Final Cut

Final cut with everything- WAXED. from sophie dixon on Vimeo.

Evaluation 7

Looking back at your preliminary task what do you think you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In the progression from my pre-lim to the full product I feel I have learnt many things and this is reflected in the obvious improvement.

Just by looking at the pre-lim it shows how basic both our camera skills and editing skils were at the begining of this process and by comparing it to the final product we can see how much we have learnt about the research,shooting and evaluating.

When conducting the research it was clear that this would affect our product, I learnt a lot about the genre and the conventions used when making a film. We spent a lot of time researching real media texts from our chosen genre as well as looking at female main characters. The research was one of the most important aspects when looking at the progression from pre-lim to now. When we did our pre-lim due to time constraints we didnt have any time to plan. This meant that we had no storyboard or call sheet or treatment and we had very limited time to get shot variation due to bad time management. If we compare this to our final product we had more than one storyborad as the idea kept changing in the early stages and having changes made becuase of our audience feedback it meant our product would develop more at each stage. We could make sure the product was close to its best because we had the time.

If we look at the technical side of making the product we can see that with the pre-lim the editing was very basic, we had no soundtrack and hardly any transitions we didnt have time to create reshooting because of things such as not having the camera in the right place of having a unsteady shot. In comparison to the final product it is clear that we had developed a lot in regards to editing (using diffent transitions and titles from iMovie) and the use of sound (using garageband to create our soundtrack). Sound was one thing that we didnt particularly like in the pre-lim, it wasnt very good quality, we learnt how to use the boom mic which improved the quailty of the sound in the product.

The editing of the product was done to a much higher standard, this was partly due to being able to re-shoot after we have seen what does or doesn't work and we had to understand when to use fast-pace editing to create the desired effect, this we did not know when making the pre-lim. We also used a tripod to overcome the issue of a unsteady shot. Shot variation was another thing which we improved on a lot, in the pre-lim we had very limited shot variation with it mostly being shot-reverse-shot, in the product we had cut-away shots, close ups and establishing shots, more two-shots could of been done even thoguht shot-reverse-shot is good as it helps with exposition.

Audience feedback was a really good way of us testing our idea on people and being able to change it to make it better, by doing these improvement it shows how are product has progressed from our inital idea when we had to pitch the idea to the class and pick what we wanted to do (which we didnt do with the pre-lim) to the final product complete with idents.

Im many of the shots in our pre-lim the lighting is not very good which means seeing the characters is rather difficult, where as in the product we were able to make the insideof the salon very well light and in the treatment room we wanted a dark place to make it have a false sense of relaxation. The casting fo the pre-lim was done only by using the people in the group as due to bad time mamngement we didn't have time to do any casting, in the product we were able to get people who reasonably resembled the ideal characters. We also made it clear the costumes we wanted our characters to wear whereas in the pre-lim we just wore what we had on that day so it didnt look very realistic. The mise-en-scene of the pre-lim was not in our control we used a class-room that was free at the time, in the product we wanted to make sure we had the salon looking like it was new and clean, we also wanted to make sure things like the pad and the scissors were clearly in the shots. Another problem with the pre-lim was the continuity, Sophie walked through a door into one room but came through the door into another, this made the pre-lim look very amateur. The idents are another way of showing how our editing and computer skills have progressed as they are very good. Achieving verisimilitude was difficult in the pre-lim but it was also hard to achieve in the product especially when we had to re-shoot but we made it work.

Making sure that the individual roles were shown was hard as in the pre-lim we just worked together and didnt show who did what. Also making sure that we worked in a group with everyones views being discussed was hard as sometimes people had different ideas. One of the problems with the final product was getting everyone to commit with a day to shot as wel as getting the cast to be there aswel. It was also added pressure to make things to a good standard because we had other peoples grades as wel as our own to think about.

Evaluation 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In Research and Planning I used technology to help with my research into the genre and research different films.The internet was the technology i used most in this section, it was useful in accessing 'old media' such as books and articles from papers. The most obvious wedsite I used was blogger which is how I recorded our progress and showed my groups work. I also used different search engines such as google and bing to find our facts and look at different websites for research into the horror genre and into the different stereotypes of the genre. I also used the site IMDb for looking up budgets and box office figures of the films I deconstructed it was also good for checking up facts like the director of a film.. I used the scanner to upload the call sheets and storyboards so they could be uploaded also it was good to use to everyone in the group had copies.

