Film Classification-15

A 15 rated film has been classed as only suitable for 15 + years of age. No one younger than 15 can go to the cinema to watch a 15 rated film, or buy or rent a 15 rated film or video work of any kind.

Discrimination- On the whole the video work must not express discriminatory language or behaviour of any kind.

Drugs- Actual drug taking can be displayed however the film should not encourage or promote the miss-use of drugs. The miss-use of very easy accessible drugs and extremely dangerous substances such as areosals and solvents are unlikely to be acceptible.

Horror- A use of strong threat and menace are permitted, however if it's sadistic or of a sexual nature than this would not be allowed.

Imitable behaviour- Dangerous behaviour that can be picked up on such as hanging, suicide or self harm should not be broadcasted in detail which can be copied by nature. Easily accessible weapons should also not be glamorised.

Language- Frequent use of strong language is allowed for a 15 such as 'fuck'. Strongest terms of language may only be acceptible when its justified by the context, however aggressiveness and repeated terms of the strongest terms of language is unlikely to be acceptible.

Nudity- Nudity may be allowed within a sexual context however little detail should be expressed. No constraints exist when nudity is used in a non-sexual and educational context and expression.

Sex- Sexual activity can be expressed, but not in strong detail. Strong verbal references to sex may be allowed however strongest references are unlikely to be allowed unless justified by the context of the film. Films who have a primary purpose of creating sexual arousal or stimulation are not likely to be accepted.

Theme- No particular themes are phoibited as long as the treatment is acceptible for 15 year olds.

Violence- Violence can be strong, however it should'nt dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. Accesibly stronger gory images are not likely to be displayed. A strong and sadistic or sexualised violence are likely to be expressed as unnacceptable. Detailed and verbal references to scenes of a sexual violence can be portrayed, but any scenes of a sexual violence must be discreet and strong contextual justification must be portrayed to justify actions.

Suitable Only For Adults

The 18 logo on films means that people under the age of 18 are illegal to purchase the item, rent, or buy an '18' rated video/DVD.

With the consistant finding following the BBFC'S public consultations and the human rights act of 1998at '18' this means that it will not overide the main principle that adults are able to have the freedom to make their own choices of their own entertainment. Therefore exceptions are made in many of these areas:

• The material is done in the breach of a criminal law, or it has been commissioned for a criminal offence.
• where material is used in the production that the BBFC consider to be a risk or harm to individuals. This is shown through acts of behaviour and environment (society) Therefore any detailed format and portrayal of violent or dangerous decisions and acts, or the portrayal of extreme illegal drug use, which may be seen as public harm through health and morals. This may also be shown through the expression of sexual or sexualised violence, which might be delivered through the example of eroticise or endorse sexual assault. 
• The content in the film may also be shown with more explicit images of sexual activity. This doesnt have to be portrayed with justification in context of the film. These images may be found appropriate in 'R18' works, and in 'sex works' that are normally confined to that category.

When considering video works, such as video games, which may be more accessible to younger viewers, actual intervention may be more frequent than actual cinema films. 

Sex education at '18' - The sex material in the content is used to inform and educate in actual human sexuality delivering messages of safe sex, health, then explicit sexual activity may be permitted.

Sex works at '18' - The term sex works are productions that deliberately express a nature of and a primary purpose of sexual arousal and stimulation. Sex works that only contain this kind of material that may be simulated are generally tagged as an '18'. Works that contain clear images of real sex, strong fetish performaces,  sexually explicit animated images, or any other strong sexual images, which will be confirmed as an 'R18' cetegory. Material which is considered to be unacceptable in an 'R18' is also prohibited in a sex work title '18'. 


