BBFC Certificate Research

'We need to talk about Kevin'

Certificate; 15

Genre; Drama

Kevin's mother struggles to love her strange child, despite the increasingly vicious things he says and does as he grows up. But Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be beyond anything anyone imagined

The BBFC certified the film as a 15 because it contains: 
Very strong language, once very strong.
Strong sex and sexualised nudity.

I print screened the information from the BBFC website which gives you basic information of the film including genre, running time, certificate and a brief summary of why it was given that certificate without going into detail about the film.

 

However, if an individual would like to know a more in depth description of the films certificate there is also a link which you can click...

 

This shows what parts of the film use strong and very strong language and what words are used. It tells the individual why they are accepted in a certificate 15 film. E.g. 'The strongest language may be accepted if it is justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of very strong language is unlikely to be acceptable.' This is stated clearly so the viewer understands the justification of the certificate, why it isn't an 18 and what would make it unacceptable for a 15 certificate audience.

This research will allow us as a group to give our film an accurate age certificate and we can give the audience a clear, in depth description of why the film was certified with this rating. Furthermore, we are now able to say what we would have to do to raise the age certificate or lower it to target a specific audience.

 

We gave our initial certificate for the film a 'PG' but we were unable to go into an in depth description of what a PG certificate must/must not include but as we hadn't written a script we couldn't relate the research to our film. Now we have a final script I have related the research to our film so the audience can see why it is a PG and then parents are able to see whether they think it is appropriate for younger children to view.

 

Here are the guidelines for a PG certificate film: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/pg/

Our film contains no use of bad or offencive language and it includes minimal violence only as a girl pushes another girl over and it is implied that she is killed by a train however we do not see the girl fall onto the train tracks and we don't see the after effects, they are implied through the sound effects only. Therefore it will only cause minimal distress for a young viewer as we don't see any gore or blood. There is no drug use but there is a brief scene where a character is noticeably drunk at a party. In this scene it also involves a boy being pushed to the floor however this violence is not prolonged and he suffers from no injuries.

 

Certificate research, 'We need to talk about Kevin'

The BBFC app

As we were going to see the film, 'We need to talk about Kevin,' it was a good idea to do some research on it specifically for the certificate because it is good information for when we decided on our short film certificate. Therefore, I downloaded to app for the BBFC. The print screens show my process of doing this and also shows the information I discovered.

From this, I gained information on the properties of the film for instance, its runtime and the date it was passed by the BBFC. However, its certificate was important as it's a 15 and this app showed the reasons why they had passed it as that, 'Contains strong language, once very strong, strong sex & sexualised nudity,' therefore the BBFC guidlines explain it is too explicit to show to anyone under the age of 15. Furthermore, it also states that this film was passed uncut therefore they didn't need to edit any of the film out to make it to a 15 certificate.

This is the guidlines for a 15 rated film. From this research on the actual BBFC website I can clearly see why the film we watched was a 15 but also there is extensive research on this as some of the elements in the guidlines weren't contained in the film.
This is helpful to us when creating our short film because with this and other certificate research it will help us divise a certificate for our film. This is a result of being more familiar and aware of the guidlines even though our initial idea was to have our short film at a PG.

Film Name Ideas

We don't want a cheesy name for our film as most romantic drama film names are quite cheesy. We wanted it to match the theme of the film and so our ideas were: 

• The Childhood Romance
• iLuv
• Unreadable
• Relative Guessing

We thought that going on a random word generator would give us some inspiration and originality when it came to thinking of a Title for our short film. Here is a print screen showing the website and an idea it produced, 'Relative Guessing' which we thought was very relateable to our short film narrative. 

After having changed the script we decided that none of the names we had thought of would match the storyline now. Therefore, we had to come up with some new names: 

• Quadrilateral 
• Train Tracks 
• Voltage
• When James Met Sally
• The Last Kiss

Elliptical Editing Exercise

Our final elliptical editing exercise: 

Acted by: Beth
Filmed by: Jess
Edited by: Lizzie

Viral Ad Campaigns - The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project used very cheap and easy techniques to advertise it to others, using the internet they helped to further the belief that this was actual found footage and these people where real. This rumour had no way of being verified as actors did not get named and neither did directors. Up until the film was actually released everyone was under the impression that this actually happened.



In the film, the Blair Witch is, according to legend, the ghost of Elly Kedward, a woman banished from the Blair Township (latter-day Burkittsville) for witchcraft in 1785. The directors incorporated that part of the legend, along with allusions to the Salem Witch Trials and The Crucible, to play on the themes of injustice done on those who were called witches. They were influenced by The Shining, Alien and The Omen. Jaws was an influence as well, presumably because the witch was hidden from the viewer for the entirety of the film, forcing suspense from the unknown. Jim Knipfel of the New York Press has noted the similarities between Blair Witch and the widely-banned 1980 Italian cannibal film Cannibal Holocaust. In the first part of this film, a rescue team ventures into the jungles of South America to search for a missing group of filmmakers who previously traveled there to film a documentary about cannibalistic tribes. Their footage is eventually found and viewed, which makes up the second half of the film.

