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Film Certificates

I decided to go back and have a look at other possible age ratings and certificates that we could have put on our film so that i could highlight the reasons as to why they would not be suitable to be used for our film.

PG Certificate 

PG stands for Parental Guidance. This means a film is suitable for general viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. A PG film should not unsettle a child aged around eight or older. Parents should consider whether the content may upset younger, or more sensitive, children.

PG films are unlikely to include any sort of violent behaviour and if there is violence included then it will be very minor. This is because young children my be scared if they see any violent or disturbing scenes.

There may be some very mild bad language, but not an excessive amount. Bad language may only be used if it is necessary to the scene or how the specific character is expressing themselves at a particular moment. If the language was used in an aggressive manner or or if there is a great deal of bad language then the film would be changed to a higher rating.

Our film would not pass as a PG because it will have a lot of violence included and some strong language when appropriate. There will also be an excessive amount of blood and gore as it is a zombie film so there will be zombies walking around with blood and scars all over them.

12A Certificate

Films classified 12A and video works classified 12 contain material that is not generally suitable for children aged under 12. No one younger than 12 may see a 12A film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult. Adults planning to take a child under 12 to view a 12A film should consider whether the film is suitable for that child.

A 12A film tends to have a ligher overall tone to the film. If the film had a really dark and distributing tone to it as a whole then it would probably not be passed as a 12A. Also, strong language may be passed at 12A depending on the way in which it is used and whether   the manner is light or not. Puns on strong language may also be allowed at this age rating as long as they are used within reason and if this limit is exceeded then the film could be pushed to a 15 certificate when released at DVD and Blu Ray.

Our film would also not pass as a 12A because there will be too much more violence in the film than the amount allowed for a 15 certificate. There will also be too much blood and gore to get passed at a 12A because the zombies will have blood and cuts all over their faces so will look very disturbing. The language used in the film may also be too excessive for this rating as young children would be watching films of this certificate. 

18 Certificate

Films rated 18 are for adults. No-one under 18 is allowed to see an 18 film at the cinema or buy / rent an 18 rated video. No 18 rated works are suitable for children. 

An 18 rated film would have a lot of violence and extremely strong language. Even though we may have these elements in our film, we will not be having them to the extent that is needed to have the film be considered an 18 certificate. We will have them to a much lighter standard. 

There would also be a lot of drug use in an 18 film and we aren't having any drug use in our film. This is so that we can keep the rating to a 15. This will stay in contact with our target audience. There could also be very strong sexual scenes in an 18 and there aren't any in our film as they aren't necessary to our storyline and they would just be there for the sake of it.

Our film doesn't need to be an 18 as we don't include all of the elements involved in an 18 certificate tick list. We will not be having any excessive drug use or any intense sexual films. We do not need to include these as they are not needed for the storyline so would only be tightening our target audience and possible buyers. For these reasons our film will be a 15 as it fits in perfectly with the specifications for a 15 certificate film.

Research into title sequences

Research into title sequences

A title sequences is the method used in cinematic films or television programs that allow the company to give credit to productions and cast members, or both, utilizing numerous visual and sound concepts in order to not bore the viewer but instead give them a deeper understanding of the genre of the film.

The  usual conventions for opening credits of motion pictures are shown at the beginning and list the most important members of the production they are now shown as the superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures and sometimes even on top of action occurring on screen. There may or may not be accompanying music. Title sequences are often confused with the opening credits, which is generally nothing more than just superimposed text.

In early forms of cinema, title sequences were often basic and were actually intended to signify both the beginning of the film itself and to state the production company involved. In silent cinema title cards were used throughout to convey dialogue and plot and it is in some of these early short films that we see the first examples of title sequences themselves, being quite literally a series of title cards shown at the beginning of a film. The introduction of sound within cinema initially did little to change this, although the addition of music to these title sequences made it more entertaining for the audience.



An example of the early forms of title sequences would be from the 1923 comedy "Balloonatic".

Overtime, Cinema's had to adapt and change many aspects of their film due to the introduction of television, this included changes to title sequences. Cinematic companies had to make aspects of cinema more special in order to regain a diminishing audience, one way in which this was done was by making title sequences more elaborate and produce awe from the audience, a sense that could not be gained through watching television.

Eventually, television also began to use title sequences and this resulted in almost a battle between the two forms of entertainment, film and television. This caused title sequences to explode in the form of new ideas and creativity. This caused inspiration within all aspects of media and this made title sequences pivotal aspects on cinema and television, in modern times title sequences give the audience an idea of its genre.