When making the product the most important tool I used the digital camera to actually do the filming, this was one of the things which i feel was easiest. Another form of technology was email, I used this to email the picture of the location to the macs so we could upload the onto the blog, this helped us in being able to communicate with each other when we were apart. When making the podcast with used the recorder to make them then upload them to the blog, this was good because we could all have our imput.

We used the Macs to upload and edit our product, this is how many low budget real media texts are made so it was good that we had access to them even it we didnt have the same software because it helped us to learn about the way real media products were made.

We had certain programmes on the Macs which helped us to create our our product such as iMovie which is what we used to edit and software and put the different effects on it. This gave the product a real feel and when we edited the product together it was easy to use and understand the different tools. We also used this programme to make title screens.

Garageband was used to create our soundtrack, we used it to find the notes we wanted and overlay them and make a track that fitted with our film. 

LiveType was used to make our Idents, this was done by picking a background, adding text and adding sounds to creat a clips that was a few seconds long. All of these programmes were very helpful and few ago they would not of been available to students. 

In the evaluation I used many different wedsite to gain pictures, as well as using pictures and links from previous post on my blog.

Other forms of technology we used was youtude to get audience feedback and upload our roughcuts and idents. It made the process of getting audience feedback a lot easier than it would of been years ago. We also used sites such as Divshare and Scribd to upload our treatmeant and some of the idents as well as a USB to share information in the group. 

The forms that were particulary useful other than the internet search engines themselves was the iMovie it made the whole editing process a lot easier and I was suprised at how good a product we could get from such a basic programme. Along with garageband it helped make the finished product rather professional and look like a real amateur film.

Evaluation 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted/addressed our audience in several ways. Our target audience was 15-24 males and females with a secondary audience being slightly older and younger. We used narrative enigma in regards to the male character George and with katie and at the start you dont see her face to attract the audience and keep them interested. Also by have George as the first person on screen it makes the audience assume he is going to be the killer. We also used a false scare to attract the audience and also make our product 'fit' in with other films as this is a technique typical of the slasher genre. As previously said people most likely to watch are film are people from the same area which is yorkshire and by having the our cast with the same regional accents it helps the audience to identify with the cast although we had to make sure the product looks realistic so having a 17year old owning a salon is not so we had to make Katie look older then her actual age which was qite easy to create by making her quite heavily made up, this in turn also made her subject to the male gaze as well as Colette which should hepl reinforce our male audience. We wanted to have a a traditional 'scream queen' which was played by colette we wanted her to appeal to Laura Mulvey male gaze also we used suggested sexual content, when Colette gets into the tanning booth and drops the towel outside- we hoped this would help get a male audience. By having a female killer instead of the typical male we wanted to make the product appeal to a feminist audience and by putting a feminist spin on the genre we feel we could widen our potential audience. Katie was meant to be more like the 'final girl' then the 'scream queen'.

We wanted to have music that would help build up tension and create suspense so we used high ptich strings and notes that echoed each other to get the effect. An example of this is 'The Shining' it contains low notes that keep the audience in suspense as they are waiting for the next note but dont know when its going to come. "Repetitive high pitched notes in a common rhythm are now a staple in the horror industry. The movies have used these musical sections in reference to stabbings, especially the stabbing in Psycho. People have a fear of stabbing; stabbing is linked to the music, and now the music causes fear." Also we used our idents to keep the audiences attention, we wanted to make them look professional and to a high standard so that the audience would be impressed.

Evaluation 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our core target audience would be aged 15-24 both males and females. The secondary audience would be people with an interest in low-budget indie films or other media students. As we stated in an earlier post on classification we feel our film would get a 15 rating due to the nature of the film and the implications of the axe and some of the language that is used, at first when we were planning the story we knew we wanted to to target an audience similar to our own age so we knew what certain things we would have to exclude for this to happen such as very strong language and extreme gore. We also thought that it would have this rating because many other films like ours have this rating such as psycho and the rating of that film was set by the bbfc so we looked at this films and others and decided what age our audience should be targeted at. We also looked at recent films to see if there was an audience for our film and a very recent film called Attack the block which was a action/sci-fi horror has certifiate 15. Obviously older people and people younger than our target audience are going to watch our film as many people older than 24 have an interest in amateur indie films. Because our film is only an opening with a very small budget it is very unlikely that it would be seen by any people overseas but if it did it maybe wouldn't be understood as well due to the accents of our cast (they are all from yorkshire). This is why it is targeted at british 15-24.