http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines

Analysis of thriller posters - the black swan

The black swan is a recent production directed by Darren Aronofsky. The thriller is sub-genre with drama and suspence. Starring in the film are Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, and Barbara Hershey. Star appeal is vital in posters to capture peoples attention. As a result all posters have the names of the most famous and popular starring actors names that would capture the audiences attention and arouse curiosity to watch the film. As the main character Natalie Portman is the centerpiece to the poster. This is vital as the film evolves around the story of Natalie's character and the posters includes clues to what the film will be about, but also builds up curiosity to make the audience want to watch it to find out her story. The poster shows us what appears to be a strong and confident young woman and the clue to ballet is in the title of the black swan, referring to the most famous ballet dance wildely known 'Swan Lake'. The crack across her face is evidence to show a breakdown of the character and may also show the dark side behind the grace trying to break free which is an important clue and intepretation to the plot line. A quote has been included in the poster "An extrodinary, intoxicating masterpiece, this is important because once the poster has captured your attention, you want to know weather its worth going to the cinema and paying to watch it, as a result brilliant quotes to describe the film will encourage you to go and watch. Especially strongly positive words like 'extraordinary', 'intoxicating' and 'masterpiece' which will build this sense that it's a must see movie. Taglines such as 'from the director of 'The Wrestler' and 'Requiem for a dream' also help to encourage people to watch the film, due to the fact that if they've seen films that the director has done before and they enjoyed them, they may be more encouraged to watch this one too. The colours in this poster are quite graceful, but they also show that things are not quite right, with the darkness, and the crack contrasting with the porceliene colours of the face and body. This helps to create the contrast of grace and darkness within the film. 'Black Swan' is a 15 certificate which is surprising as some scenes are quite dark. Despite strong sex, language, and bloody images' the rating has been given a 15 age certificate. The release date of the Black Swan according to wikipedia was December 3rd 2010. This poster is another example of intoxicating the viewer with a build up of interest without thelling them the release date.

characteristics and conventions mindmap

Analysis of thriller posters- Se7en

Seven, also stylised as Se7en, is a 1995 American thriller film. There are horror elements involved but its generally themed as a thriller. The film was directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The main characters are Brad Pitt an Morgan Freeman.

There is a major star appeal in this poster with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman both taking center stage and equality of importance within the poster. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are two major actors nationally, and this star appeal will draw followers of these actors to watch the film. The two actors are also known to star in action films, therefore peoples perseption of these character joining together shows there may be lots of action involved which is another way audiences will be attracted to this film.  A sepia type theme has been used for the colour of the poster, which creates this mysterious suspence in a diverse way from the steriostypical black and dark colours. It also gives this impression of a serial murder scene, such as dried and old rusty blood stains, which therefore gives a hint to the feel of the film. Taglines have been used down the middle of the poster of the seven deadly sins, this explains the title 'seven', a red mark, building tension of danger and blood, has been used to cross each of the deadly sins which gives us the idea that there's a race against time for the detectives ( brad Pit and Morgan Freeman ) to solve these crimes/murders, before the next one happens. The fact that they are situated in the middle is important for the composition as Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are situated on either side, which shows how the film is based around these seven deadly sins. Another important tagline which builds up on tension is 'Seven deadly sins. Seven ways to die', this helps to define part of the main story-line plot, and attracts the audiences attention to watch the film to find out what happens. The age certificate of 'Seven' is an 18, which is ideally situated to the film and appropriate to some of the scenes that may be found disturbing. The release date of Seven was the 22nd of September 1995. Interestingly the date is'nt portrayed on the poster which leaves the viewer in anticipation for when the film will be coming to cinemas.

Analysis of thriller posters- Case 39

Case 39 is a 2009 production directed by Christian Alvart. The Genre of the film is subdivided into horror and thriller. Major appearances in the cast are renee zellweger who stars as the main character alongside Bradley Cooper and Ian McShane. The release date was the 1st of october 2010.

