MEST2: BBFC Institution research

What is the institution responsible for? How is it funded? What link does it have to government?

The BBFC shows information, written short and briefly, about all the films that have been published and what we have also rated. The director of BBFC had said that their has been a large number of increase in the amount of people that are wanting to make new films but don't have their facilities. Therefore, the BBFC have helped fund those people which costs £50+VAT for films that are upto 20 minutes long and films that cost £100+VAT for films to are between 20 and 40 minutes long. For this  to work, the film can only be fiction and non fiction and has to be accepted and recognized through the funding scheme.

How is a film rated?

A film is rated depending on what is included on the film. Sometimes, people may rate the film in groups but sometimes it is done individually which is also known as 'solo viewing'. For example, if a bad language has been used, then the film may be rated 12 or above.

Issues faced when classifying a film

This debate was all about movies being an influence on the audience. Many people strongly disagree with some movies as it can bring a bad feeling around others. Many younger audiences may start to watch horror and action films which can influence their lifestyle.

Why did The Dark Knight generate a large amount of media coverage regarding its certificate? Do you agree with the 12A certificate The Dark Knight was awarded?

The Dark Knight had a large number of complaints about it's rating, as it was given a 12A by the BBFC. The reason why many people complained is being of the fact it was way too violent for any 12 year old or younger to watch it as there was some parts with blood and a lot of brawl fights going on. Many of the audience may have thought that these brawl fights could influence the younger audience and maybe one day make them really brutal as well as the characters in the movies. In my opinion, I believe that this rating given to the Batman movie was really accurate. This is because I believe that Batman has been a really famous superhero to the children for many decades and just due to the fact that it shows a number of violent scenes, doesn't mean that they should increase the rating of the movie.

What are the guidelines for a 15 certificate?

In a 15 rated film, you can see the following:

• Strong violence
• Frequent strong Language
• Portrayals of sexual activity
• Strong verbal references to sex
• Sexual Nudity
• Brief scene of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• Discriminatory language or behavior
• Drug Taking

Choose a 15 rated case study movie from the BBFC

The movie that I have chosen from the BBFC, that is also a 15 rated movie is the movie called Shank. This movie was directed by Mo Ali in 2010, which was a low budget movie  and is based in London about younger British teenagers. The reason why this was named as a 15 rated movie is because it had many features of a 15 rated movie as stated above:

• Strong Language 
• Violence
• Sex references
• Drug use

Strong language is always going to effect the movies rating as it will always be a 12A rating but if the swear words, e.g. the 'F' word was used very frequently, then it will be given a 15 rated. For instance, in this movie, the 'F' word was used over a hundred times. Street fights and weapons that have been involved also gave it this rating as the directors most likely didn't want to influence the younger audience as it could effect how they would grow up, e.g. they may find this movie really motivating and could do certain things from this movie that they really shouldn't.

MEST2: Arthouse film institution research

Production: Independent film studios

Donnie Darko

• Pandora Cinema (This production also made more low budget movies for the likes of Grind, $6 million and Man without a past which is listed below.
• Flower Films (II) (This production also made the film 'Whip it', $15 million).
• Adam Fields Productions (S.Darko, $10 million)
• Gaylord Films (Duma, $12 million)

Girlhood

• Studio Canal ('71, £8.1 million)
• Hold Up Films (Tomboy, $1 million)

The Man Without A Past

• Pandora Cinema (Listed above)

Oslo, August 31st 

• Don't Look Now (With this production company, Oslo is the only movie that they have ever created)
• Motlys (This production has many different types of movies but I cannot find the budget of that movies anywhere).

Killer of Sheep

• Berlin Film Festival

With the Flower Film production company, I believe that the most successful movie they have made is Whip It because it's budget was 15 million dollars which I believe is as high it will get when it comes to a high budget movie. 

StuidoCanal have made some really successful movies for the likes of RobCop but this is beyond being a low budget movie. However, they did also produce Krigen which is another low budget French movie that was recently produced in art house cinemas. 