Targeting both a male and female audience was what we wanted at achieve because we want the film to be seen by as many people as possible.  We wanted to include a strong female character which we did by having a female killer, this would appeal to our female audience as well as having a female "scream queen"   to appeal to our male audience as part of the "male gaze". Middle class could be another secondary audience for the film because of the setting and the characters we use, although Yorkshire is typically seen as having stupid working class our film is set in a very middle class area and our character speak with quite 'posh' yorkshire accents. Also the soundtrack is set to appeal to our core audience as following many other 15 rated film we used the soundtrack to create suspense and build up tension.

Evaluation 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In a perfect world we would want one of the biggest companies to distribute our film. Some of the most well know distribution companies like Warner Bros or Paramount but seeing as we are only indie film makers with little to no budget that doesn’t seem very likely.

Many big film companies have smaller companies they work with that are ‘independent’ the larger companies own shares in the smaller companies.

I would pick a Company such as New Line Cinema because they have distributed other horror such as ‘Nightmare on Elms Street’ and its sequels. After doing some research I found that New Line doesn’t distribute outside the U.S but it collaborates with other companies such as Entertainment Film Distributors. They distribute New Line films in the UK, they distribute independent films and have distributed films in the horror/slasher genre such as ‘American Psycho’ and ‘Cherry Falls’. They are known for the distribution of the ‘Lord of the Rings Trilogy’

Another example of a Company that could distribute our film would be Warp X. Warp X is a subsiduary of Warp. They have been working with the UK Film Council and Film 4. Their joint objectives as set out by the UK Film Coucil and Film4 is; | To develop a more integrated and cost-effective model for the development and production of low-budget films by accessing a core team of production, financing and business affairs expertise and taking into account the cultural and commercial needs of the UK film industry.To provide an opportunity for and to encourage established filmmaking talent to reinvest their expertise in the talent of the tomorrow, both in front of and behind the camera.They are a UK independent distribution company. They have distributed films such as ‘Donkey Punch’ in 2008. But are most well-known for thier £1.5 million budget 'This is England' 2007.

Evaluation 2

How does you media product represent particular social groups?

We only have 3 characters in our opening so that narrows done how our media product as a whole represented particular social groups.

Katie- Killer. She played the role as a killer.

We decided you to make our villain/ killer a countertype of the general convention of a killer in horror. We wanted to out a feminist spin on the killer stereotype and by having a strong female who has the power to kill we feel we have target that stereotype and broken it. Katie is the opposite of the typical brunette in horror. We wanted to represent our killer as being a pretty, very  done-up young woman who is slightly twisted. But  us being amateur film makers we could get our ideal killer of the right age so we used a teenage girl but hid her face until the very end. We want her to be quite young because of our target audience 15-24, this would help the audience to keep interested in the film. It is just typical to have pretty women on television especially in horror films because the of the male audience. Like all our cast our killer is Caucasian, this wasn’t does purposely for any reason I believe it is just representative of the area we live in as it is majority a Caucasian  community and we used what actors we could. Our killer seems to be middle class this is based on her accent, she doesn’t have a strong Yorkshire accent; her clothes, she is wearing a typical salon workers uniform but she is wearing nice shoes and has nice nails and also the location, it is supposed to be her salon that is set in a middle class village in Yorkshire. By looking at this I would say she represents the middle class. Her class isn’t that obvious to the audience in our text. Katie’s nationality is obvious British from Yorkshire. A stereotype of Yorkshire is stupid, dumb. Katie doesn’t that stereotype because she is a rather successful business woman. We chose to dress Katie in as ‘Gender Neutral’ clothes as we could, plain white trousers and black high-neck top. We didn’t want Katie to be seen as a subject of the male gaze. Also looking at Judith Butlers idea that gender is ‘performativity’ that we learn to be a certain gender and things like what we wear and how we look after our selves is learned. We wanted Katie to be seen as a masculine female the countertype of the ‘scream queen’ or ‘girlie-girl’.  Katie’s sexuality hasn’t been shown to be either homo-sexual or hetero-sexual so the automatic assumption from the audience will be hetero-sexual.

