Regulation: BBFC

Who they are:
The British Board of Film Classification. "The BBFC is a trusted guide to media content. Working as an independent, self-financing and not-for-profit media content regulator, the BBFC operates transparent, consistent and trusted co-regulatory and self-regulatory classification and labelling systems in the UK." They watch films and videos all the way through and award an age rating and insight to each one. They reach an age rating by applying the standards and criteria contained in their Classification Guidelines.

What they aim to do:
The BBFC aims to protect the public, especially children, from content which might raise risks such as graphic violence. They also try to empower the public, especially parents, to make informed viewing choices and recognise and respect adult freedom of choice within the law. They try to respond to and reflect changing social attitudes towards media content through proactive public consultation and research. The BBFC also provides a cost-effective, efficient classification service within our statutory remit. They aim to work in partnership with the industry to develop innovative service models to provide content advice which support emerging media delivery systems as well as providing an effective service to enforcement agencies.

Age Ratings:

Suitable for all

Parental guidance

Cinema release suitable for 12 years and over

Video release suitable for 12 years and over

Suitable only for 15 years and over

Suitable only for adults

Adult works for licensed premises only

Our One Page Pitch

Film title: The Black Widow

Tag-Line: The female of the species is much deadlier than the male

The what if premise: What if the love of your life, the one you held closest to your heart, the one who you would do anything for, cross mountains and oceans for, betrayed you? What if the man, who promised to love you and to cherish you, no matter what, lied to you?  What if because of his poisonous and vile lies, everything you worked for and everything you’d treasured had come crumbling down?  What would you do? Could you forgive him? Or would you take your revenge?

Age rating: Our age rating is a 12. I looked at the BBFC regulations and have selected an age rating that I think will be appropriate to audiences. A rating of 12 seems suitable as our thriller will glaze over the murder scene so there will not be any graphic violence displayed. There will not be any scenes involving drugs or sex. However the theme will be mature and suitable for ages 12 and over.

Target audience: Our target audience will be between ages 12-25. We are targeting our film at young adults as we think that is a good age to target our thoughts about the issues raised in the media text. Our media text will be used as a form of escapism. It will be used for people to escape from reality and everyday life. The media text is used to provoke an emotion from the audience or can be used as a way of expressing ideas about the topic of the film with friends, family or acquaintances. We do not want audiences to be passive when watching our thriller; we want people to question our ideas and what happens in the film, as it will raise issues regarding gender empowerment and sexism.

Statement of intent: For our story, our theme is envy and jealousy, and how it can drive people mad. We have chosen to tell the story that we have to portray how delusional love can make people, and the drastic ending that one woman had to take when her love for a man was disrupted. For us as a group, we feel passionately about this subject, as although we haven’t personally experienced it, we know how being unfaithful can shatter someone’s heart. The feeling is unimaginable to comprehend, as the love of our main characters life betrayed her trust, as well as using the other woman. The audience, we feel, will care about this subject, as it is very commonly portrayed in the media and women’s feelings and thoughts are never shown.  In the modern day, we feel like the story of a man having an affair leaving a woman heartbroken and deluded, is appropriate to tell. Our aim is to make men think about their actions, as not many women will just forgive and forget. Our main woman character is strong, and although a murderer, her motive was that she either ended his life or hers, because she couldn’t take the news of his affair. We hope that the audience will feel the need for the story to be told, as it is an important aspect in relationships – and the gluttony of men or woman thinking they can have two loves, is sadly mistaken.  We have chosen to make our thriller a film opening, as opposed to a TV drama, as with TV drama characters can develop over time, whereas our characters we want their personalities to be clear throughout.

