![]() The BBFC stands for the British Board of Film Classification. Films have age ratings in order to protect children from any harmful content in films which shows people whether the film will be unsuitable. BBFC examines and age rates films before they are released, they then apply the film to the standards in order to reach a final age rating. The films go through the same process when they are released on DVD and Blu-Ray. When classifying a film, the BBFC look at issues such as drugs, horror, danger, bad language, nudity, sex, discrimination and violence when making a decision. The age ratings include; U, PG, 12A, 12, 15, 18 and R18. ![]() Age ratings affect our target audience as the film has to have a correct age rating for our target audience. For example, if a film is targeted at people aged 12, the film can't be rated at a 15 as the target audience would not be allowed to view it. Our target audience for our film are teenagers so we will be rating our film at 12A in cinemas and 12 for DVD. We believe that this rating would be suitable as it does include some scenes with a lot of tension and there is a structured storyline which younger viewers might not understand. In 12A films, moderate violence is allowed and action sequences may be present. In a 12/12A film, there cannot be strong language, discrimination, sex or bad horror scenes.
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In relation to our piece, we will be addressing the Male Gaze theory subtly. The 1940s female characters are fighting over the male character and so showing how their friendship and the bond between young women is less important than the affections of the male character. Although he will not feature on screen, the storyline is partly structured around him but because of this, we will not need to make the characters into 'an erotic object for characters within the narrative'. The modern day character is just a teenager searching for information and so will not be made into a 'desirable' figure.
However, the narrative is pushed forward by the female characters and it is essentially the absent male character which takes the passive role in the narrative. Short films are not long enough to be considered to be a feature film as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film to be original and to have a running time of 40 minutes or less including the credits. Short films are frequently screened at local, national or international film festivals which were made by independent filmmakers for non-profit which would have had a very low budget whereas feature films are made to make a profit and they have very big budgets. Short films are usually funded by film grants or a not for profit organisation. Filmmakers create short films so they can gain experience and show their talent with creating films in order to gain funding from organisations so they can make more films in the future.
There are numerous creators who feel that it's in fact harder to produce a short film, because you have to fit a full story into a specific, short amount of time. On the other hand, with feature films, you can take as long as you need to tell the whole story, so there's not as much pressure. Some other differences between feature films and short films is that a short film will have less crew members than a feature length film and short films are not as complex as feature films. Short films are also targeted at a niche audience whereas most feature films are targeted at the mass audience in order to make a big profit. Barthes has a theory where he believes that films have an enigma code which means that the film has a mystery and the audience needs to solve that mystery. He also believes that there are action codes so when the audience keep watching when there is action, for example when someone pulls out a gun. The producers of the film encode messages in media texts such as film and TV and the audience then decodes the hidden messages. Enigma codes portray a mystery to draw an audience in and to make them keep watching. The film ‘Case 39’ (2009) features an enigma code as it makes the audience question what happens at the beginning of the film. The audience are confused at the beginning of the film as the parents are hurting the child which makes the audience think that the parents are evil due to their actions and the child is innocent. This therefore creates suspense and grips the audience to make them keep watching to find out why the parents were acting evil. The first scene of the film creates a mystery which is then resolved at the end of the film as the child actually turns out to be the bad villain instead of the parents. We can incorporate the enigma and action codes into our short film as we are doing an adventure film which would mean it would create a mystery for the audience which would create suspense.
I looked at the 2013 advert for 'TalkTalk' called "date night." This advert has a strong narrative, as it shows objects from around the house (in this case a picture of an astronaut in a child's bedroom and a picture of a ballerina) come to life. They are shown going around the house, eventually ending up in front of the TV having a "date night." Once again we see inanimate objects being given personalities, as we did in Bob's Adventure and The Red Balloon. This is something we are considering doing in our short film, if we can make it look realistic and effective. Adverts use stories to promote a service or object that they wish to sell. This is different to a short story, where telling a story is the film makers main aim. The film makers want to make the audience think, and have an impact upon them, whereas those behind the advert ultimately want the audience to buy their product. When researching our audience for our short film, it became quickly apparent we could not gain an accurate collection of data from a diverse range of audiences. Secondary research from the hugely popular film website IMDB proved to be very helpful when looking into results of favourite films. From a large number of people voting, these results are very reliable and show an accurate response to preferred genre in films. At the top is Batman and the Godfather, crime films, followed by the final film to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, an adventure film. This is then in turn followed by sci-fi (Star Wars), western (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and animation/anime (Spirited Away).