This production Poster commercializes the film by giving off signals and hidden messages to capture the viewers attention and draw them in, to make them want to know what the films about . The thriller genre is depicted with the stereotypical lighting of darkness, and a glimmer of light casting shadows of light on the main features of the picture. The use of the star appeal of renee zellweger will capture peoples attentions as many people link her to rom-coms such as Bridget Jone's diary. As a result its clear that her role in this film will show a different side to her, and that will indulge the viewer to want to watch it. The use of the light is particularly important for the composition as it looks like the door is gradually opening giving the idea that something negative is about to come through, which is also expressed on the characters faces. A Tagline is used in the poster, 'some cases should never be opened' gives a small hindsight of what the films about, and also makes the reader want to watch it as it leaves them wanting to know the answers about the film. What i like about this poster is it expresses the hidden meaning of the film and doesn't give the plot away. For example the girl in this poster who's character is Lillith in the film, looks particularly vulnerable as if she needs protecting, which is also how we interpret her in the beginning of the film, however the contrast in character is revealed and it turns out she is not the victim, and people need to be protected from her. Renee's character is formed by her structure in this poster to show that she wants to protect Lillith and has a kind and caring nature- easily to be led astray by a little girl who appears to be innocent and abused by her parents.  The film is a 15 certificate due to the fact that there's a strong sustained threats throughout the film and disturbing scenes are prolonged and frequent. There is also strong bloody violence that requires the 15 certificate. The release date is followed after another tagline in the poster 'they'll never stop. October 1st', this is particularly significant because the tagline builds up anticipation for the release date. The tagline also builds suspence as a little message that gives you a tiny clue but a whole range of questions to make you want to watch the film to find out who, what, where, why, how? October is a good month for thrillers and horror films to come out because of the key event of Halloween happening in that partiular month that interests audiences to watch something scary and relating to that event. 

History of the thriller genre.

A thriller is a type of Genre for books, films and television that is based around key qualities that are closely associated and common conventions of the thriller genre.  Basically these conventions are of how we stereotypically view what a thriller should be, and how we already have this idea based in our head due to previous experiences of what we’ve already seen. The major key elements of what makes up a thriller are suspense, tension, excitement, shock and mystery. There are also primary sub genres that divide a thriller up into three categories: These are mystery, crime, and psychological thrillers.

Two particular categories of thrillers actually became popular after the assassination of President Kennedy, making political thrillers and paranoid thrillers popular. One of the best examples of a thriller are the Hitchcock’s movies, which involves a cover up of important information in the plot from the viewer to keep them guessing throughout, and the stereotypical fight and chase scene is an extremely particular and common method that occurs in all of the thriller subgenres.

A case study by Charles Derry (1988) identified six types of ‘thriller’ genres:

1.     Murderous passion- involving a husband, wife and a lover. One of them gets murdered. The motive for their crime is passion and greed. A particular example of a Murderous passion thriller is fatal attraction.

2.    Political thriller- associations of leaders of government conspiracy. A motive for the crime is power and domination over people. An example of a political thriller is the Bourne Identity series.

3.    Change of Identity- Where the character changes or conceals their identity- and deals with the consequences. The Motive is to hide their crime. An example of this type of thriller is Shutter Island.

4.    Psycho-traumatic- the main character is traumatised by past events, which causes him to commit a crime- trying to deal with traumatic events with past. One hour photo is a good example of this type of thriller

5.    Moral confrontation- the idea of good V’s evil. The Motive for this thriller is the fact that the evil wants to defeat the good. Examples are all superhero movies such as Batman, Spiderman e.t.c

6.    Innocent on the run- a hero is falsely accused and hast to escape- and prove innocence, the motive: The hero’s bosses want him/her out of the way

Common methods in the three sub genres

Crime thriller: ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings.

Mystery thrillers: investigations and whodunit techniques.

Psychological thrillers: mind games, psychological themes, stalking, confinement/death traps, horror-of-personality, and obsession.

Paranoid thrillers:  Conspiracy theories, false accusations, paranoia.

‘ A thriller is a villain-driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles that the hero must overcome’ Vladimir Nabokov (1981)

Characteristics: A genuine thriller is a film that provides thrills and can keep the audience on the edge of their seat with techniques such as cliff-hangers as the plot builds its way towards the dramatic climax at the end. The tension is usually created when the character(s) are placed in a menacing and threatening situation where their life may be endangered and a way of escaping seems impossible.

The setting to a thriller is usually based in an ordinary suburb or city however it has also been known to be set in a foreign city or environments such as the desert, Polar Regions and on the sea.