Plot: For our plot we have chosen to have many characters stood around a coffin, either viewing it in the morgue or crying, or around a grave. We want the characters to show emotion, to know that the loss has made a massive impact, and 2 women we want to stand out immediately, perhaps by cutaways from one to the other. But one noticeably crying, the other one noticeably looking angry ( the girlfriend and the one he is later revealed to have had an affair with ). For the second scene we want a clear flashback, where the main character BOB and his girlfriend MARY are shown in a montage of clips doing things together such as going on dates – the story of how they fell in love. After this we want a clear shot of suspicions, with MARY lurking around where BOB is, later to be looking out of a window and seeing BOB with the girl he’s having an affair with ( JESSICA ). After BOB returns from his affair that night, we see MARY look smiley and happy, however we (THE AUDIENCE) see she has a knife behind her back. We have shown to include the audience in dramatic irony, that she wants to kill him, as then they can infer for themselves what will happen, without actually being shown it.

Key Company Case Study

 

Paramount Pictures:

 

Paramount Pictures Corporation is a film studio, television production company and motion picture distributor, consistently ranked as one of the "Big Six" film studios of Hollywood. It is a subsidiary of US media conglomerate Viacom. Paramount is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. It has distributed several successful film series, such as Transformers, Mission: Impossible, the Marvel Cinematic Universe series, Indiana Jones, The Godfather, Star Trek, Jack Ryan, Jackass, Beverly Hills Cop, Crocodile Dundee, Paranormal Activity, Friday the 13th, G.I. Joe and Terminator. In 2014, Paramount Pictures was the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all its films in digital-form only.

Key Director Case Study

Alfred Hitchcock:

Alfred Hitchcock was renowned for using close up shots of a characters face in order to convey their reactions and emotions in various scenarios. I will be able to apply this to my groups thriller film opening and use close up shots of characters, as well as various objects in order to show how important they are. For example, our group is likely to use a close up shot of a murder weapon such as a knife in order to show the audience how significant that object is. Moreover, we could use a close up of the protagonists face to show their fear when the antagonist is about to kill them which will hopefully be very effective for our thriller opening. 

One of Hitchcock's most famous thriller films is "Psycho" which uses various sound effects in order to create an eerie and sinister tone, I'll be able to apply this idea to my groups thriller opening to create a disturbing tone, also to allow the audience to get an idea of the type of situation the characters are in (in our case an extremely scary one). Hitchcock is also famous for using a technique called "dolly zoom' which makes the scene appear stretched and it gives a really unique effect. I'll be able to apply this to my groups thriller opening as it can be used to make our characters look disorientated. This can be effective and could convey how we want the victim to appear to the audience.

In Hitchcock's film, "The Man Who Knew Too Much" he uses the effective technique of gradually building up tension and suspense. The audience are ensnared gradually via curiosity and apprehension, Hitchcock uses this as a way of structuring the films narrative. When it comes to creating our thriller opening, I believe that it will be useful to consider using suspense and tension to make our thriller as effective as it can be. 

Representation Of Disability In Media

I have been looking at issues around the way in which social groups are represented in TV Dramas. Representation of social groups in our thriller opening is something that we will need to take into account when making decisions about our film.

Some facts that I gathered from lessons about people with disabilities is that there are 770,00 disabled children under the age of 16 in the UK. That equates to 1 child in 20. Also, nearly one in five people of working age (7 million, or 18.6%) in Great Britain have a disability.

For my homework I had to do some research about disability in media, I've read three different articles that talk about disability and how it's represented.

Firstly, I read the 'Unlimited: Disability on Screen' article by BFI. This article shows different views that the writer of the article has on the presentation of disabled people in TV dramas. For example, during the Great War, newsreels recorded the rehabilitation of visually impaired and physically disabled servicemen; double-amputee fighter ace Douglas Bader was later immortalised on the big screen. However it also said that the film had nevertheless provided a catalyst for positive developments in language and social attitudes towards disability (including learning disabilities and mental illness) which endured a troubling history of misrepresentation on screen. It suggests that the 21st century have made space for strong disabled characters varying from characters suffering from motor neuron disease, obsessive compulsive disorder and multiple personality conditions.