Distribution: Independent film distributors

1. http://launchingfilms.com/step-step-guide/
2. 10 steps of film distribution

1. Introduction - This is where people start to gather their ideas and start to plan a movie which doesn't need to be the actual one; Just a rough idea.
2. Lord Puttam - This is the part where the makers of the movie start to make up who their target audience is going to be.
3. So what exactly do distributors do? - This is where all the profits are started to be planned; Why would the audience want to go watch the movie and how they can gather audiences.
4. Who are the distributors? - Who will take care of the movie without the production work going on.
5. Where all the pre production work takes place and who is going to be the people who distribute it. Is it a sales person etc?
6. This is the part where all of the distributors sign a contract with the producer of the movie where they are talking about rights of the movie and what they can and cannot do.
7. This is when the producer and distributors start to think when they will release the movie once they have signed the contract.
8. When the release date has to be decided.
9. The job of a distributor is to create visibility and to raise enough awareness and interest in a film to persuade potential audiences to buy tickets to go and see it.
10. This when they get the license to start producing.

3,4 and 5...
Donnie Darko

Distributor

• Pandora Cinema (World-wide)
• Metrodome Distribution (UK)
• Warner Bros

Cinema

Donnie Darko had firstly screened in the Sundance Film Festival and then during the opening week it was filmed another 58 times across many different cinemas in the United States. In the opening week, it grossed $110,494 and then after it had been showed worldwide, it grossed just under $8 million which meant that it had made a profit from it's budget.

Girlhood

Distributor

• Abordar (Spain)
• Strand Relseasing (USA) 

This movie hadn't been distrubuted in the UK, so the USA was the nearest thing that I could find.

Cinema

This movie has been very popular and has been shwon in many different cinemas and some of them being on of the most popular cinemas in the world, such as Vue. It had made a domestic gross of $60,000 which meant that it had also made a grand profit from its budget.

The Man without A Past

Distributor

• Sony Pictures Classic

Cinema

This is another movie that was released worldwide especially in France but wasn't published in the big cinemas. This movie also made a gross of $900,000 which had also made a huge profit from it's budget considering that they only spent less than $100,00.

Oslo, 31st August

Distributor

• Maison Motion (Taiwan)
• Soda Pictures (UK)

Cinema

The gross of this movie was just over $100,00 which is another profit considering they had an extremely low budget. This movie was also distributed in many arthouse cinemas all across London and also France etc.

Killer of Sheep

Distributor

• Milestone Films

Cinema

This movie had a budget of $10,000 and had a gross of $300,000 which is definitely a high profit as it was published world wide and highly in the USA and the UK.

6. Curzon Artifical Eye is all about releasing films to the UK audience by whether or not checking if they are suitable for the audience.

7.

From this trailer, I believe that I can use the hand held camera effect, to show that someone is coming towards the main character.

In this trailer, I think that I can use the black and white effect which will link really nicely to the short production we have in mind (film noir).

In this final trailer, I think that I can use the panning and zooming effect which gives the movie a little bit more tension and suspense to the audience.

Exhibition: Arthouse cinemas

The first arthouse cinema I have researched about is the Electric Cinema which is based near Notting Hill station in London (W11). This week in the cinema, they are showing two different movies per day at two different timings per movie which are 'Bridge of Spies' and 'Carol'. The different with this London arthouse cinema, comparing it to the popular cinemas such as Vue, is that this cinema doesn't show the big blockbuster movies, e.g. Spiderman and doesn't tend to make as much movie as the other cinemas because they are everywhere where as these Art house cinemas as only located in one place. As shown on the website, this cinema is to attract the younger audience. This is probably due to the layout of the cinema, as they have these comfortable seats and beds at the front of the cinema which is an attraction to more of a younger audience. 

Another arthouse cinema I found was the 'Everyman Baker Street' cinema which is on Baker Street in Central London. Therefore, I would imagine that this would be a very popular art house cinema as it is based in a popular place. The showings in this cinema is very cinema similar to the showing in the Electric Cinema but in the Baker street cinema, they are also showing a movie called Brooklyn. This cinema is a little different to the one I stated above because occasionally in this cinema, they would show some popular (non) arthouse movies that they may have show in the Vue cinema etc.

A case study in independent film production: Film London and Microwave Film

What is Film London?

Film London is a film and media agency, which is a promotion for London as a major international film-making and film cultural capital, which includes everything in the screen industries. It was created to promote London as one of the best capitals in terms of the media.

What is Microwave Film?

Microwave film is where the London Film association gives help and support to people who are trying to create their own projects and don't really have the funds etc to do these projects (they will fund for the films).

What is the London calling project and how does it encourage independent film making?

London calling is all about providing help and mentoring the people that are wanting to make films of their own but don't really know how to do so. Therefore, they will help them with the different techniques etc.This encourages independent film making because this is accessible to anyone who wishes to create a movie.