Colette- female victim ‘Laurie’



Example of Sream Queen for Psycho



We want to portray Colette as a ‘scream queen’. Ideally we would of liked her to of had much more blonde hair but I think we still get her across as the ‘dumb blonde’ who is very cheerful as ditzy. Colette was also subject to the ‘male gaze’ she is pretty and gets killed off very early one and serves no real importance to the story line. Colette is playing I younger woman/old teenager. This fits with the story of a younger girl going for her leg waxed it seems realistic (verisimilitude). Again Colette is Caucasian which like a said before just represents our resources. Colette being female is very important as it shows we are not only following some of the conventions of horror but that we understand them. Colette represents and middle class maybe even upper middle class because she has an accent that is typical of and highly educated person of that class. Also when we think about her role, its normally middle class that would be going to get their legs waxed and tans especially in the economic climate. As with her other cast mates no emphasis has been put on Colette’s sexuality it is something that the audience would really notice that much during this short opening, but things such as her talking to George and maybe trying to flirt with him could signify she is hetero-sexual. We dressed Colette in a rather short dress. We made her hair wavy and down, typically this makes her seem middle class but she is wearing tights to make her look more middle class.

George- male suspect

We put a George character in the film so that the audience will think he is the killer. Obviously this isn’t the case but we only find that out right at the end of the opening. Ideally he would be an older man but we could find any available actors. We wanted an older character so we could provide more anchorage he is the killer by facial hair. Having the ‘fake killer’ with dark hair and thick eyebrows are common in horrors because blond males are normally seen as the ‘hot jocks’ from American movies I feel this idea has worked its way into horrors as well. George’s appearance as well as accent helps to re-enforce the class of all the characters. George is rude to Colette, this is slightly playing to the stereotype of Yorkshire people being rude and it could also signify to the audience that George isn’t middle class like Katie and Colette. George’s sexuality is questioned in the film because he is going to a salon and there is a stereotype of homo-sexual men going to salon. We tried to countertype this by having George dress in dark clothes have unkept hair.

We made other choices when considering representation and some choices were out of our hands for example the age of characters and having any physically disabled in our opening, were wernt able to include any because our location didn’t have wheelchair access neither did we have the resources.

Evaluation 1

Evaluation 1

New Ident- Distribution

We decided to change the name of our Distribution to 'illusion'. It sounded much better then Boredshore or any of the other idea we came up with.

Ident- Production

This is the Ident for our Production Company. 'Bricolage Productions'.

SD- Audience Types

Audience types

Core audience: We are certifying out film as a fifteen due to violent conduct although there are no sexual references in the opening. So the audience viewers will be 15-24.
Secondary audience: People who may still be potential audience even though they do not fit within the 15-24 age gap they may just be general horror film fans or have an inertextual reason for viewing (Links to other films being for an older audience) or crosses between texts/two or more other films such as someone filing their nails like Freddie Cruger in A Nightmare on Elm street or have an actor/actress prefernence as their reason to view. Finally character names that relate intertexually to other films such as Laurie in Psycho which has been recycled in other horrors.

General Conventions of i am legend

I am legend (Francis Lawrence,2007) is a post-apocalypic science fiction film
Warner Brother Pictures- Distrubtion
Overbrook Entertainment- Producing

-The film starts with non-diagetic sound during the titles which is the voice from the television in the next shot.
-Narrative Enigma
-Exposition is provided by a flash-back of a news report.
-Flash-back used to give the audience the preferred reading.
-Black out with non-diagetic signifies times lapse.
-Establishing shot shows the location(New York City). With writing layed on top to signify a time lapse.
-Panning shots also show the location
-Over exaggerated diagetic sound.
-Close up of weapon- an important object as it shows that action is in this film.
-Close up of main character (protagonist) and then follows this character.
-Exposition is provided by the clothes and mannerisms of the protagonist as he is there only person in most of the film.
-Narrative- Such as in Todrovs theory with the 3 stages;
•As there is a flash back at the start there is 2 two sets of equilibrium. The first is the old EQ is before the cure for cancer is found, the dis-EQ is when the cure is found and the new EQ is when everyone turns into zombie-like creature. The second set of equilibriums starts with the new-old EQ where will smith is the last survivor, the new-dis EQ is when he meets another survivor and has to sacrifice himself to save her and the cure and the new-new equilibrium is when the new survior leaves with the cure and everyone is saved.