Secondly, I read the 'women, old and disabled are under-represented' article by the guardian newspaper. The article suggests that women, old people and people with disabilities are hugely under-represented in modern television. For example, it stated that some of the most popular programmes on the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Sky1 said that only 15% of women featured were aged 56 or over and that men outnumbered women by a ratio of almost 3:2, with women more likely to be aged between 20 and 39 than their male counterparts. Furthermore, a TV diversity study by CDN found that the percentage of people on-screen who are women is 42%, over 55 is 16.1%, of ethnic minority is 13.4%, who are disabled is 2.5% and who are lesbian, gay or bisexual is a mere 1%.

Finally, I read the 'Ricky Gervais and disabled actors' article by the guardian newspaper. Within this article Ricky said, "Long before disability was a campaigning issue for me I'd found actors playing disabled characters embarrassing. Mimicking disabled people had been pounced on and swiftly dealt with when I was growing up. Yet at drama school this was embraced. To me playing disabled, when not disabled, was as incongruous as being asked to black up. I can't imagine people calling a performance under those circumstances brave or moving or ground-breaking, but there we were acting disabled yet simultaneously being told to find the truth in performance. I hope that my daughter Lizzy, an actor with Asperger's syndrome, will have the same opportunities as any other performer but full representation of disabled people is uncommon in any profession, let alone television or broadcasting. In advertising, drama series, sitcoms, soap operas or comedy panel shows, disabled performers are notably absent. There are a few disabled characters but fully inclusive casting is not routine. And this is despite there being more than 250 disabled members of Equity, the actors union in the UK.

Testing With Lighting

In lesson our group completed one of the extra tasks in order to prepare ourselves for our main task, the creation of a thriller film opening. For this task we experimented with different types lighting and shadows. We used artificial lighting (by holding up a torch against our models face in a darkened room) which allowed us to keep enough light so that the character could be seen, however still allowing us to use shadows in order to create a sense of darkness and mystery. Above are a couple of shots we were able to take, that we think were successful and could be useful when it comes to filming our project.

Six Stages Of Media Production

In the film industry there are six stages of media production. These are...

1)Negotiating a deal:

The film industry is made up of many major studios and companies such as Warner Brothers, Disney, Sony Pictures, Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox. 
Ideas for a new film must be pitched to a studio before it can move on to the next stage (Pre-Production). Once a film has been pitched successfully the studio's producer hires actors/actresses, directors and a crew to work on the film. 

In order for a film idea to be successful, it is suggested that it needs to be:

-A sequel to a recent box-office hit
-A remake of a European box-office hit
-An adaptation of a best selling book
-An original story by a proven scriptwriter
-An original idea from a successful director/star team
-A new twist on a story from a currently popular genre cycle
-Any combination of the above. 

In our thriller, we haven't followed these suggestions completely but we have taken inspiration from successful films and music videos in order to get an idea of what works and what doesn't, we can adapt them to fit our story-line and create a successful thriller.

2)Pre-Production:

In the Pre-Production stage all the planning for the project takes place. During pre-production, the production is split into individual scenes and all the locations, props, cast members, costumes, special effects and visual effects are identified. The script is also written at this stage. Furthermore, a detailed schedule will be produced and then arrangements are made for the necessary elements or people (actors/actresses etc.) to be available to the film-makers at the relevant times.

In terms of how we will use Pre-Production in our thriller we must have a Research and Planning stage. This stage will involve my group creating a storyboard, different ideas on plots for our thriller, some camera angle ideas and some planning drafts. As a group it's essential that we have everything planned out. 

3)Production:

In the Production stage all the filming is carried out. All of the scenes are already planned out in pre-production and are now going to be filmed at the relevant locations. Each scene is filmed as many times as the director deems fit to ensure the best quality scenes will be used to construct the film. Great care must be taken to make sure that all the filming is done correctly and all necessary shots are taken, as it is sometimes difficult to go back and repeat certain shots if the filming is incomplete when it comes to the post-production stage, for example if parts of the film were filmed during winter when it''s snowing.

For our thriller film we realise that this stage is very important and therefore we recognize that research and planning beforehand is the most important stage in regards to helping us when filming. Our thriller film only has to be a 2 minute introduction so we will not be filming for a long period of time like a big film studio would have to, as we only have a few specific shots we need to get.