I think that this is suitable for an arthouse because of how this movie is based on a 'ghetto' Londoner and how many people around the world wouldn't really understand this particular movie as they would find it very strange and abnormal.

I would think this movie to also be an arthouse movie especially because this is similar to the one above. This is also about a 'ghetto' life and how most the people around the world wouldn't understand it and therefore wouldn't pay to watch it as it would be pointless for them.

• The first thing that I have learnt from this film is that we need to know what our story is about. This is by meaning that the audience know what the film is about, e.g. who is the main protagonist and where it is located etc.
• clear idea of audience is also crucial - who they're communicating to
• Understanding audiences and distribution- Who are the target audiences? This is a big thing that will help me out in the movie we are creating in our coursework.

MEST2: Existing product research

Firstly, the black and white effect obviously shows that this movie was published a very long time ago but nowadays, this colour could suggest the wealth of the character, which to me suggests that she isn't poor but also isn't rich. 

The sound in the background is diegtic. This is because this is the type of music that would be played if someone was to be going out with someone else to a club or something and this music is preparing the lady for when she does go out. I  believe that both the two characters in this extract are the main protagonists because they were equally showed in this extract. I think that the little girl is whom this whole movie is being created around and so with the mother.Throughout the whole extract it would show a lot of straight cuts between the mother getting ready and her daughter listening to the music and playing with her toys which also showed continuity editing between them. The daughter was being shown at a long shot angle but in the centre of the scene whereas the mother would be shown at a close up shot which could also suggest she is the main protagonist. 

When the little girl was shown in the extract, she was all alone even though she had her doll and was listening to music. However, since she is quite little and all alone while her mum was in the other room, there wasn't a lot of security around at that time. So, I think that somewhere along the line, something will happen to the little girl (kidnap etc).

BBFC Certificate: 12A

In this extract, there was a wide range of cinematography and a lot of editing happening. First of all, there a close up shot of this male protagonist which then went into a point of view shot. Once the audience saw the point of view shot, it was focused on this waitress at the restaurant which had the panning movement from left to right and then focus onto this other lady. From the first 10 seconds of this clip, you had already known that this person is going to be the main protagonist because the camera had gone back onto him on a numerous occasions. Even though, we find someone to be the main protagonist of an extract by looking at if the camera shot was a close up, this time it was a long shot but the audience knew that he was the main protagonist because he was in the centre of the scene and the only one who you could see very clearly.

At around 30 seconds of  the extract, we saw the back of the protagonist and the camera itself was handheld which could mean that someone was spying on him. This extract had two ways an audience can interpret it, either the main protagonist was lonely or either he was waiting for someone. They could think he is lonely because of all those point of view shots where he would be looking at a lady each time; could be something to do with him past and hasn't forgotten about it.

BBFC Certificate: 15

In my opinion, I would say that the target audience for this between 15 and 35. This is because many people wouldn't really understand this particular movie because it is a movie related to isolation and people don't really understand that feeling when they're quite young.

This film is about a man who had lost his memory about everything that had happened to him in the past, even his name hence why the movie name itself is called 'The man without a past'. In the first few minutes of this movie, it had just shown this man and lady talking to one another about his name and other personal details about him which he didn't remember. 

Throughout the first couple of minutes it showed a wide range of straights cuts and continuity editing between the two people and then as the extract went on, it would then become a three way conversation.

The camera work through this clip was really detailed. It would start of with a medium close up of the man which obviously showed that he was the main protagonist because of the fact that we saw more of him and also most of the questions were thrown at him. Also, when the third character came into the scene, the camera angle had then changed. At first, it was eye level with the audience but when the other male character came it was at an angle. The man was looking down at the main protagonist and the protagonist was looking up at the other male. This showed a sense of who had more power than the other because it suggested that the main protagonist was clueless and didn't know what was happening which might have sent a message to the audience that this character is defenseless and couldn't really stand up for himself since he didn't know much.

BBFC Certificate: 12

In my opinion, I would set this type of movie to people between the age of 30-50. This is because not many young people would find a movie about someone who has lost his memory really entertaining unless if it is a comedy or even horror which in this case, it isn't.

From this clip, I found out that this film is about how this person called Donnie Darko and was alone a lot of his life. As you can see, there is a two way conversation happening between the main protagonist and his consultant or someone that he went to talk to; It showed a lot of different straight cuts which resulted into continuity editing.