SD- Titles and Credits

Titles and credits mainly appear in white text on a black background to signify seriousness of Horror genre although their are many others that dont and tend to use Bold red text to signify blood also many horrors have the titles intergrated into the opening scenes with the shopts in the background and titles obviously in the foreground. Jennifers body is a counterpart of the majority of preferred reading having the title in a pink swirly font more like a chick flick or romantic comedy although the pink font could signify a final girl (polysemic.) Although usually the characteristics are endlessly recycled although this doesnt seem to be entirly the case for titles and credits. Halloween uses a bold orange font which could provide a reading of a comical genre although the shots in the background provide anchorage that is is a horror such as a pumpkin carved into a wierd/scary face.

MA- Shooting Problems

Due to the very bad weather we were unable to shoot the outside parts of our opening because we want to croos cut with some of our previous footage which we already have shot when the weather was clear.
We will have to shoot the outside parts on tuesday also.

EM- Film Opening Research

General Codes and Conventions of Film Openings

In looking at a range of various film openings, there are various elements which are applied. 

Firstly, the camera shots/angles which are used play a big part in setting the tone of the film. I have noticed that in horror films the camera angles are either high angles, panning shots or point of view shots. For instance in Halloween, a point of view shot is used which is focused on a sub-urban house. To give a dramatic effect the camera is not still but it is shaking in order to build up tension and suspense but also to show the vulnerability of the victims inside the house. Shots like these are used to create narrative enigma for the audience as they do not see the killers face straight away. Also, another example of a point of view shot is in Jennifer's Body. Like Halloween, there is a point of view shot of the supposed "killer" which shows the house in the opening scene. Due to this trend, point of view shots are used to set the scene and to provide details on the background, social status and the overall feel of the neighborhood.


Secondly, sound also contributes to the film openings as it not only provides anchorage for the genre, but it sets the mood for the first opening minutes. For instance, in 5ive Girls, there is a diagetic sound of an organ which sets the tone of film as it provides a haunting and oppressive tone. However, sound can also portray the time period as we see in Hell Night. Diagetic sound is being played from a radio and it is typical rock music sung by a woman, and this therefore signifies the time period. In the opening sequence for Halloween, the non-diagetic music is fast paced with a combination of slow string notes which brings an eeriness. 

Thirdly, I have seen throughout various slasher films that they each have a tint to the lens. This blue tint is used to signify that it is night time in most of the films. Most of these have blue tints such as  Bride of Chucky, Peeping Tom and Halloween. However, some use red or orange tints to signify danger such as A Nightmare  On Elm Street. 

EM- Film Opening Conventions

Film Openings

We normally expect film openings to set the entire tone of the film. However, there are dynamic choices which we normally see and expect and there are factors which we do not expect.


In the opening sequence there is normally an establishing shot to signify the time period and location. In some cases, the opening sequence is just of the location and we are not introduced to any characters. However, in most cases the audience sees the victim but the identity of the killer is hidden. This identity is kept hidden by use of tracking shots and point of view shots. In the film opening, there is not immediate action which takes place, but there is a build up and a tension that rises to keep the audience in suspense.


In film openings, we are normally given exposition which sometimes provides the time period/date and the place. On the other hand, this exposition does not always have to be the place or time, but through the dialogue. In the opening, through this dialogue we are introduced to the characters  and therefore we can pre-judge. Exposition can also be used to provide anchorage such as in Halloween the words 'Halloween Night'.

Storyboard 2- 'Waxed'

IMG_0002_NEW2nd storyboard part 2 2nd Storyboard part 3 2nd storyboard part 4
2nd storyboard part 5
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MA & SD- Soundtrack.

Although we have been concentrarting on our idents recently to get them the best we can we are starting to think about soundtrack now we have previously decided that we're going to use Garage Band and we hope to create something along the lines of what is in Paranormal Activity on the shot when we realise the customer is missing aswell as the owner (Narrative enigma) as to who is the killer at 0:54 in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SSc3bmdd8o
at this point the date and time could appear on screen as often in serious films and horrors this is the case such as in halloween, paranormal activities one and two and peeping tom etc which we will be discussing in a Vodcast on Tuesday.