This is the results from our surveys which I have presented in graphs to make the results easier to understand. These results show that our ideal target audience is teenagers as they like watching adventure films and they also like short films. We will consider these results when choosing our target audience.
To carry out my target audience research I created moodboards with different ages groups that our short film can target including children, teenagers and adults. I did this so we could compare easily and see what age group will be best. We then created a survey which would be handed out to people around our age to see what kind of genres they were interested in and if they watched short films. Our survey included the following questions:
How old are you? - We asked this question so we would know what age group to target our film at. What gender are you? - We again wanted to find out what gender to target. Do you like short films? If yes, Do you regularly watch them? - We asked these two questions to find out whether our target audience like short films and if they actually watch them. How do you watch short films? - This question is to see how the audience watch films to see whether they watch them through the internet. What genre of film do you like the most? - This is to see what genre our target audience like the most. Do you like watching adventure films? - This is to see whether our target audience like the genre of our short film. Why do you like /not like watching adventure films? - This question is good as it tells us what the audience like about adventure films to give us ideas of things to include and things not to include if they do not like adventure films. I will create these results from the surveys into graphs so its clearer to understand. After watching "Bob's Adventure" we were inspired to watch other films that follow a similar idea. We watched the 1956 French film "The Red Balloon." Although it is not a short 5 minute film (it is 34 minutes) it followed the same idea as "Bob's Adventure" by brining an inanimate object to life and creating an adventure from it. We are not sure what we want to do for our film, but this is definitely something to consider, although it might be difficult to make an object look "alive." Both films showed us the effectiveness of having minimal dialogue in a film, which is also something to consider.
This film used mostly washed out and grey colours, except for the balloon, which was a bright red, symbolising its importance. If this is an effect we can recreate in Final Cut Pro, it is something we may do as well. I watched the film Room 8, which is the winner of the BAFTA short film award. This is the film that I watched: Although this is a professional film, with a much higher budget than we will have, it was useful to watch it and use it to get some ideas for our own short film.
The genre for this film is not immediately clear to me. I would say it is mainly a mystery film, although it has elements of adventure at the end, where the prisoner is trying to escape. From our research into adventure films, it seems that this particular genre usually combines with another genre, instead of just being purely an adventure film. I feel that the audience was probably a huge consideration when making this film. Knowing your target audience ensures that you can create a film that they will enjoy. It is clear from the plot of this film that they want the audience to think about the film and what happens in the film long after they finish watching it. We would like to have a similar effect on those who watch our film, and use it as an opportunity to tell as story and make them think. The narrative is linear, although there also appears to be elements of circular narrative within the film. The film has a shot near the beginning and at the end of the man putting a matchbox in a drawer. It is not the exact same scene (which we can tell by the different design on the matchbox) so it is not a circular narrative. Although this film is of a professional standard, and is not primarily an adventure film, we can take inspiration from certain camera angles within this film. We would also like to have a plot like this, which makes the audience think.