Also, the camerawork showed an 180 degree cut between the two characters which shows that the two characters where talking to one another. This isn't shown as a point of view shot because when each character is being shown on the screen, it shows the are either looking to the right or left of the camera which is defining the 180 degree rule. There was a wide range of medium close ups on the male character which to the audience shows that he's the main protagonist as he is doing the most talking and the audience see him more in this extract. There different shots also meant that it was a shot/reverse shot as it was between the two protagonists and it was going back and forth between them.

The sound itself was quite dull and diegetic. This is because the two protagonists were sitting in a dull and dark room which kind of represents the music as the setting of the scene felts quite lonely and if he was on his own.

BBFC Certificate: 15

This movie is set for teenagers and younger adults because it is related to horror and this is what people like to watch nowadays.

This extract is about a gang of girls dancing on a train. From looking at this extract, the characters looks like they are in this 'ghetto' city and are eligible to do whatever they want to. This is because they were in a train dancing and that isn't something you would see happen on a normal basis, especially due to the fact the are female and don't really act in this sort of way. Just by looking at the characters facial expressions, it looks like they are enjoying every moment of it. This to the audience suggests that these character do not care about what they are doing and where they are doing it because the main thing to them may be is that they are enjoying it and they don't want that to be ruin since they are on a train etc.

Throughout this whole extract, there was one main part of cinematography used; it was the panning movement. This panning movement was used when the two characters were on one side of the train, dancing to the song they were listening to. This panning movement was really important to the audience because when they were doing this camera movement, the scene itself was more or less taken within a couple of shots. Therefore, this meant that the audience may have felt that they were there with the characters while they were dancing (made them feel apart of the film). Another reason why the audience may feel like they are apart of the film is because of how high the camera. As you can see, the level of the camera is head height so it may feel to the audience that that's them and that its a point of view shot. 

Also, in this clip, hardly any editing was done apart from a few straight cuts but that was it. This is because the panning movement played a huge part in this extract.

BBFC Certificate: 15

In my opinion, this move should be for people who are aged 16 and above. This is because this movie talks a lot about drugs and has quite a few violent scenes which isn't a good thing for young viewers to be watching. Also, people are are over the age 40 wouldn't want to watch this particular type of movie since it isn't a movie that the elder generation wouldn't want to watch since it viewed at teenagers and young adults.

MEST2 Brief

The topic that we have chosen to do from the Brief is The Secret

• Mixture of Action and Horror
• Film Noir (1950's theme)

The pitch

• There were many gunshots all around Greenford and many innocent people had been shot dead.
• Before the murders, people in Greenford were quite jolly but the murder turned everything upside down.
• Everyone in Greenford would wear brown bags with smiling faces on them (coloured in yellow); They are using these bags because underneath the brown bags, they are feeling down due to the fact they believe that this is a unsafe place to live in and people are thinking that they may be next.
• This is used to symbolise the bizarre features that is linked to the arthouse movie effect.
• Another reason why we chose this feature is because it will show they have a hidden identity and the people who would normally killed someone wouldn't be sure who their target may be.

Preliminary Exercise Evaluation

Brief

Our production was all to do with a hostage. A man was kidnapped by the 'boss' since he didn't give him the money for some reason and therefore tied him up and started to torture him, which then led to the innocent man being dead. We used quite a lot of straight cuts and a variety of match on actions with some that had failed and also attempted to do the 180 degree rule.

Planning

First of all, in our group we had 4 different people including myself. We then had to split the work among ourselves; Me and Sunny did the script, Sunny did half of the storyboard with Rashida doing the other half and Ladan doing the shot list. I think that if we didn't split this work into 4, then we wouldn't have gotten up to the deadline of when the production was due and I still think we would've been still filming. However, we came across that and got everything complete. On the other hand, I still think that we should had a detailed storyboard and we also should've stuck to every single shot because when we were actually filming the production, it was half planned and half not planned which I think took a lot more time doing this. Therefore, our one improvement as a group should be stick more to our planning which would result in us getting the work done much quicker because we had only finished the production the day before we actually screened it.

