BBFC Classification The '15' Category

The majority of thrillers have an age rating of' '15', this is also my group's target audience. My groups film will appeal to young adults as well as older adults. Below this paragraph are a few requirements of 15 rated films. The following information is taken from BBFC (British Board of Film Classification).

What does the ‘15’ symbol mean?

No-one under 15 is allowed to see a ‘15’ film at the cinema or buy/rent a ‘15’ rated DVD or video game. Parents are warned that ‘15’ rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age

Is a ‘15’ certificate on a video game the same as a ‘15’ for a film or DVD?

Yes, if a video game is rated ‘15’ it is not suitable for players who are under 15. Parents should not assume that because something is a game it is unlikely to contain the same sort of material as a ‘15’ rated film or DVD. If the BBFC has rated a game ‘15’ it is because it does contain the same sort of material as a ‘15’ rated film or DVD.

The ‘15’ rating has nothing to do with the difficulty of a game or the amount of skill required to play it.

What sort of issues might I find in a ‘15’ film, DVD or video game?

‘15’ works are stronger than '12' or ‘12A’ rated works and could include any of the following:

• Strong violence
• Frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
• Portrayals of sexual activity
• Strong verbal references to sex
• Sexual nudity
• Brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• Discriminatory language or behaviour
• Drug taking

Most of these things would not appear on my group's opening scene.

Researched by a member of my group (Lynette)

 

Preliminary Task

A Preliminary task is an action taken to prepare for a task that is really important, it is done preparation for the main thing. In my case we had to do this for a video task that we would later do to complete our media studies task. 

We had to have a character opening the door, coming into a room, sitting down opposite another character and exchanging a few lines of dialogue. We had to use a few techniques, for example match on action, 180 degree rule and shot-reverse shot.

Match-On-Action, this when you film things from certain angles and not from one take using the same angle. To complete a Match-On-Action you must film the action twice, but you have to show continuity; meaning everyone should be in the same place as they were before when the shot was first taken.

180 Degree Rule, this is a basic guideline film makers use. Two characters in the same scene should always be in the same position as the first shot, for example if character A is on the left in the first shot character A should be on the left once again so the shooting looks more realistic.

Shot-Reverse Shot, when characters that are involved in a dialogue, you need to have a close-up shot of a character saying a line then cut to another shot where the other character reacts to what character one said.

Here's what my group did : 

180 Degree rule

Close up of shot reverse

Close up of shot reverse

The 180 Degree Rule

A storyboard was done before shooting the actual video:

After we did the preliminary task we had to put all the pictures together and then create a short film. This is the final product after being edited on the editing software on Apple Macs (iMovie).

Audience Research

Before we begin any filming we believe that we have to examine what our targeted audience would like to see us produce. So Lynette and I came up with an idea to produce a questionnaire we later informed Deon about this. What we wanted the questionnaire to relate to is finding out what people would want our final product to be like, also we wanted to know what type of things do people enjoy in thrillers, for example sub genre, location, time, etc.  

After we gathered the information from the questionnaires we decided to take all the results from them and put them on to graphs so people have a better understanding of what is liked and what is not liked. We as a group are then taking into consideration the feed back from others so we can apply this to our finished product.

Audience Theory

The four ways of categorising audiences to specific films are by Income bracket/ status, Young & Rubicam, Values. Attitudes & Lifestyle (VAL) and Life Matrix. The traditional way of categorising audiences is by class, gender, location and age.

Traditional audience categorising

• Class: C-E
• Gender: Male or female 
• Location: Global, Europe, London
• Age: Tweens, young adults, older adults and penssioners  

Income bracket/ status

One way to classify audiences is by class, which is normally judged on the kind of job the main wage-earner of the householder has.

A Upper middle class: Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals

B Middle class: Middle management, teachers, many 'creatives' e.g. graphic designers etc..

C1 Lower middle class: Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc..

C2 Skilled working class: Skilled workers, tradespersons (white collar)

D Working class: Semi- skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar)

E People at lowest level of income: Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers

Young and Rubicam's Four Consumers

As the concept of class became less fashionable, advertisers started thinking about audiences in different ways. one of the best-known was devised by the advertising agency Young & Rubicam:

•  Mainstreamers: Make up 40% of population. they like security, and belonging to a group
• Aspirers: Want status and the esteem of others. Like status symbols, designer labels etc.. Live off credit and cash
• Succeeders: People who have already got status and control
• Reformers: Define themselves by their self-esteem and self- fulfilment

Values Attitudes and Lifestyles this approach is similar to Young and Rubicam's but offers a more sophisticated range of descriptors for audiences.