As of the beginning of the 21st century, title sequences can be found in a variety of media besides film and television including video games, conferences, and even music videos. The following clip is a more modern example of a title sequence:

Horror: Zombie - Audience Profiles (Further research)

Here I will be completing further research into each aspect of our audience and finding out exactly what type of audience we are going to attract with our sequence, this was my own interpretation of our audience profile and we have taken both this and our group effort into account. 

Age

 The usual age for someone watching a zombie movie is between 15 and 25. During young adulthood they are in the key stages of developing themselves and learning about the world, they want to try new things and experiment with different emotions and feelings. They want to rush into life without being guided and therefore seek all thrill they can get. Zombie movies give this thrill and can excite the young audience easier than an older one. The young audiences are also less susceptible to being put off the film by violence or unnatural images which may make older audience feel negative towards the film, these films are based on survival and it gives viewers a chance to understand what decisions they would make in an apocalypse. Zombie films still have an effect even after the movie is over, people find themselves talking about what they would do in a post apocalyptic environment.

Gender 

Males are more fond of zombie movies than girls, this is due to the stereotypical thrill seeker which is portrayed with a boy and the thrill boys seek to contest with their hormones. Violence is also a major convention of zombie films which is preferred by males. Due to males looking for something to scare or exhilarate them, Zombie films will be more attractive to boys as they seek what this genre contains.

Class

 Overall zombie films are aimed at working class community, This is due to the level of thrill and excitement which is gained for a relatively cheap price. If the higher class watch zombie films then it is likely to be a big budgeter involving well known actors with high ratings. This is due to the higher level of satisfaction upper class individuals seek when watching a film. Another reason that these films are aimed towards the working class is because the film features regular characters, often, like the viewer being of working class.

Groups of audiences 

The audiences for zombie movies are often groups of friends however, there are key groups of audiences who often see zombie movies. Couples who are either on a first date or have been in love for a long time but not married commonly go and watch horror movies, this is due to the freedom they have as a couple. The comfort that is needed after seeing a zombie movie is at a level comfortable enough for a first date to be successful. They are also seen to be good conversation starters after the film and therefore are popular conversation choice. 

Conclusion 

Overall the general demographic for an audience watching zombie movies can be fairly broad however the majority of the audience will be young( 15-24 ) males who seek a cheap thrill, this is our primary audience. Otherwise it is likely to be couples who are on a first date. The audience of the zombie movies can often relate to the characters in the film due to them being of similar class and background. They often form a relationship due to the similarities and therefore have a stronger emotion pull to the film. The relation of the characters also puts the audience in the shoes of the characters gaining a stronger sense of the 'fear factor'.

Audience Profiles for Zombie Horror

Audience Profiles for Zombie Horror

I am going to talk about the Audience Profiles that should be talked about for the Zombie Horror, this is going to invoke the BBFC Classification and this should evaluate as to how to go about how to rate our film.

Suitable for Everyone

Only mild language should be used, with that there should be no violence with little to mild. I feel that this would not be suitable for the film to be shown to everyone, as in order to make this a zombie horror, we need to include aspects of violence with blood and gore to stick with the conventions that should deter the film with it’s genre. Also swearing would probably be more necessary to establish the age of the actors inside it, as they have a free act of speech in tense scenes, it adds to it. 

12 Years of Age (Advised to be with parents)

I don’t think that the younger genre are fascinated by blood and gore as that would be what it intends to be for our intentions. I don’t think that the 12 year old would like to be involved in the blood and gore which is introduced by the scenes that we intend on doing because this wouldn’t be mature. The filming that we have the intention on doing is that it produces a lot of violent blood and gore, and I feel that this audience group would not be appropriate for showing this. However this wouldn’t cause much harm to the viewer if they was to see it, so I find that if a mature viewer watches it too, it will not be as badly portrayed to younger viewers. This however isn’t our intention, as we are basing our film off the age range of a young adult or older teenager.

15 Years of Age (Suitable for only people 15 or older)

Teenage audience seem to be in the right are for this type of genre as they tend to enjoy blood and gore, such as productions like The Walking Dead or World War Z. This is because of the intense scenes that are taken and this group tend to enjoy the thrill of being scared, being around their friends whilst watching the film. I feel this is a good age range to think about for our film as we want to make it with some comedic value just as much as we want to make it serious, with the blood and gore visual effects to be as well as possible. 

