British Board Of Film Classification

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was set up in 1912 and since it has been classifying cinema films, and DVD's when the Video Recordings Act came about in 1984 in the UK. The 1984 act was passed by Parliament and the act required all 'video works' these include video games, TV programmes and films, which were then stored on to a electronical device which is then to be classified.

DVDs are normally viewed by one examiner especially when the watching the DVD release of a cinema film that has already been classified. The examiners focus on the issues such as drugs, horror, language, discrimination, nudity, violence, sex and sexual violence. Context, tone and impact is also considered.s the decision is checked again by the senior examinery two examiners whom use the guidelines that are provided.

There are six classification sections that films are placed into before release, one of them are not as well known or often used.

U stands for Universal. This means that the film should be suitable for any ages over four years old. However it is not possible to know what a child may get upset about therefore the films are positive with no reference to language or violence. It is also suitable for nursery children to be watching on their own as well.

PG is abbreviated for Parental Guidance. The film is general however some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. Children of any age may watch the film unaccompanied however the film should not disturb a child of eight or nine years old. It depends on whether the children's parents allow their children to watch these films as the younger children are more sensitive so they may get upset about the content.

Films with this class certificate means that again nobody under the age of 12 can watch the film only for those aged 12 and over. Although these films may not have sexual references, strong violence etc some material may upset the parents as they think it is not suitable for their child(ren). The 12A film group means children younger than 12 years old can watch this film however they have to be accompanied by an adult.

A 15 rated classification means no-one younger than this age state can watch a film of an age of 15, neither are they allowed to buy or rent a film of this age. Films within this category usually contain strong words, sexual references, strong violence and perhaps illegal substances.

The 18 film classification means that nobody younger than 18 is able to watch the film in a cinema or able to rent/ buy an 18 rated film. This may be due to language, strong violence, sex references or use of drugs. In my opinion 18 is the correct age for this classification as it is the start of becoming an adult and since an individual can drive, drink alcohol and go to clubs so being able to watch films with sexual activity and violence is acceptable. For example Halloween is a film with the classification age of 18.

The R18 classification is a category that is not used on a regular basis it is a legally restricted classification. This is because it has explicitly throughout which consist of sex, strong fetish material involving adults. These films may only be shown to adults in specially licensed cinema or the video works may be supplied to adults only in licensed sex shops.

If I was to give my film; The Book Of Leviticus an age certificate it would be a 15, this is because the genre is a thriller and the entire film will be set around murderers so it would be violence and due to the main character being a lady of the night there will be sexual reference. A 12A would be too young as it can be jumpy and twisted which would confuse the children; it is not a positive film with no bad language etc. Although all these bad things are not shown in the opening they would continue or happen if the entire film was filmed. An 18 certificate would be not be suitable as there is not gore and extremely brutal violence, it is mild especially the opening.

The Book of Leviticus

We decided to do a thriller movie for our AS media coursework. We had a variety of choices however some were lacking key features for production; therefore, we chose our fourth idea following the murders of sacrilegious people whom the vicar believed committed immoral sins and so he took the liberty of punishing them accordingly. We felt this would be the best idea to do as we believed the storyline was effective in several ways and we could get involved to perform to the best of our ability.

The Book of Leviticus would begin with our production titles naming our company before fading out into an establishing master shot of a church whilst an organ plays as the congregation exit after the evening service. A forward track is used to approach the doors as the organ abruptly stops and the door will open and a vicar and female leaves. A dissolve of her walking would occur to show the transaction of her outfit from day to night as she becomes a lady of the night. As this transition occurs the ambient sounds of her heels will change into the sound of crunching twigs and forest creature sounds. A horizontal tracking, side viewed showing the vicar walking late at night. An over the shoulder shot is used to illustrate the vicar noticing and identifying his daughter dressed provatively, in an unsafe environment, with money held in her hand. Father Goodman would begin to follow his daughter slowly as suspicious, incidental music plays. A high angle would show the proxemics between them as she walks into the forest with him following. A point of view will show him grabbing her arms as she turns to face him and realises he is her father. A black out occurs before the scene changes. Ambient sounds of nature are heard as we witness a jogger in the forest in the early hours. They notice a laying body down and a scream is heard before a cut to emergency services sirens and the flashing lights upon the screen.

