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APA Referencing: Films and TV shows

Acknowledgement

Thank you to the University of Newcastle Library for permission to publish this information from their LibGuides.

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Films

Films

 

General Notes:
  • It is not necessary to specify the version of the film that you watched (theatre, DVD, Blu-Ray, streaming).
  • The director is credited as the author of the film.  This is a major revision for APA 7.
  • Add the designation (Director) after their name.
  • Add the description of [Film] in square brackets after the title.
  • Finish the reference with the name of the production company.
  • Where there are multiple production companies, separate with a semicolon (;) as shown in the Brokeback Mountain example.
Films

Director Surname, Initial. (Director). (Year). Title of film [Description]. Production Company

 

Reference list examples:

Ayer, D. (Director). (2017). Bright [Film]. Netflix.

Lee, A. (Director). (2005). Brokeback mountain [Film]. River Road Entertainment.

Moorhouse, J. (Director). (2015). The dressmaker [Film]. Film Art Media.

 

Need to quote from a video or audio content?

 

APA allows the use of a 'timestamp' for both direct quoting and paraphrasing from these sources.

Check the time that the quote starts and use that in place of a page number, e.g. (Moorhouse, 2015, 1:13:20). Here the 1:13:20 refers to 1 hour 13 minutes 20 seconds into the film, where the quote we want starts.

Hours/minutes/seconds follows the pattern H:MM:SS

Minutes/seconds follows the pattern MM:SS

Where you are only using seconds (e.g. for a short clip), use a zero at the front, e.g. 0:39 for 39 seconds.

TV shows

TV series episodes and webisodes

 

General Notes:
  • It is not necessary to specify how you watched the episode (TV, DVD, Blu-Ray, streaming).
  • The pattern for TV series episode is similar to a chapter in an edited book, with the writer/s and director credited as the authors, and the Executive Producers is the place of where Editors would be.
  • Add the designations (Writer), (Director), and (Executive Producer) after creators' names as appropriate.
  • Add the season and episode details in brackets after the episode title.
  • Add the description of [TV series episode] in square brackets after the season/episode information.
  • Finish the reference with the name of the production company.
TV series episode

Writer Surname, Initial. (Writer), & Director Surname, Initial. (Director). (Year, Month Day). Title of episode (Season X, Episode X) [Description]. In Initial. Executive Producer Surname (Executive Producer), Title of series. Production Company.

 

Reference list example:

Cain, W. (Writer), & Robinson, L. (Director). (2020). Eye of the needle (Season 1, Episode 14) [TV series episode]. In S. Schechter, S. Sklaver, C. Fedak, & G. Berlanti (Executive Producers), Prodigal son. Warner Bros. Television; FOX Entertainment.

 

Need to quote from a video or audio content?

 

APA allows the use of a 'timestamp' for both direct quoting and paraphrasing from these sources.

Check the time that the quote starts and use that in place of a page number, e.g. (Moorhouse, 2015, 1:13:20). Here the 1:13:20 refers to 1 hour 13 minutes 20 seconds into the film, where the quote we want starts.

Hours/minutes/seconds follows the pattern H:MM:SS

Minutes/seconds follows the pattern MM:SS

Where you are only using seconds (e.g. for a short clip), use a zero at the front, e.g. 0:39 for 39 seconds.