BBFC examples

Here are some examples of differently classified films:

U : Shrek (2001) This film is about an ogre called Shrek who sets out on a quest to save his swamp after Lord Farquaad ruins it. To do this he has to save Princess fiona.
 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126029/

  
PG :Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone (2001) A young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241527/

12: Casino Royale (2006) James Bond must stop Le Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorist organizations, from winning a high-stakes poker tournament at Casino Royale in Montenegro.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381061/

15: Cloverfield (2008) Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/

18 : Halloween (1978) A psychotic murderer institutionalized since childhood escapes on a mindless rampage while his doctor chases him through the streets.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/









All images obtained from Google image searches for that particular movie.

The BBFC

The British board of film classification is an independant company which has classified films since it was created in 1912 it is not part of the government nor is it funded by them. It is funded by the film companies that send there films to it to get them classified.

For a more detailed overview of the BBFC or anything about it go to :http://www.bbfc.co.uk/



U : (universal) films with this classification are generally suited for children 4 and over. They will be set within a positive moral framework and will show reassuring counterbalances to violence and horror.

PG : (parental guidance) These are normally for general viewing by anyone but some scenes can upset young children. Children are allowed to watch unaccompanied and the contents should not be disturbing to children of about age eight or older.

12A : This category only exists in cinema films. Nobody younger than 12 will be allowed to see these films in the cinema without an adult with them. These films are generally not recommended for children younger than 12 due to some language used,violence or sexual references.

12 : This is exactly the same as the 12A category except this exists mainly for film distribution nobody under the age of 12 may buy or rent a film with this classification.

15 : Nobody under 15 may watch a film with this classification in a cinema or buy or rent it. These will often contain prolonged violence , strong language ,nudity, sexual and drug refferences.

18 : No-one under 18 may watch a film with this classification in a cinema or buy, rent it for home viewing. These films will most likely contain implied drug use, sex, detailed gratuitous violence and consistently strong language.

R18 : (restricted) Films with this classification may only be shown in specifically licensed cinemas or supplied in licensed sex shops. They will not be sold to anybody under the age of 18. This is a special legally retricted classification mainly for explicit sexual material



image obtained from a Google images search for "BBFC film classifications"

Sound bytes

As part of our media course we will have to do a large essay. So that we can put this on our blog we will have to use something called a sound byte. This is where a essay is reduced in size by just keeping the important parts of it or it can be used as an overview of the essay like the blurb of a book or synopsis of a film.

The ACORN system

The Acorn system is something that puts people in to categories based on things such as there jobs, income, ethnicity, gender and age. This can be very helpful when deciding what u would like your target audience to be.
The Acorn bands are :

BAND A : These are the wealthy upper middle classes that are proffessionals such as doctors or are high up managers, executives, administrators.

BAND B : People in this band are normally middle class with intermediate manager jobs or other respected proffesional jobs such as teachers.

BAND C1 : This is generally the lower middle classes with fair incomes. They will have jobs such as junior managers or semi proffessional workers.

BAND C2 : These people are usually skilled working classes who will have often have skilled manual work jobs.

BAND D : This is working class people who are often manual workers in semi-skilled/unskilled jobs such as mechanics.

BAND E : These are the lowest earners who will often have very basic or casual jobs.This bracket also includes things like state pensioners, widowers(single earners) and the unemployed.

a much more detailed guide to the Acorn system can be found at :http://www.caci.co.uk/acorn/

target audiences

Before we can make any films we first need to learn about who it is our product would be aimed at, this is a target audience. A target audience can be based on age, gender, social groups or economic brackets.

Aswell as target audiences we also learned about the different types of audiences. These are passive, active, post modernist, traditonalists and headonist viewers.

Active - These are people who will deliberatly go to see a movie and become actively involved in watching it.

Passive - These are the people who go to watch a movie even though it is not one they would like. An example of this is usually a friend forcing them to come see a movie they will not really get involved in the film or focus on watching it.

Post-modernist - A post modernist is someone who likes to break conventions in films they watch. These would include films that are often parodys of other films such as the Scary movie films or Scream

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0175142/

Hedonist - These are the people who enjoy taking risks and will go see a film just for the enjoyment and the thrill of seeing it. They enjoy doing new things and watching specific films just because of a new specific effect such as people getting motion sickness from watching Cloverfield.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/

Image from http://www.themovieverse.com/Cloverfield%20poster.jpg

Traditionalist - A Traditionalist is almost the exact opposite of a Hedonist they do not like to take risks in the films they watch and as such will generally only watch films they know they are going to enjoy because it might be a sequel of a film they like or there favourite genre. Examples of a Traditionalist film would be the James Bond films.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246460/

learning about film noir

To begin learning about film noir we examined the first couple of minutes of casino royale which was one of the newer James Bond films released in 2006.

image obtained from :

http://www.crankycritic.com/archive06/posters/pages/casinoroyale_v3.html

introduction

This is my blog for the AS media studies course. this will be updated regularly to show what i have been doing in media studies and how i am progressing in the lesson. i plan to upload things such as hyperlinks, videos and pictures to the blog to try and help show some of the stuff that i will be doing in this course.