Title screen appears where we will have the image of the pages within the book magnified and focused in on a certain quotes before the book closes to show the title of the book.

After the title screens we will cut to the police station where the officers will be discussing the incidents of further killings which have happened similarly to Addison Goodman's murder case. We cut to the knock of a door before the vicar opens where the police reveal his daughters murder. The vicar acts shocked before the police come in and describe the case to him. We cut to a service where the vicar is present looking at the congregation. One by one certain members would disappear from the shot, this is implying him killing them off, one by one. A funeral of one of his victims is shown as he comforts their family members - the officers are present and confront him silently about the last sighting of his most recent victim, whom was last seen in the church before their body was found. He becomes aggravated and aggressive towards the officers as they are beginning to suspect him and figure the case out. The officers are seen within the station with their evidence against him, and the proof of his crimes. They leave to arrest him. Upon arrival they see him fall and is pronounced dead. They take the vicars body to the morgue however when they return to do an autopsy his body is missing. We cut to him walking down a street at night as the

titles come up.

Characterisations

Name: Addision Goodman
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Occupation: Daughter of priest and prostitute by night
Appearance/ Costume: Casual clothing by day mainly dark colours and covered. By night she dresses very provocative.
Characteristics: Daughter of priest, secretive, innocent during day, deceitful, beautiful and cleaver.

Name: Father Goodman
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Occupation: Priest and mass murderer
Appearance/ Costume: Priest cloak, wears cross necklace and Caucasian
Characteristics: Very religious and devotes his life to serving Christ, even with extremities such as taking the life of his own daughter due to her sinning. He dislikes people whom fake their religion as they continuously commit the same sins after attending confession and asking for his and God’s forgiveness.

Opening Plot Ideas

Romantic Comedy Idea

Characters: Independent attractive business woman and flirtatious attractive male

Story-line: In this idea the woman is the protagonist and she is an independent, strong business woman who finds it hard to fall in love. Whereas the antagonist is the complete opposite; a ladies’ man who finds it hard to stay away from the opposite sex, however he is similar to the protagonist as he does not want to be in a serious relationship. It is a pre sequel title where the titles come in after the last shot of them both answering the phone saying to their friends that they don't want a serious relationship.

Location: Busy city and in an apartment.

Thriller Idea

Characters: One female antagonist and lots of everyday people

Story-line: The antagonist is going to a school masquerade ball and everyone has friendly look masks to hold whereas the antagonist has a different kind, one that seems evil. She gets ready for the ball and holds her unusual mask to her face and enters the ball, POV is used to focus on certain people whom have similar characteristics. There is pause with a loud noise, sirens are then heard and the titles appear on to the screen

Location: School hall or a hired out venue.

Horror Idea

Characters: Babysitter, mentally disabled father and two children.

Story-line: This is about a father whom had been put into a mental institute when his two children were little, a couple of years later he escapes and comes back to the family home. The mother leaves for a date and keeps her children under care of a teenage babysitter. The dad is lurking around the home and plays with the children, his children act normal as they feel like he is no stranger. The children notify the babysitter that they are waving to their dad in the garden, the baby sitter looks and does not see anyone, she believes the children are playing games. However as she is watching t.v a figure is shown holding a knife.

Location: A family type home with a big garden; perhaps my own or another group member's.

Thriller Idea

Characters: Priest and daughter

Story-Line: The teenage daughter goes to church on a regular basis however one of the priests; her father sees her late at night, as a prostitute. This is frowned upon in the bible and in the eyes of the fathers. The priest feels very strongly about church members obeying the rules of the bible and gets very violent. He kills his daughter as in his eyes it is a crime and it has embarrassed him. The body is found in the morning by a local resident and is reported to the police, it then becomes a serious investigation as many people are being killed by this priest.

