Creating a movie database - linking in actors

[bwmwilson]

I just completed a short and very basic database class and I want to create my own movie database for managing movies on my home computer. I am having a hard time finding the best way to add in actors to the database so that later on I can search by actors easily. I am sure it is easier than I think and I am overlooking something. So far I made an actor table and tried to create a relationship to the main movie table and it seemed to cause problems. I've also tried just having an actor field in the movie table. I know that how I have it setup now I can create a query using "*name*" and it will pull up any movie that has that name in the actor line but that does not seem very effective. I am looking for any suggestions on a better way to go about doing it. The end result is I want to be able to have a query where I can type in an actors name and it pulls up all their movies without having to use special characters or anything of that sort. Thanks in advance.

[June7]

Consider:

tblMovies
MovieID
MovieName
Director
YearRelease

tblActors
ActorID
LastName
FirstName
Birthdate
etc.

tblMovieActors
MovieID
ActorID

[bwmwilson]

Something like what is attached? If so the instructor touched on this for assigning students to a class with tables like this setup but never made it clear on how to get them to work/populate right.

[June7]

Use form/subform arrangement for data entry. Options:

1. main form bound to movies and subform bound to MovieActor with combobox to select actors

2. main form bound to Actors and subform bound to MovieActor with combobox to select movies