Motion Picture Rating System?

Motion Picture Rating System

The reason for a rating system is to monitor the viewing of films depending on the suitability for particular audiences, with the main issues being sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence and various other types of mature content. They carry age restrictions (or sometimes recommendations).

Various factors may influence the decision of a particular rating of a film, these may include:

• The country showing the film in their movie theaters/ cinemas. 
• Whether it's set within a non-fictional historical context.
• If violence or drug use is shown, whether it is carried out by the protagonist or the antagonist, this is because some viewers tend to sympathise with the protagonist and could potentially encourage drug use. 

Here are a few certificates used to restrict viewers in the United Kingdom:

(This information was extracted from http://www.imdb.com/updates/guide/certificates)

E - Exempt from classification 

U - Universal / Suitable for all 

PG - Parental Guidance / Some scenes may be unsuitable for children

12A - Parental advisory / Children under 12 must be with an adult

15 - Those aged 15 and above

18 - Those aged 18 and above 

R18 - Those aged 18 and above, in specially licensed sex shops or movie theaters/ cinemas. 

Our Film Opening

We need to make the decision as to whether we wish to add an age restriction on to our film opening. Here are some of the ideas we had when making this decision:

12 Rated Movie:

• Dangerous techniques of violence such as hanging, suicide, self-harming and drowning should not be frequently displayed as they can be copied and appear to be pain and harm free, which is not true. They should not be encouraged. 
• Scary scenes are allowed and can be intense and last a while but gory moments involving blood and injuries should not come about as a result of violence. 
• Any substance abuse should be infrequent and cannot teach viewers how to take drugs or appear to be glamorous or attractive. 
• The film must not approve of language/ behaviour that would offend someone's religion, colour, gender, sexuality or disability as it could be seen as encouraging discrimination. 
• The themes of the film must be appropriate for those aged 12 and above. 

15 Rated Movie:

• These rated films may include: strong violence, fairly strong language, portrayals of sexual activity, verbal references to sex, sexual nudity, brief scenes of sexual violence, discriminatory language/ behaviour and substance abuse. 

18 Rated Movie:

• Strong language has no restrictions with regard to 18 rated films, very strong language can be used aggressively, frequently, directly and accompanied by strong violence.
• Racist, homophobic and other discriminatory language is allowed. 
• There may be strong violence that can lead to dwelling on pain and injury as a result.

Target audience - we decided that our film opening isn't suitable for those under the age of 15, we came to this conclusion after looking at the things you would expect in a 15 rated movie. With an 18 rated film there are no limits to violence and language etc whereas with 15 rated films there are still restrictions and are film opening applies to those of 15 rated films. Our target audience is young adults/old teenagers, so this restriction would be perfect.

Plotline

Our film opening focuses on the genre of psychological horror, based on a single character who is followed by another, who, whilst not explained in the sequence, is her twin. The idea behind this was that her twin had passed away before this time and she is being plagued by the fear that her twin is haunting her and following her around, but only she can see her.
The sequence starts from her running into a public toilet and taking solace in there to wipe away her smudged eye make up. This changes to a running scene that then cuts to a running scene from an underpass near Danson Park, the combination of the running scenes at these two locations shows continuity and leads nicely into the scene where our actress runs into a house. (where both her flannel shirt from the innocent personality and leather jacket from the dark natured personality can be seen). Her need to 'wash' away this evil personality leads to her having a bath which then causes her to remember the thought of the evil personality that she refuses to accept is her and instead sees that persona as a nasty being that is chasing her, 'plaguing' her lifestyle.

Filming Day 1:

Day 1 of filming:
After having organised our storyline, we were able to organise the two places we wanted our filming to occur. The first place (house) belonged to one of the members of our group and we had to ensure that we had finished all of the filming before the new year. As our other location was a public area that wouldn't have changed much in the course of a couple of weeks we decided it was more important to film in the empty house (suited to our needs) before it was redecorated as this would not have been fitting to both the tone and the atmosphere we tried to create.

The empty house conformed to the conventions we needed with regards to mise en scene as it was darkly lit, completely plain and presented a blank canvas for us to film in. We set up the room and waited for our actress to arrive, to create the effects of hard high key lighting we used torchlights on both main and fill lights but positioned them in such a way that the shadow was created from the brighter main light to pick out features of the actresses face and make the tear more prominent in the scene.


The bathroom scene in the first chosen location was simplistic and darkly lit, we used this to keep to the codes and conventions of the genre as it presented a dark, dismal environment for our actress to take a bath in that she falls underneath. (similar to the bath scene in 'what lies beneath').

Music Research

Our chosen piece of music for the opening is Kevin MacLeod's "The Escalation":

Kevin MacLeod is an American composer and music producer. He lives in New York City and is best known for his contribution to Royalty Free Music, through his website Incompetech.com. He creates film scores, production music and video game music. 

Process:

Whilst searching for music we had to bare in mind the copyright restrictions and appropriateness that come with all types of sound. Any copyright tracks containing explicit lyrics or produced by authorised bands or artists were strictly ruled out, as these songs would not be appropriate or permitted. 

At first we was unsure of what vibe we wanted our music to project - wether it was to be slow, suspenseful, tight with tension or fast paced. We looked at various tracks on Royalty Free Music (http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/) searching through the collections of moods and atmospheres: 

The Escalation is part of the Horror Soundscape collection, tempo Moderato, and fits into the categories Intense, Action, Dark, Driving and Horror. The build is long, but gets fuller and more exciting towards the end. 

