist details in one place. - **Feature Plan:** 2 - core-platform - back-end ## The People Behind the Catalogue Viewers look for actors and directors far more often than they look for genres. Artists Manager is where cast and crew become real records rather than a line of text, so a name is something people can follow through your whole library. ### A Name Is a Route Into Your Library Ask somebody what they want to watch and you will usually get a person, not a genre. They want the one with that actor in it, or the new thing by the director of something they liked. If your catalogue stores cast as a string of text in a description, none of that is reachable. Artists Manager makes each person a record instead, connected to everything they appear in, which turns one recognised face into a route through the rest of your library. #### People, not strings Each artist is a record with a photograph, an identifier and a count of everything they appear in, so the same person is the same entry across the catalogue rather than five spellings of one name. #### Cast and crew, not just cast Roles cover the whole production rather than the billing block. Acting, directing, writing, producing, sound, editing, art, costume and visual effects are all first class, and you can add your own. #### Translated per artist An artist record carries translations, so a biography reads in the language a viewer chose rather than defaulting to English on a platform that sells in twelve markets. ### Do Not Type It All In Building a cast database by hand is the kind of work nobody budgets for and everybody underestimates. Search the artist in TMDB, add them, and the record arrives with its photograph and details already filled in. For a catalogue of any size that is the difference between crediting your content properly and quietly deciding not to bother. Where you hold rights to titles TMDB does not carry, artists can be created by hand and edited the same way, so an independent catalogue is not shut out of the feature. It works alongside the [TMDB integration](/features/tmdb-integration) that fills in the titles themselves. - mx-auto ### What It Actually Buys You Three things, and none of them are cosmetic. **Discovery.** A viewer who finds one title through a name can be moved to everything else that person appears in, which is one of the cheapest ways to deepen a session. It also gives [search](/features/content-search) something real to match against rather than hoping a name happens to appear in a synopsis. **Credibility.** A catalogue that credits its cast and crew properly looks like a service rather than a folder of files, and for anybody licensing content to you it is a sign you will treat their work correctly. **Metadata that compounds.** Artist records feed the same index as the rest of your [metadata](/features/metadata-management), so effort spent here improves rails, filters and category pages at the same time rather than only the credits block. **Q: What is Artists Manager for?** It stores the people in your catalogue as records rather than as text. Each artist has a photograph, an identifier, a role and a link to every title they appear in, which is what makes a name something a viewer can follow. **Q: Do we have to enter every artist by hand?** No. Artists can be imported from TMDB by searching for the person, which brings their photograph and details with them. Creating artists by hand stays available for titles TMDB does not carry. **Q: Does it cover crew as well as cast?** Yes. Roles span the whole production, including directing, writing, producing, sound, editing, art, costume and visual effects, and you can add roles of your own if your catalogue needs them. **Q: Can artist details be translated?** They can. Each artist record carries translations, so biographies and role names read correctly for viewers on a multilingual platform rather than falling back to one language. **Q: How does this help viewers find things?** It gives search and browsing something structured to work with. A viewer who recognises one name can be shown everything else that person appears in, which turns a single title into a route through the catalogue instead of a dead end. **Q: Can we manage a large cast database?** Yes. Artists are searchable, indexed alphabetically and paged, so a library holding thousands of people stays workable rather than becoming a list nobody opens.