The company even made extra posters such as this one that tie in with the true story route that the film was going with. These where the actors in the film and it all added to the hype as people where more afraid of the film if they thought it was all real, which would be more likely to make them want to watch it. It appeals to peoples curiosity and fear, it is more scary to think a film actually happened because it then provides the possibility that it could happen to you too. 

Viral Advertising

Viral advertisements is a marketing technique using the internet and mobile networks on websites such as social networking (which is popular now because of the rapid growth in active users, Facebook has over 1 billion) to increase the popularity/viewing or sales figures of your product. There are several ways in which you can do this. examples are;

• Video clips or trailers
• Interactive games
• Images
• Text messaging
• E-mail
• Web pages

This could be important when using marketing strategies for our own short film. Based on our target audience and the increase of internet use, viral advertisements may be a key aspect in the promotion of our short film. 

Example
http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/06/07/super-8-best-viral-marketing-movies/
When researching viral advertising, I discovered this website which presents the best 8 film examples of viral advertising in which I chose to use Toy Story 3.

Toy story 3 example from the website above

This video was created purely to advertise beforehand the upcoming release of Toy Story 3. By doing this, it makes it more unique and is a fun way to promote a film that will grasp audience interest more as oppose to just the younger children.

The video is based around a computer messaging conversation between the main two character which the audience will be familiar with, Buzz lightyear and Woody, making up screen names for them. By doing this it is relating to technology that many people will now use in day to day life.

They add a humourous element to it by presenting small clips from the other of their supposed relatives, joking about what kind of toy they are for example, cowboy, as shown in the print screen. By doing this, it shows the characters playing on aspects in the film in a funny video therefore will attract the audiences because they assume that because this entertained them then so will the film.

With the humour however, the video is made for promotion of the film therefore has to include elements that relate to the film. The print screen conversation hints at the narrative to the film showing the tension between the characters as to who Andy is going to take to college, leaving the audience wanting to find out to end result. It also includes a slight bit of actual film footage relating to the theme.

Also, in 3 quick shots at the end it shows all the information needed to know about release date and where to watch it. By doing this it leaves he audience wanting to watch the film because they've enjoyed the viral advertisement. As  result of it being a major film, this ensures them they will more than likely be able to see it at their local cinema in different formats for example, 3D.

Viral Advertisement- Shifty

What is Viral Advertising?
Viral advertising is the act of promoting a product which will then be passed around. It is also known as 'word of mouth'. This is usually done through the Internet (email/website). It engages the consumer in a variety of ways and is a quick, easy and a low cost technique of advertisement.
What is it's strategy?
1. Gives away a product.
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others.
3. Scales easily from small to very large.
4. Exploits common behaviours.
5. Utilises existing communication and/or social networks.
6. Takes advantage of other resources.

Shifty is a typical British film. It was filmed with a shoestring budget and has become one of the most successful independent, British films yet.

Shifty was distributed by Metrodome. To advertise the film they used TV ads on pirate radio and fly posting. The posters that they used were designed to be eye-catching and suggest danger which is why the main colour theme is black and yellow. The yellow stands out from most other posters and the black contrasts with the bright yellow. It was a show-off poster which was simple but effective. 





Shifty's viral campaign was banned by Watchdog which was a huge advantage for the company as it was free advertisement. The viral campaign 'Frame a friend' encouraged people to 'stitch up a mate' which could be sent to anyone by email. People could put a photo of their friends face into a CCTV picture as a warning of carrying drugs. The address of the sender would be 'community drugsteam@ukgov.org.uk' rather than the real senders name.  This could also be uploaded to Facebook enabling anyone to see. 

The email stated: "If you fail to respond to this email within seven days of receipt please be aware that this will then become an official matter and there will be a strong likelihood of criminal investigation." After this, the advertising agency decided to ban the campaign because it could cause distress and alarm for receivers. 

After getting banned, the campaign was discussed on talk shows, and on the news and so almost everyone knew about the film which was a massive success for the company because they were getting free advertisement for their film which even got the attention of an Australian distribution company who wanted to distribute the film internationally. 
If we could create a viral campaign similar to this but one that links to our film then it will be recognised by many more people meaning our audience will expand because people will be talking about it. 

The poster and viral ad for Shifty uses the strategies for a viral campaign as they have used yellow and black as the main colour to catch the eye of people. Furthermore, the viral campaign is fun and easy for people to send to their friends as the just have to forward it in the email expanding the amount of people who see it as you can send it to as many people as you want at one time.It exploits common behaviours of 15-20 year old males as they will find it entertaining and funny to frame their friends and make them believe they have been caught on a CCTV camera and so they are more likely to send it on. Furthermore, Shifty had a Facebook page where people could find out more information about the film, taking advantage of social networking. 

