Film Certificates

According to the BBFC:
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ - British Board Of Film Classification



Certificate 15

Theme
A 15 certificate rated film always has a theme, but must be suitable to the audience. Hence fourth no theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate to 15 year olds.

Language
Language is also infrequent, with a few references to strong language, and the strongest language is only justified if it is in context. Continued aggressive use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity
Nudity is allowed in sexual context, but no strong detail is shown. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context in a 15-certificate film.

Sex
Linking with nudity, sexual content is also shown and is allowed to be portrayed, but with no strong detail. However there may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour.

Violence
Violence can be strong but with no focus or dwell on the infliction of pain or injury that has been caused. Scenes of sexual violence must be discreet and brief.

Imitable techniques
Dangerous techniques e.g. combat, hanging, suicide, weapons that are easily accessible and self-harming should not be focused on to much in imitable detail. Easily accessible weapons should also not be glamorized or portrayed as ‘cool’ in order to not influence the audience.

Horror
Very little gore is shown within horror, but strong threat and menace are permitted. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.

Drugs
Drugs and drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse in anyway and once again much no glamorize this or portray it in a way that looks acceptable in order not to influence the audience.



Certificate 18

BBFC findings show that at the age of 18 a person should be entitled to see whatever they wish as they are an adult. However exceptions include the promotion of dangerous acts (both to the individual and society). certificate 18s also cannot risk harm to individuals or to society, or involve sexual violence that could support sexual assault. Explicit sexual content is only shown if the context can justify it.


The difference between a certificate 15 and certificate 18 film.
The main contrasts between an 18 certificate film and a 15 certificate is the detail and the explicitness of the context. In a an 18, sexual content is much more explicit and violence is in much more detail. Strong gore and violence is more obvious, in a lot more detail and more extreme in an 18, along with the use of very strong language. Even so, in both a 15 and 18 the content must be justified by the context.



Our work will be targeted at the classification of a 15 certificate. This is because those producing it are of similar age but slightly older at 16 and 17 years old. This means that we will know what the age range expect from a Thriller film, what to include and also will have the knowledge to know what is acceptable to be shown in the film and what isn’t acceptable. Additionally the classification will not be lower than a 15 certificate due to the fact we plan to include some suspense and violence scenes and a use of a weapon, a knife, which fall into the classification of 15. Moreover we do not plan to include any scenes of a sexual nature or any nudity or drugs in our opening. Nether do we have any scenes of bad language. Likewise the use of violence and sex etc. must be justified in the context of the piece. This means we will not include scenes of a violent nature for no reason; it will be in context with the piece.

Rough Cut Analysis and Improvements

The feedback and opinions that we got back from our teacher on our rough cut were not what we expected. Out teacher said that our footage was good and had some effective shots but however some were not quite right.

We arranged the titles in out footage at both the beginning and at the end of our footage, which we at the time thought looked good. In spite of this our teachers comment on this was that it made our footage look unorganised, unprofessional and muddled and so he commented on how this should be changed and where we could place the titles in order to make it look much better.

We took our teachers opinions and suggestion into account and decided that he was right. So as a group we decided to change the titles and design. Our new idea was to introduce the titles over footage instead, in places where the audience won’t really need to focus on as we thought this would be much more effective and successful because if we position the titles where the main eye catching footage is this will reduce the suspense and tension that we are trying to create and also will distract the audience from watching the footage as they could be focusing on the titles. Consequently our final footage would not be considered an effective piece.


Further more here are a list of improvements, which we think should be made to our rough cut after our meeting with the teacher in order to produce an effective ad successful piece:


1. Include titles over footage - allows more footage
2. Editing needs to be adjusted on shoot number 2
3. Change shot of female to over shoulder shot
4. Include more footage of Male character?
5. Classic shot of female character falling over
6. Male Character could clear up after himself
7. Last 3 titles over black

Shoot 2

Our next shoot was on Saturday 24th; Filming went well. All shots that we decided were requiring to be redone where completed and in addition shots outside where completed also. Our teamwork worked well again with successful directing from Georgia, but however the extremely poor lighting conditions made these shots unusable. As a result group needs to rethink the location chosen and the timing of the shoot. Perhaps an earlier shooting time would work better when it was lighter. We have decided to relocate due to limited woods at the original chosen location. Next filming date is 1st February.

Shoot 1

On Wednesday 21st we managed to shoot all planed shots. Filming went quite well as we managed to get a variety of shoots and most shots where steady. Our group had good communication skills and worked efficiently together which meant that we were able to establish what we needed to change, what worked well and what needed to be improved. However there are still some improvements that could be made.

These improvements included the following:

We decided that our inside shots of the corridor leading up to the door should be re-done, as they were done in too dark conditions and we feel it would be more effective if the shots were completed with brighter lighting conditions. Linking to this, we also thought that the positioning of camera during close up of hands wasn’t quite right and should be shot from the opposite side to what we did it on. The groups directing of the actor wasn't effective at all. Better acting is required when subject was washing hands and more direction needs to be given. E.g. needs to scrub hands harder when trying to get the blood off his hands.

Our slow zoom at the beginning of our piece needed much improvement in terms of speed and smoothness. In order to achieve this we plan to use a different camera with an easier zooming control. Finally we would like to improve the tilt. We plan to redo this and hold it for longer at the top to make it more effective.


In addition to this, we had also originally chosen James Hall and Georgia Bowers as our actor and actress in our film. However, neither was available for when we needed to film, consequently we had to change last minute and use Jonny Furze and Abbie Jones, instead.

However so far we are up to date, we have completed most of the outside shots and have re-done our inside shots.