![]() The Hunger Games (2012) is a science fiction adventure film. It is classed an adventure film because it is quite gripping as the audience doesn't know what's going to happen which keeps the audience in suspense. It is a science film as it features fictional futuristic elements in the film. The main character Katniss is represented throughout the film as a strong brave woman. This is shown when she volunteers for her sister which represents Katniss as brave and caring towards others. Katniss is also shown as powerful when she shows off her skills with a bow and arrow. Peeta and Katniss are also represented as being clever and smart when they go to eat the poisonous berries so no one wins but instead the capital crowned them both winners. The target audience for the Hunger Games are teenagers ages 12-18 and young adults. The characters in The Hunger Games are younger which causes the target audience to relate with them as they are a similar ages. This is an example of identification which is part of uses and gratifications. The Hunger Games is a Lionsgate film which grossed $68.3 million when it premiered at the U.S. box office on 23rd March 2012. It was Lionsgate's highest grossing film after just three days. The Hunger Games has a beginning, middle and end structure. At the beginning of the film, Katniss volunteers in place of her sister. At the middle of the film, the game begins in the arena and the end is when Peeta and Katniss win the games. This narrative follows Todorov's theory of the equilibrium, disequilibrium, equilibrium structure. This film structure grips the audience until the end because they want to know what happens at the end of the film. A soundtrack album for The Hunger Games was released with songs inspired by the film. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on the 3rd September 2012. The film also uses a lot of special effects which helped produce scenes which were very fictional and futuristic. The codes and conventions of adventure films can include a long quest with chase sequences. Adventure films can be linked with another genre such as action or crime. There is normally a twist in the plot in adventure films. Adventure films also have dramatic non diegetic sound which we can do in our short film as it makes the audience more tense. Adventure films can also include a romantic sub-plot and love interest which supports the quest which does feature in The Hunger Games with Katniss and Peeta. Jurassic Park was made in 1993 and is an Adventure film. The Film contains many codes and conventions of the adventure film genre. For example:
The genre is often combined with other sub genres, and this is the case with Jurassic Park, which has elements of Science-Fiction. Adventure films usually have high production values, with a great deal of special effects. Jurassic Park contains a lot of CGI and special effects, and many say that it "revolutionised" the way special effects are used in films. Adventure films typically feature dramatic non-diegetic sound. This is true for Jurassic Park, which has an iconic soundtrack true to the nature of Adventure films. Adventure films typically feature "new" technology, something that helps it appeal to a younger audience. This is obviously a huge part of Jurassic Park, which features technology able to bioengineer and clone dinosaurs. Adventure films such as Jurassic Park generally have unrealistic plots, however the characters are still believable and are true to those you may meet in everyday life. This allows the audience to connect more with the unrealistic plot, through characters they can imagine themselves as. Adventure films often have humorous dialogue between characters, often to diffuse tension. This is occasionally seen in Jurassic Park, however i would not say it is a huge element. The target audience for Adventure films are usually quite wide. Adventure films are typically aimed at males, aged 15-24, and I would say that this is true for Jurassic Park. However some adventure films can be made with a younger audience in mind. Jurassic Park follows the typical three part narrative structure of equilibrium, disequilibrium, equilibrium. Typical of Adventure films, it features one long quest with constant set backs, with many chase scenes, which get more tense, to excite the audience. Jurassic Park follows many codes and conventions for action films, which we could use in our film. I particularly like the use of non-diegetic sound and realistic characters, both of which we could consider using in our film. We discussed the different genres that we could use in our short film. Because our film has to be about 5 minutes, we need a film genre that will allow us to create a simple plot that we can easily fit into that small time frame. The genre would also have to be quite simple for us to create as amateur film makers.
These are the genres we discussed: (those with an * are the ones we are considering) Science Fiction-The effects required for a science-fiction film may be too difficult to recreate as amateur film makers. Period Dramas- It would be quite difficult to make the sets and costumes accurate for the time in which the film is set. *Crime- Could potentially be very interesting. Westerns- It could be difficult to film in England, and still make the set look appropriately like Southern America. *Adventure- Could be interesting and we could make a simple plot that fits this genre. *Romance- Very easy to make into a short film, but we don't want to risk making it too cliche. Horror- Could be a good genre, but it may be hard to come up with a good plot that doesn't require too many special effect. We are left considering whether to do Crime or Adventure films. We like the idea of Adventure, although we also like Crime, because it has a lot of easily recongnisable codes and conventions (such as crime scenes, police tape, police men.) We have decided to have adventure films as our film genre. We aren't sure what our plot is going to be, but we may include elements of crime within our plot as well. Some examples of adventure films include-Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Avengers, Jurassic Park, The Hunger Games and Pirates of the Caribbean. (some action films combine crime, and these include Daredevil, The A Team and Beverly Hills Cop) We are each going to watch a film from this genre, so that we can explore the codes and conventions typically associated with Action films. Alice is going to watch The Hunger Games, Caitlin is Going to Watch Sherlock Holmes and Rosanna is going to watch Jurassic Park. We looked at some examples of short adventure films that we could watch to help us get an idea of what we wanted to include in our short film. We watched a film called Bob's Adventure. We particularly liked this film, because it was incredibly simple, but was still effective and told a story, and that is ultimately what we wanted to do in our short film.
By Caitlin Young
By Rosanna Armitage
By Alice Mealing
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