Creating our own production logo

As we didn't want to use an already created image for our production logo we therefore took inspiration from the GIF image we previously created and drew our own bee. This particular image was created using various tools on the software 'Paint' however, we may progress and re-do the image on photoshop as it is more advanced.

This shows various print screens of the process we took in creatinng each aspect of the production logo Bee.

• Main body was creating using a rectangle shape tool and eye however with the eye, it has rectangles within rectangles but with a contrast of colours.
• The lines in the body were created with a 'curve' line tool to make the body look more realistically round.
• The alternate colours were used with the 'fill colour' tool to ensure each part was fully coloured correctly.
• The wings were hand drawn and again used 'fill colour' with a light blue. This is because there wasn't a shape to do the wings with that represented them as we wanted therefore was better to hand draw them along with the the bee's smile, legs and sting at the back. We attempted to do its sting as an extension on the rectangle ensuring that it flowed from the main body correctly.
  
  
  
  
  I doubt that we will use this in our film because when trying to make similar images, it was too technical to get the measurements of the bee correct when creating them. This will make continuity issues when in our short film, therefore we want to make it appear as professional as possible. 

Creating a Production Logo

From the Facebook image posts we where able to find a final idea for the logo, this included a picture of a bee creating the logo, "Hazy Days." We used Google search engine to find an image of a bee and this was one of the options;

This bee we found on the website, <http://www.about-bees.com/6-animated-bee.html> was the one we decided to go with because its really cute and it relates to the summery imagery that is associated with 'Hazy Days' and the romantic genre. However, we couldn't go with this exact bee, as we needed to put our own spin on it so we changed the colour of his little bucket from red to pink.

 We used the paint element to select a colour and change it, we decided to go with pink because it is a colour connotation of the romantic genre as it symbolises love and happiness. To start doing this we downloaded the GIF and brought each individual image onto photoshop that was necessary.

This is the programme that was opened up so we could view the individual images of the bee. We selected the images that was appropriate for our own individual GIF, which shows the main aspects of a bee taking flight. We then proceded to place the images onto the software that is known as photoshop elements to change the bee's imagery to our own style.

We used the website, <http://picasion.com/> to make our GIF. The instructions where to upload three pictures that we created in order to make them move. You could then select which size and speed of our preference, we decided to go with a fast pace that would emulate the movement of a bee to make it look realistic.

This is the GIF that we finally received of our bee with its pink tub of honey. It showed it in movement so you could specifically go back a step to adjust its properties, however we thought that our bee was perfect to be included in our production logo <3

Link the page - http://picasion.com/i/1J1VO
Direct Link - http://i.picasion.com/pic59/3cdf944a5b715ca8e423cfe023a1af08.gif

This is the HTLM code, this is what we used to insert the GIF onto this blog - <a href="http://picasion.com/" title="gif maker"><img src="http://i.picasion.com/pic59/3cdf944a5b715ca8e423cfe023a1af08.gif" border="0" alt="gif maker"></a>

Then we had to download the GIF onto the computer, these are the steps that we had to go through.

This shows each frame that we used to create the GIF, now we have the option to make adjustments if needed for instant, annotation and movement. The only problem we have the bee at the minute is the speed at which its wings moved, a normal bee would go a lot faster and look less twitchy and slow.

Production Company names

Production Company names on Prezi

Our chosen name is Hazy Days

Storyboard- First draft

This is my first draft of the storyboard for our short film originally based around our treatment synopsis. I did each image around our character profiles to make it look more related to our idea, with similar clothes and hair. Furthermore, I did the ideas of the shots for each image however, these are just an initial idea as some shots may not work or others would look better to add emphasis on the narrative but we are going to test these in the near future.

Page 1 

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Improvements 

In the next draft I will do, we will have tested each shot to see if they need adjusting or not. Furthermore, I will need to add colour to the images to make it more realistic and close to our film. I will then vary the images when we have done location research to try and make them appear more to the actual location we are going to use in each scene. We also need to finalise a script, therefore I can produce an acurate replica what our short film is going to be.

Title Sequence Draft

This is the first page of the draft, the main character is seen walking toward somewhere that has not yet been confirmed. Its a very rough copy, so I have not added colour or any smaller details just the actions of the character. In this scene he is on his way to the train station, he is listening to music using his earphones and seems to be quite content.

In this scene there is extra additions such as point of view shots that show what he is looking at. Although I have decided to swap around the second frame and the third frame to provide space for when he looks up to down. The description is near enough close to what we want and the audio is the same most of the way through the title sequences as it is the music is both diegetic and non-diegetic, he is listening to it although we can hear it as though we are listening to the ear phones too. When he starts to talk to the girl he takes one ear-phone out, reducing the volume of the sound. 