We have decided we dont want a song playing all the way through like in some openings. We want to have some diagetic sounds but have them more exaggerated. For example we want to shot the muder weapon (axe) scraping along the floor and we want to have the sound of the salon door slamming.
By looking at horror opening we have noted that many opening do not have a song playing all the way through but rather short noises that create suspense. In Hell Night there was diagetic music playing as it was set at a party but this obviously doesnt fit with the context of our opening.
Many films such as Halloween and The Ring have a sound track thatas starts off rather slowly and then picks up. Its clear that a lot of high pitch notes and strings are used such as a piano and violins.

SD- Preshooting Adjustments to the storyboard

Preshooting Adjustments to the storyboard

We will be re-shooting on either saturday or sunday afternoon this weekend and be getting plenty of coverage and shot variation that we can edit successfully. We have made some minor changes to our storyboard recetnly so we will be adding a new one on soon.

The changes we have made are to the ending of the opening as we had problems shooting the violent scenes as it is based in a salon we wanted the murder to happen when the victim got out of the sunbed and would be brutally murdered with an axe although we had to think about how we would do this due to clothing of the victim as normally when using a sunbed you dont wear anything or wear paper knickers. After thinking about it we decided that Colette (victim) will get into the sunbed as it is an upright one she will be wearing a towel and the towel will be placed over the door of the sunbed and Katie (the killer) will take it from her then when colette comes out of the sunbed we will have a point of view shot of Colette and we will hear her scream then the screen will go black. Finally we will have a low angle shot of Colettes leg sticking out of the sunbed cubicle with blood dripping down it and onto the floor. Before the killing we are going to have a high angle shot looking down at the seat in the waiting room where George (other customer) was earlier seating providing narrative enigma as to who is the killer in the opening.

SD- Idents

Idents

We are currently creating our ideas we obviously need two one being for production and one for distribution. We had to think on the spot and came up with two names, one being Cliffhanger productions but we found that it has already been used http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=cliffhanger+productions so we decided to play around with it and change it slightly to 'Cliffanger' productions. We changed our distribution company  from 'Boredshore' because when we were desinging our idents we thought bricolage made more sense.
For our distribution company we decided to go with 'Bricolage' because we hadn't heard it before and it was kind of out last resort if we couldnt think of any other ideas. We have now started to produce the 'Bricolage' ident which will appear in brick on screen with white text,with harsh font.

ALL- Update on problems with shooting

Update to Casting

We are supposed to be filming this weekend but problems with the location have let us down, we are going to have to reshoot our outdoor footage today and then do the inside filming either monday or tuesday as the woman that owns the salon is away at the moment therefore we cant get the key to get access to the salon. If this affects our cast on the day of filming we will have to re cast which will be stressful as the due ate for our work is friday.

MA- Classification

As we previously said in our treatment we are aiming for a 15 rating on our opening.  After looking at the BBFC website we still think that our film fits with their 15 criteria.
The reason we have gone for a 15 rating rather than a 12 is because the BBFC states that classification is stricter on video works and we feel that the violence we imply is quite strong. The BBFC have this view on horror;

Horror

The use of frightening elements which might scare or unsettle an audience is part of a long tradition of story telling and film making. Many children enjoy the excitement of scary sequences, but, where films are targeted at a younger audience, classification decisions will take into account such factors as the frequency, length and detail of scary scenes as well as horror effects, including music and sound, and whether there is a swift and reassuring outcome.

Older audiences often pay to see horror films because they like being frightened or shocked and such works are classified at an appropriate category to ensure that the young and vulnerable are protected from too intense an experience.

We feel that our film although we are trying to build up tension throughout we dont show any violence till the end which is a very short sequence and we do not show any gore but let the audience use their imagination.

The BBFC's criteria of violence only changes slightly between 12 and 15 ratings.

Violence- 12 RATING

Moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if justified by the context. Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and discreetly indicated, and must have a strong contextual justification.

Violence- 15 RATING

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable.

There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.


When looking at the criteria for 18 they say: In the case of video works (including video games), which may be more accessible to younger viewers, intervention may be more frequent than for cinema films.

SD- BBFC Information

BBFC Information

Source: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/15-2

Suitable only for 15 years and over

No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work.

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’). The strongest  terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity

Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely  to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

Theme

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.