• Actualisers: successful, sophisticated, take charge people with high self-esteem
• Fulfilleds: Thinkers are motivated by ideals. mature, satisfied, comfortable, and reflective people who value order, knowledge and responsibility
• Achievers: Motivated by the desire for achievement. achievers have goal-oriented lifestyles and a deep commitment to career and family.
• Experiencers: motivated by self-expression.
• Believers: Like thinkers motivated by ideals.
• Strivers: trendy and fun loving. motivated by achievement and are concerned about the opinions and approval of others.
• Makers: motivated by self-expression. 
• Survivors: Live narrowly focused lives.

Life Matrix

One of the latest approaches to audience targeting has grown out of the field market research. Life Matrix tool launched by MRI and RoperASW, defines 10 categories, centred around both Values, attitudes and beliefs and more fundamental demographic audience categories.

1. Tribe wired: Digital, free-spirited, creative young singles
2. Fun/ Atcis: Aspirational : fun seeking, active young people
3. Dynamic Duos: Hard-driving, high-involvement couples
4. Priority Parents: Family values activities, media strongly dominate
5. Home soldiers: Home-centric, family oriented, materially ambitious
6. Renaissance women: Active, caring, affluent, influential mums
7. Rugged Traditionalists: Traditional male values, love of  outdoors
8. Struggling Singles: High aspirations, low economic status
9. Settled elders: Devout, older, sedentary lifestyles
10. Free birds: Vital, active, altruistic seniors

Narrative Techniques

• Plot twist and turns 
• Multiple lines of action 
• Flash backs 
• Narrative retardation - the narrative is deliberately mixed up, the story is not easy to follow.
• Red herrings 
• Chase/pursuits 
• Misdirection 
• Deadlines 
• Principle of concealment 
• Mysterious characters 
• Morally complex characters 
• Making the audience work 

Narrative Theory 

Narrative is the way in which a story is told, whether fictional or non fictional media texts. 

Vladimir Propp is a known Russian critic and literary theorist, meaning he was a person who expresses an unfavorable opinion on something. A lot of Russian fairy tales were analysed by Propp in the 1920s, whiles analysing the fairy tales he proposed that it was possible to classify the characters and their actions into roles and functions that are clearly defined.
Propp's Character Roles :

• The Villain - opposes the hero and usually struggles against the hero.
• The Hero - seeks something and usually plays part in helping in helping someone in distress.
• The False Hero - takes credit of what the hero does. They falsely assuming the role of a hero.
• The Helper - gives support to the hero.
• The Donor - helps the hero magically, by providing a magic object.
• The Princess Or Prize - the hero deserves her or the prize throughout the whole story but is unable to because of villains.
• The Father- notice who the true hero is and gives the hero a task. Propp noted that the princess and the father can not be properly defined.

Claude Levi Strauss is a social anthropologist. He is not the man that discovered 'Levi Jeans', although the name can easily confuse you as it is the same. C.L. Strauss studied and dealt with other cultures and human societies, what interested Strauss was that the our world is described in terms of opposites. For example a conflict between Christian and Pagan.
He says washing powder adverts use the 'before and after' contrast to make the target audience want to buy the product.

Roland Barthes, a French man who studied signs and symbols, suggested that narratives work because of five different codes. The codes work together to activate the reader's mind to make sense of the narrative.
The codes used by Barthes :

• Action - a narrative device 
• Enigma - keeps the audience puzzled and confused 
• Symbolic - connotations 
• Semantic - denotations
• Cultural - points out to the audience the way our world works

Tzvetan Todorov, a Bulgarian literary theorist believed that most narratives if not all narratives can be put in to a simple formula.

 Equilibrium     Disequilibrium    New Equilibrium 

Todorov suggested that the narratives start with a state of equilibrium in which is seen to be normal. The state of normality (Equilibrium) is the disrupted by an outside force (Disequilibrium), which then has to be fought against so that it then returns to state of equilibrium (New Equilibrium).