First Draft of script

This is my first draft of our script, it is just my interpretation of the storyline and it will need improving as at the moment I don't think it will last five minutes once we start filming it. However, we will be including shots which may lengthen it. Furthermore, the scenes that are in Sally and James' imagination are not complete because I wasn't entirely sure what we were going to include in them so I only outlined them briefly therefore they need expanding. However, I think it is a good starting point for when we write the final script as a group because all members in the group will have their own version of a script so we can put them together to make the final shooting script.

Cinematography and film making techniques.

I thought it would be a good idea to research cinematography so we had a clear understanding of what shots will be ideal for shooting our film and it will give us a wider range of different shot ideas which will make our film stand out from others.

What is cinematography?
Cinematography is the creation of motion picture images. It involves the use of either fil or digital imagery.

The cinematography represents the audience's viewpoint or perspective which will move over the course of filming. It's movement involves making the audiece react emotionally to the images in a way which reflects the story line.

Common camera angles:
Extreme long shot/Establishing shot- Contains a large amount of background/landscape. Often use to open a film to establish a setting or scene.
Long shot- Contains a fair amount of background but shows the audience a specific item or person.
Full shot- Complete view of the characters from head to foot. Gives the audience time to focus on the mise en scene (costumes) so the audience know a little about the character and it can help demonstrate relationships between characters.
Medium shot- Shows the character/s from the waist up. The audience can see the characters faces and expressions more clearly.
Close up- Shows just a characters face. This enables the audience to understand the charcers emotions and allows them to feel empathy for the character.
Extreme close up- Displays part of a characters face or an important object. This is commonly use din horror films as it creates an intense mood and provides interaction between the audience and the film. This shot would then be effective in our film because we want the audience to feel involved in the film. We could use this shot when Sally types the message on her phone to James so the audience think she is going to send it.


This video displays a varity of different camera shots and angles that we could incoperate when writing out shot list for our film:



www.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/filmstudies/docs/25568.pdf

Further Questionnaire

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEVRb2ZiZnZ5ZXdNYmg4aUZBelJNemc6MQ

I created this Questionnaire using Google Docs, so we could find out about our target audience and help with further research. Furthermore by doing this it was a more efficient way to distribute it as I can send it out to more people therefore have the opportunity to gain more opinions.

First draft of Questionnaire



First Draft of Questionnaire



It shows that I have included questions about themselves for instance age, gender because by doing this, it helps us to conclude our target audience. Furthermore, I have included our final synopsis for our short film to ask opinions on it and to see if there is any adjustments that need to be made, for example I asked about what they liked, disliked and any improvements. In addition, I asked if they liked to the genre to see which people would be interested in watching our short film and again, helps with the target audience and where they would watch a short film. By doing this it helps after we have made the film because then we will know where and when to distribute our short film to appeal to the target audience and get the best viewing figures.

I later amended the questionnaire to add a couple more questions that I believed would be useful for instance, asking opinions on the age certificate our short would have. Furthermore, I thought the background for our questionnaire should be adjusted to fit in with our genre of Romance and short film, therefore I chose the one which i believed best suited this. To the left are print screen images of the final Questionnaire. 

The two print screen images show that I have distributed the questionnaire via the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. These are two popular websites so I believed this was the best way to distribute the questionnaires and all 3 of us shared it onto our individual profiles, by tagging, sharing and retweeting. We believed it was a good idea to each distribute it as our friends and followers lists differ from each other therefore may attract a more varied set of participants.

Film making exercise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1japIhKU9I&feature=player_embedded#!



We are doing a continuity exercise to ensure that we know all the shots when doing our own 5 minute film which will contain minimum filming mistakes.

I found this video extremely useful to do this film making excersise because all of the ideas within the video we will be incooperating into our short film. By thinking about the filming aspect of our short before, it will ensure that we make the best decisions for each part of the film with elements such as angles and shots. Each camera movement or shot should be done for a particular reason or for continuity purposes, for example the low angle print screen I took of the video is done to emphasise the fact he is playing guitar or in other circumstances could be done to show a characters dominance.  

      Furthermore the video shows things like lighting and focus examples. These are key aspects because you want to achieve the best quality for your viewing audience therefore it is important to keep the camera and the right objects in focus and make sure the lighting is appropiate for the area in which you are filming. In addition the video showed transitions and special effects that you can use when it comes to the editing process for our journey exercise and short film. Transitions are helpful to go from one clip to another, showing continuity. Furthermore, they can be used to show what is happening in the narrative, change of location and passage of time like they do in this video.

This is an example of a transition that is used for both passage of time and change of location. As the boy walks behind the bookshelf it transitions from the first print screen image to the second, which I found was a good way to do this therefore, gaining ideas for editing in our own short film.