Strengths and Weaknesses 

In this production, we had quite a lot of positives and very small amount of negatives which I think was really good and shows how well we did when it came to the planning because of this outcome. The types of positives we had from this production was the make up, the performances, the contrapuntal sound of when Sunny was listening to that sound track (when there was screaming in the background), the match-on-action at the beginning of the production and the handheld camera. The one that I believe was really strong with our production was the off screen violence and the lighting. We were able to join these two key techniques together by creating a shadow of the violence that was happening between the main protagonist and the antagonist by using our prop (the floodlight). The lighting itself was coming from underneath which allowed us to have the shadows of the two bodies on the white wall. I also believe that we had a good use of cinematography, as I think we used both the panning and tilt very well;  We used these two when the part of the main protagonist was tied up and there was a panning movement and then went to a tilt movement when it was showing the boss. Also, we used a wide range of close medium shots when the antagonist was speaking which I thought was done really well, as it caught the eyes of the audience since he seemed very angry by the look on his face and also quite intimidating since he was wearing that red tie and that long jacket. The red tie could be associated with blood which is also linked to death so that's why we got the character to wear this tie colour. The contrapuntal sound was used to show a bit of humor to the audience which suggested that you don't need to just have the production based on one genre only, it can also be based on something completely opposite which in this case it was comedy. In my opinion, I think that this contrapuntal sound created a  little enigma code of why is this 'so called' Heavy listening to music when he should be the type of guy who would kill someone and not listening to pop music. Throughout the whole of the production, there was a variety of action codes created, e.g. why was 'the Boss' playing with his ring and why was the knife of the table? 

On the other hand, the negatives that we spotted out in this clip was that we failed on the 180 degree rule. This is simply because when we were viewing the antagonist, when had the camera on the other side of him which therefore seemed that he was speaking to himself since the main protagonist hadn't been revealed at that time of the production. Therefore, in order to improve this next time, we need to do trial and error before we finally put it all together because if it doesn't look right, we can always change it before publishing it. Another thing we need to improve on is the sound because sometimes, 'the boss' may be speaking quietly and at another time, he may be speaking quite high pitched, e.g. when he was screaming, it was too loud for the audience and therefore, I think that the voice should be consistent throughout the whole production.

'Film Language Test Learner Response'

WWW: Some good attempts to incorporate media language

EBI: Re-Do Qs 1 + 4

Q1)

At the beginning of this extract, it shows a beaten up man who is sitting on the floor and is about to set fire to something but another man who was on a particular balcony and looked rather intimidating, urinated the fire when the line of fire came level to the balcony. This man had then come down to the person who was on the ground. He looked quite intimidating because of the long, dark coat he was wearing alongside the hat which showed that it is linked to a film noir novel. It was also dark clothes, he was wearing which can suggest that he is a villain.

At the beginning of the extract, it showed a dead body which will obviously show the audience that this type of genre is going to be a thriller and crime type of movie if they had already shown a dead body in the first few minutes. Another action code which suggests that this movie was something down the lines of being a thriller movie is the gun that the shadowed man had, which he used to kill the worn out man, sitting on the ground. The action code created by this is that what made him shoot the character why was sitting on the floor? Some audience may believe it had something to do with the dead body in the beginning.

Before the shadowed protagonist had shot that person, the protagonist who was sitting down seemed very relaxed which could result into knowing that this whole thing of the person being shot was planned because he didn't really do anything to stop himself from being shot by the antagonist in the hat and trench coat.

Q4)

In the beginning of the extract, it showed a slow motion effect of the helpless character on the floor lighting up the paper with his cigarette which was creating more and more tension because it suggested to the audience that he was either going to be doing something bad or it may just be the characters role where he might be struggling.

Throughout  most of the extract, it showed a wide range of editing techniques which did create a lot of tension through most of the extract as well. First of all, there was a wide range of straight cuts which was showing different parts of the setting. The setting seemed quite dull and evacuated which may suggest the fire because it wouldn't be safe for people to be around there. There were also many different straight cuts happening between the hopeless man sitting on the floor and the man in the trench coat. This showed that they were having a conversation with one another because of the 180 degree angle the shot was taken at and because of how they were looking at one another (one looking down and the other looking up). Also, this suggested that there was shot/reverse shot going on because continuous straight cuts were happening while the conversation was going on between the two characters. This created a lot of suspense because the cuts were moving really quickly and this is when the enigma code took place in the extract where what the audience that is going to happen next between the two characters. Later on in the extract, the enigma code was finally answered when the man in the trench coat finally pulled out a gun and killed the man on the floor.

Preliminary Task Planning

For some reason, I couldn't upload the actual planning onto the blog, so the planning will appear on the link which is shown below:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9lJZsZTDdsJRjRVWTJ1Y0Vmenc#

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19OcWuU9eRNXq2rmLzD_BICmW2GMUD4EaRvY-e8QcYyU/