Instruments used: Percussion, basses, strings.

We decided we wanted a fast paced track, but one that builds gradually too, with a drop before the tempo quickens. The Escalation was perfect for this, and it was one of the very first tracks I came across, whereby I instantly visioned our opening plan fitting with certain parts of the music. 

Because the second half of our opening consists of a chaotic, confusing, heart-racing montage, the quick beats of the track and ricocheting clacks of instruments used in the piece will give an effective non-diegetic enhancement, synchronous to the action that will be happening on screen. 

Another great aspect of the track is it's powerful simplicity at the beginning - large, low bellowing drum hits, followed by a gradual tinging sound that vibrates like an echo throughout the entire track. The drum beats speed up significantly and change in pattern. We intend to fit these pattern alterations with the visual video so that it plays parallel and in time to the rhythm for ultimate impact. It keeps the sound interesting, and because the sound to any film is hugely important, we wanted to make its effectiveness a priority, due to our actual idea being relatively simple - the score needs to emphasise our montage, not slow it down in any way or make it become disjointed. The main idea is to fit the rhythms with the jump cuts and special video effects we use (any reversed clips or manipulated durations) to create an overall continuous, fluid movement on screen, and we are doing this by making sure each cut or change of scene commences on a beat, in time, precisely with the different sounds. 

Editing -Tools/techniques

Whilst editing our main coursework project, we also were involved in editing a short montage film which allowed us to further develop our understanding of using Final Cut Pro and were able to use more complex techniques than just cutting the video clip down to make it fit to our 2-minute time frame.

In Final Cut Pro, there is a timeline where you drag your clips in to allow you to rearrange, add transitions and effects, change the timing of clips etc... this is where the editing of a clip occurs.

The first clip was a view of a light in a tunnel, the light becomes blurred towards the end of the clip but originally happened too quickly and didn't fit the tone correctly, to combat this, were slowed down the clip

Blading the clips was useful because it allowed us to keep all of a clip that we wanted but it meant that we didn't have to keep the whole clip as one extended clip, we were able to split it up and re-order the different parts of a clip to maximise its effect. This further enabled us to make quick jump cuts from one clip to another, along with the use of overlapping clips.
We also used overlapping the clips when there were an increased amount of peaks in our soundtrack, this enabled us to make a quick series of cuts between our characters, e.g.: when both characters faces are seen as a series of quick cuts, we used this as a contrast between the two characters, showing them both at a close-up.

Reversing our clips gave a creepy aura to some of them; Silvia, our actress, had done a great job of presenting our deranged protagonist/antagonist and when we reversed the clips e.g.: when she wiped her make up off her face, it became a lot more effective to have the clip in reverse, causing people to cringe and recoil away when they watched what they couldn't perceive as normal behaviour.
Alongside the reversed clip of Silvia wiping her eyes, the music speeds up at this point and we used this to repeat the clip in two quick cuts to the peaks of the music to further dramatic effect.
Viewer:
The program enables you to edit the clips that you have inserted into the timeline. There is a variety of different effects and transitions that can be applied. From this tab in the program, you can apply such things as: transitions, effects, sound effects, colour corrections, photos, text, intros and outros. The heading of the timeline allows you to change the duration/speed of the clip, either slowing down or speeding up the footage, you can get it down to a very precise measurement as there is a customisation of the speed change rate.



We were able to make the clips meet the beat of the music by slowing down and speeding up certain clips, to make the first clip be in time to the beat, we slowed it down for both the effect of sound and video within the clips was enhanced by doing this.

We reversed the clip of Silvia crying to make the tear go back up her face, we also sped the clip up, this helped us to fit all of tear's motion in the sequence without the clip going on for too long.

Survey

Questions:

What's your favourite horror film?

What do you think of when I say psychological horror?

In your opinion, what makes a good horror film?

Which location is scarier; an empty tunnel, an empty field or an empty room?

Gloria
1. Chucky (Child's Play)
2. Horror involving a crazy person like a psychopath or something.
3. It has to make you jump, has to have unexpecting moments and not be too predictable.
4. Empty tunnel, especially at night

Abdullah
1. Saw
2. A film that messes with your head, really hard to understand - psychological
3. Blood, has to be lots of blood
4. empty field as you're outside and not sheltered

Rebecca
1. jaws- not that scary
2. a film which is really freaky and has a deep storyline
3. I don't like horror films but I guess something that makes you feel multiple emotions

Jesse
1. friday the 13th
2. psychopath? where a crazy person kills everyone
3. where all the good people die and the bad people don't
4. empty tunnel, empty rooms aren't that scary

Amelia
1. scream
2. mad person kills everyone
3. something that makes you hide behind a pillow
4. empty field

Will
1. nightmare on elm street
2. mental illness
3.being jumped and freaked out
4. empty room

Jordan
1. insidious
2. crazy people
3. if it scares me
4. empty tunnel

Alex
1. jaws
2. american psycho
3. people need to die
4. empty tunnel

Miriam
1. woman in black
2. human centipede something weird like that
3. confusing
4. empty room

Lewis
1. chucky
2. the purge is a psyhcological horror isn't it- messes with your head
3. has to have a cliffhanger to allow a sequel
4. empty tunnel

Yasmin
1. the shining
2. psychopath goes round killing people without a specific reason
3. a love story within the horror plot
4. empty field definitely

Nathan
1. scream
2. disturbing and plays with your mind
3. needs to make you jump and have nightmares
4. none of those our scary, but if one then tunnel