Location: Church, Dosthill Park

Researching Genres Through A Questionnaire

Lauren, Daniel and I combined our thoughts to create an initial idea for our 2 minute opening sequence for a horror, thriller or rom-com movie. We devised a questionnaire in the attempt to find out what audiences prefer these genres of movies to include. We brought our results together and created pie charts for each of our questions to view the audience’s favourites and then compared them with the overall statistics from http://statisticalyearbook11.ry.com/?id=82790 to make our final decision for the genre we are going to use.

Our opening question was a multiple choice between which genre of movies they prefer and why they are attracted more to this genre. We also asked why they prefer this specific genre over the others, to understand what makes them biased towards enjoyment for their chosen genre.

After this we asked their favourite movies within these genres to see specifically which type of plot the audiences prefer within the vast genre choices. This question would help with us devising our own storyline which appeals to the majority.

Question three was their associations with their preferred genre. Answers to this were quite simple yet gave us a deeper insight into the simplicity of the escapism they desire from watching films like this.

Our fourth question was which colour schemes they expect on the title screen to help promote the genre of movie they are viewing.

We asked which music they assume will be heard at the beginning of their chosen favourite genre so that we can live up to these expectations whilst taking on our 2 minute opening sequence.

After this we interrogated them about what attracts them to watch movies so that we can include them to ensure our opening sequence is enjoyed by audience when they view it.

To help with which incidental music we will play at the beginning of our own production of the opening of a movie, we decided asking which music was expected was a crucial element to making our production blend in well with the style of chosen genre we choose to work within.

Question six was us asking what attracts you most to the specific genre you enjoy more than the others - this was so we could try and incorporate these elements, if possible, into our opening two minute production so that if it were a full movie we would have an engaged audience.

After noticing actors and actress' attracted some of the audiences we wanted to know which typical characters they expected the actors and actress' to play.

After knowing all of this we needed to know which location these performers would be acting the movie so we used the locations the audiences expect to find this out. The results here were fairly consistent as the majority picked a specific place with one or two fluctuations and differing opinions.

We decided we needed to know which type of opening the audiences preferred to see, regardless of the genre they prefer. This will help our group decide which opening we would like to incorporate into our piece so that it has the most effective opening possible.

One final thing we thought we needed to include was which props we would use within our piece for each style of genre. We asked the people who were most likely to watch the style of movie to tell us what they expect within the movie which will be quite prominent so we could try and include it.

We gathered our results up and made pie charts to show our results better and within specific groups per genre.

Our Statistics From Our Questionnaire Data

Genre Questionnaire

What genre do you prefer and why?

Rom comedy, Horror, Thriller

___________________________________________________

What are your top favourite films of this genre?

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What do you associate with this genre and why?

__________________________________________

What colour schemes do you expect to see in the opening text of the genre chosen?

___________________________________________________________

What music do you expect to hear at the start, before the scene starts (in the genre you have chosen)?

___________________________________________________________

What attracts you to a film?

____________________________________________________

What are the typical characters associated with this genre?

___________________________________________________

What is the best location you would expect from the genre chosen?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What type of opening do you prefer?

Titles then scene starts, scene starts then titles come in, master shot and titles

What props are linked with the genre you have chosen?

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Statistics For Thrillers, Horrors and Romantic-Comedy Movies

For our project we needed to find out statistics for three genres: horror, thriller and rom-com. To do this we used the statistics which the Statistical Year Book devised for every genre in 2010, in regards to their Box Office gross, to see which of our interested three rank most successful. The table we used from (http://statisticalyearbook11.ry.com/?id=82790) helped determine which genre we would incorporate.



As witnessed above, the horror genre produced a large amount of movies compared to the other two genres; however rom-com proved to gross an overall more even though their releases were the smallest amount. Thrillers appear to be the overall least appealing to audiences, due to their small amount of gross compared to the other two, making our group be more sceptical about the production a thriller, rather than one of the others, even though it produced an extra movie in regards to its place alongside rom-com's.