Ben’s Blog

ABOUT THE BBFC:

The BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) are a UK company that regulates what films can be seen by certain people by giving them certificates, which are enforced by law (eg: under 18’s will not be allowed to see an ‘18′ certificate film at a cinema, or buy on DVD, Blu-Ray, etc…). All countries have their own ways of regulating films, some involve censoring (cutting down footage) or certification (eg: 15) and some use both methods. There is concern that films may impact individuals and society in a negative way, which is why the BBFC, MPAA, and other film regulators give films certificates. These concerns are mostly related to Sex, Violence, Swearing, Drug Use, Cruelty (in the making of the film) and Politics. The BBFC have to either rate, cut, or ban films submitted to them (all films in the UK must be submitted otherwise they cannot be shown/sold). For audiences, the BBFC can be very useful, especially to parents as they may not want their children to be exposed to strong violence for example. They also have negative effect however for the filmmakers as if they recieve a high rating, it will stop a lot of possible audience members helping their film to success (a real example is that the  film “Bruno”, which was given an 18 certificate, and they were missing a lot of their audience, 15, 16 and 17 year olds, so an edited version called “Bruno: Snipped” was released with a 15 certificate from the BBFC). And this does not happen very often, so often younger people will want to see high rated films and will not be able to via legal methods (anyone could download a film illegally from the internet but going to the cinema, buying on DVD, etc…would not be able to happen) which is a negative to those people.

As my fictional film will be released in the UK (although am only doing teaser trailer, poster and magazine cover), this means it would be rated by the BBFC and because my film would be rated, I may include this on my poster, and my trailer would need to be rated so my knowledge of the BBFC is needed so that I can rate my film/trailer appropriately and so I can get the 15 certificate I want for my film.

Conventions Of Horror Films:

Conventions of Horror films are things that are usually featured. For the genre of horror, these are very common features:

- Blood / - Gore / - Killers/Murderers / - Victims / - Screaming/Fear / - Weapons (knives, guns, etc…) / Dark lighting/dark places/night / - Dead and damaged bodies / - Things to scare audiences / - Hostages / - Good vs. Evil