Our Film Certificate

We spent a lot of time during lesson thinking about the certificate for our film opening. While deciding, we thought it was important to look at the BBFC certificate system and my research questionnaire to ensure we chose the right certificate.
The current BBFC system is:

• Uc (Universal Children) Suitable for all, but especially for children under 4. Used for video only. Retired in 2009.
• U (Universal) Suitable for all. (The board states that while they cannot predict what might upset a particular child, a "U" film should be suitable for audiences aged 4 and older).
• PG (Parental Guidance) General viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. (It is the board's policy that movies rated "PG" should not disturb a child of about 8 years of age or older; however, parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset young or more sensitive children).
• 12A (12 Accompanied/Advisory) Recommended for 12 years and older. People under 12 years must be accompanied by an adult.
• 12 Recommended for 12 years and older. Anybody under 12 may see it, as long as a parent or guardian says they can. Nobody younger than 12 may rent or buy a "12" rated video.
• 15 Suitable only for 15 years and older. Nobody younger than 15 may see a "15" film in a cinema. Nobody younger than 15 may rent or buy a "15" rated video.
• 18 Suitable only for adults. Nobody younger than 18 may see an "18" film in a cinema. Nobody younger than 18 may rent or buy an "18" rated video These films may contain extreme gore/violence and/or sexually explicit content.
• R18 (Restricted 18) To be shown only in specially licensed cinemas, or supplied only in licensed sex shops, and to adults that are older than 18 years old. These films contain sexually explicit, pornographic content.

We looked back at my research questionnaire and at about 3:20 the comments about certificates start. About 53% of people surveyed said that they would rather watch a 15 rated film, which was by far the most preferred certificate in this research.

Mounsey drew up an interesting perspective that, though he would rather watch an 18, he mostly watches 15's because companies won't sell enough cinema tickets if rated 18.

So after deep thought, we decided that a rating of 15 would be appropriate for our film as it contains use of strong language and therefore could be considered inappropriate for persons 12 or under, however even though there may be gore and/or violence throughout the film if we were to make it feature length, it would only be moderate and there is also no use of sexually explicit content and therefore a certificate of 18 would not be necessary.

It also means that if our opening were to become a feature length film, it could be viewed by a wider audience and consequently would be more of a box office and general success.

Vlog 8 - Finally Refilming

Film Review: Untouchable

In lesson today we watched Untouchable (2012). This film was entirely in French and provoked a great deal of emotion from the audience at the end of them film.
Two juxtaposing men; Philippe who is an eccentric Parisian millionaire and quadriplegic and Driss who is a strapping immigrant from a broken home, form an unusual yet heart warming friendship as Driss becomes Philippes carer and bond over the twos vastly different lives and cultural opinions, inevitably at the expense of jokes using stereotypes.
Philippes friends start to warn him of Driss' possible intentions but as he dismisses this, the two become inseparable and creates an optimistic moral that if you give a man responsibility, he will act appropriately upon that despite stereotypes.
Like 'Arrival' (2016), the plot is not necessarily linear. We had been told the film was about disability and the non-linear scene sequence caused a sense of insecurity in us, as we presumed the fast car scene would be the cause of Philippes disability. Though as we later find out, we were wrong and changes our emotions, but for the better.

Continuity Mistake - Refilming

In our first feedback video of the whole class, Ms Foster mentions that the character that Zoe plays, the protagonist, lifts up the pictures and the letter, then puts them in the box. The issue was that she picks up a couple leaves with the pictures but when she puts them in the box, there are no leaves.
So we decided to reshoot it so keep the continuity. We're going to reshoot on Tuesday and i ensured that there are still leaves at the park.

 

Second Draft Feedback

Today, we showed my two friends our next film opening draft, after correcting all the editing errors discovered in our last feedback. They didn't have anything to correct and they especially loved the establishing shots. Doing this, we are able to get feedback from media laymans who are also in the age range of our target audience - showing that if our film opening was a full feature length film, it could be quite successful with our audience.

Class Feedback

On Wednesday, we showed a draft of our film opening to our whole media class in order to receive feedback. We got a lot of positive feedback but also, received a bit of criticism. For example, in the flashback cuts to my character; you could slightly hear me speak - something that we couldn't hear on the MAC. We were told to adjust the title placement so that it wasn't right at the beginning and to make the police sirens more realistic.

As a result, we layered a couple more different police siren noises onto the original sound to make it seem like there were more than one car chasing her. We ensured to completely mute the video sound of me talking and moved the title onto a different establishing shot that was a couple more seconds into the opening.

Doing this class feedback was really helpful because they gave us a new perspective on our opening and enabled us to see errors that we had failed to see ourselves. We were also enabled to get feedback from a vast amount of people, consequently identifying more corrections ergo ensuring we get the best quality opening possible.