4)Post-Production:

This is the stage in which the film is assembled by the editor. The first job of the film editor is to build a rough cut taken from sequences based on individual shots. The purpose of the rough cut is to select and order the best shots. The next step is to create a fine cut by getting all the shots to flow smoothly in a seamless story. Trimming is next, it's the process of shortening scenes by a few minutes, seconds, or even frames. After the fine cut has been screened and approved by the director and producer, the picture is "locked," meaning no further changes are made.

In our thriller film post production will include our editing stage (on Adobe Premier Pro) and this is where our group can experiment with different kinds of effects and gradients to see what works best. Everyone in or group will have an input and we will all share some responsibility when it comes to editing. 

5)Distribution and Marketing:
Marketing is the key to power in the media industries, distributors tend to promote and market films in specific areas and negotiate release patterns with exhibitors. In the US the 'major studios' through their own distribution companies or in partnership, took over 80% of the North American market. In the UK, Paramount and Universal, with MGM-UA, are joint owners of the biggest distributor, UIP. In the other important cinema markets around the world the majors may have an agreement with a local distributor, but as the international market grows they are increasingly opening their own offices in every territory. 
In our thriller film we realise that marketing towards a target audience will be beneficial as they are the main people that will view our film, so we decided to do some research into our target audience and even interviewed members of our target audience (young adults) in order to see what they thought of our ideas.

6)Exhibition:
In the US major studios were barred from ownership of significant cinema chains. Overseas there was no such restrictions, and in the last few years Warner Bros and UCI have built multiplexes in many cinema markets, including the UK, where other US chains such as showcase are also receptive to Hollywood films.

It is important that as a group we understand what the process is when films are created, so by looking into the process of exhibition it will help us to further our knowledge of the media industry.

Defining Our Audience

Targeting an audience is one of the key aspects to planning our thriller. As a group we must establish a specific audience as this will enable us to make our thriller film as effective as we possibly can. We looked at some different theories in order to help us gain a better understanding about how to target the correct audience.

In 1974 Bulmer and Katz developed a theory, ‘uses and gratifications’. This theory suggests that audiences USE media texts for various reasons…

1)Diversion (escapism):  To escape from everyday life.
2)Personal relationships (social interaction):  Use media text for emotional and other interaction e.g. using soaps instead of family life.
3)Personal identity:  To create their own identity from characters/celebrities in media texts, and learning behaviour and values.
4)Entertainment: As a means of relaxation, enjoyment and emotional release. Purely for the fun of the experience.
5)Surveillance (information):  To gain info and knowledge.

Another theory is the Life Matrix tool, which defines audience categories around values and beliefs. These are categorized into...

1)Tribe Wired - Free spirited, creative young singles.
2)Fun/Atics - Aspirational, fun seeking young people.
3)Dynamic Duos - Hard-driving, high-involvement couples.
4)Priority Parents - Family values, active
5)Home Soldiers - Family orientated, ambitious.
6)Renaissance Women - Active, caring, influential mums.
7)Rugged Traditionalists - Traditional male values.
8)Struggling Singles - High aspirations, low status.
9)Settled Elders - Older lifestyles.
10)Free Birds - Vital, activists.

How will we apply the Uses and Gratifications theory to our thriller?

Our thriller film is going to provoke emotion from our target audience meaning that they will be able to be able to relate to the media text. It will be a way of expressing ideas about morals and modern life, as well as being used for social interaction as it will encourage discussion between audiences and it will also give our audience a chance to escape from everyday life and delve into a new exciting world of thrills. It could also be watched purely for entertainment purposes in order to get enjoyment out of it or thrill.

Sharing Ideas And Gathering Feedback From Our Target Audience

For our thriller our group decided to put forward some questions to members of our target audience, which is young adults, in order to find out what they thought about our ideas. Amber, one of our group members, asked them a few questions to get their opinions. As the three boys we questioned (Max, Gabriel and Frank) are also are in our school media class, they were able to make some comments on some of the suggestions we had and were also able to suggest how we could improve our ideas. Having another groups opinion will help us develop our ideas further and give us opinions about changes that should be made.