In frequent cases the heroes in the thriller are ordinary citizens unaccustomed to danger, however more common thrillers are actually based on men accustomed to danger such as police or detectives. Woman lead characters are also becoming increasingly common to being the hero of the film whereas beforehand it was often just men.

The thriller genre can often overlap into other genres such as the recent film ‘The Tourist’ (Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie) which is divided into Thriller and Comedy genres.

A thriller can often overlap with mystery stories however they are still distinguishable by the plot. For example in a thriller movie the hero would thwart the plans of an enemy rather than uncover a crime already done. In a thriller the audience also tends to know who the murderer Is all along. A thriller also occurs on a much more grander and high in suspense scale such as the crime being serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or an overthrow of the government. A standard thriller storyline would involve a violent confrontation, and jeopardy. Compared to a mystery climax where the hero defeats the villain and saves the lives of himself and everyone else. A thriller can often involve the actual compromise and death of the hero himself, which s influenced by film noir and tragedy.

In recent years the actual thriller genre has been slightly influenced by the genre of horror. With much more gore and sadistic violence, brutality and terror with a number of characters killed throughout. An example of a thriller that took this route was Eden Lake.

As a result thrillers can only be defined by the primary mood that they inflict. For example if it creates thrills, then it is a thriller. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)

Preliminary filming task

• This is my example of the preliminary tast where we had to film a character opening a door, crossing a room, and sitting down in a chair opposite anothe character with whom she/he exchanges a couple of lines of diologue. With this activity i worked with Myles. As there was only two of us this meant we needed a tripod to film the sequence, as we didnt have a thrid person to control the camera. Therefore this meant a lot of cutting to move the tripod and camerawork backwards and forwards for the over the shoulder shot which is one of the techniques that our film had to show. We had to express camerwork techniqes such as shot/reverse shot during the conversation between two people which was expressed through the over the shoulder shots. We also had to include:
• 180 degree rule- when filming two actors you need to keep the camera on one side of the imaginary line. 
• Match on match action- the cut from one shot to another. This should be smooth and continue the action being filmed.  

 Firstly before starting our preliminary task filming we had to write a brief script for our scene, we decided to base it on somthing that might be included in a thriller film. Therefore we decided to do a police interview. We looked at other police interviews on youtube to get an idea of what type of questioning that the police would use as inspiration to make it sound a bit more professional.  When we were finished we were ready to film our scene with the use of the camera and tripod as our equipment.

We created the 180 degree rule by making sure the camera stayed on the one side of the scene to make sure that continuity made sence with the person on the left and the right staying in the same place at all times. This was also easily done as we had a wall on the right so that the camera couldnt cross on to the right anyway.

With the shot reverse shot this was done in our conversation by using the over the shoulder camerawork.  This worked particularly effectively in the composition and context of the preliminary filming, as we made sure we got both characters facial expressions and focussed on main lines being delivered.

Match on match action was delivered when we opened the door, this was brought together as we edited using final cut express, as we have a shot of the person walking to the door, a close up of the hand on the handle and pushing and then a medium shot on the other side of the door of the door opening and the character walking though.

The editing on final cut express gave me more experience using this particular programme, for further reference such as uploading our sequence, rendering, and cutting the sequence down to make it easier to edit. I mainly left it at a simple edit, however if i could improve it, i would get rid of the noise at the begining of the sequence, and also cut out the part where i stumble on a word, either that or i would have recorded this sequence again. We also included a sidewise medium angle within our sequence which i think looks particularly effective, however the composition is a little off as Myles isnt clearly in shot. However as we didnt have a third person working on the camera and directing we short of had to position it and guess that it was good enough, so it was a little off target, however i still like the effect. What i learned by doing the preliminary filming is the fact that it gave me a more clear and focus idea of each of the above techniques of the 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and match on match action. It was also good to put these techniques into practise when actually filming them rather than just understanding the processes. I also learned that auditory has to be clear and loud to be made effectively as sound is a little off in this preliminary tast and there also appears to be noise over the top of the recording which i may need to look into on further reference.