Primary Audience 

Primary Audience is the viewers who are avid of the production company or the genre of film that is being created. This person tends to enjoy the thrill of the general conventions of the Zombie Horror as the demographic is orientated around the younger adults. 

I see the demographic for this type of profile to be of these aspects:

• Gender: Male & Female
• Age: 18 to 25
• Common Interests: Avid fan of Zombie Horror conventions AND/OR interest in the production/distribution company.
• Career status: Started a job or currently in university

Why do I see these demographics? This is because the typical person who likes to browse movies is the person who has a lot of time on their hands, as an university student, you have a lot of time to be with your friends and this would be convenient to look for movies, or even more so, go to movies often with friends, having places giving movie subscriptions at actual cinemas. (Example being Cineworld.

How does this unlimited subscription work? 

http://www.cineworld.co.uk/unlimited/howitworks 

Secondary Audience

This audience is the typical person who is introduced to the movie through a primary audience viewer, with intentions of going to the movie with this person or more so, hearing the movie advertisements through social mediums, like on the radio or even through adverts on social networking websites like Twitter or Facebook. Secondary audience is outside of the typical demographic of which the movie is aimed at. 

Tertiary Audience

This type of audience only look at the movie if they are fond with a certain aspect, this might be to do with an obsession or likability of an actor/actress, they don’t tend to go to watch the movie for the plot, and doesn’t go down in the scale of being in the Primary or Secondary audience. This doesn’t relate to the film at all.

Possible Distributors for Zombie Horror

Possible Distributors

We have several different companies that can distribute our films. This is going to range from the high class movie industries like Warner Bros into the smaller independent ones like Warp Films. I am going to talk about the possibilities as to why I should choose that distributor for our film and why that would be at more of an advantage than others. 

20th Century Fox

This company was formed at around nearly 100 years ago, which was incorporated by somebody called William Fox. This distributor’s intention is to release the popular films and has a lot of subsidiaries, such as the american news channel FOX and their own Television channels, also in America.

This company is one of the biggest distributors going because of it’s divisions and subsidiaries which create it’s own arsenal to advertise movies. I feel like this company would benefit our film in multiple ways, which introduce a synergy between it’s smaller conglomerates which in theory should boost advertising and the overall marketing of the movie. This would also make the release a blanket cover, releasing the film internationally. This happened for a similar genre to a film called 28 Days Later. This was based in Britain and people didn’t think that it would take off as much as said, but with all of the media companies that 20th Century Fox owns as subsidiaries, media companies such as FOX news was able to advertise it, plus it would be viewed on their TV channels when they start to sell the film and put it on subscription channels. 

I feel like 20th Century Fox is overall a good company to use for our film, however I feel that the way that the production company is going with this film, it needs to be more independent as our intentions wont hit bigger audiences. 

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation distributed the well known film World War Z which was also on the same genre as what we’re creating now. This distribution company isn’t as established and is more independent on it’s advertising and marketing than 20th Century Fox is, as it doesn’t have any media subsidiaries. However it is a part of a bigger conglomerate, it doesn’t hold anything as popular as Warner Bros. does with it’s subsidiaries and depenedencies. 

I wouldn’t go with Paramount Pictures because I don’t find this company to be as well established in the marketing as other distributors would be, as I want to make sure that the film goes to a wide audience, I want to make sure that I get a good background on a distributor who is able to convince the modern day technologies and use technological convergence to gain an audience to the film that we’re creating, and through the technologies it makes it easier to interact and share to social media. 

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. is a subsidiary of Time Warner, which has a lot of media companies by it’s side. These media companies include the massive magazine labels like Entertainment Weekly and online home entertainment attributes like HBO. HBO is a good place to stream movies and TV series, this is a premium subscription service which requires a monthly cost however Warner Bros. is a part of a big conglomerate of Time Warner.

Warner Bros. in the past has distributed many films, including huge hit releases like Harry Potter and The Dark Knight. These franchises benefitted hugely from the online creation of social networks, being able to share trailers and even get involved in social experiments to get special highlights to actor interviews and/or downloadable content which can be viewed on any device. 

Warner Bros. has took advantage of these technologies and they release the most films in a year than any other distribution company. I think the marketing that Warner Bros. invokes is very effective and getting the audience is the key to making the film work the way it does, even if it is a new franchise that DTEC Productions is creating. Warner Bros. released I Am Legend which is a zombie horror based genre. The film got double the budget that they had on the film in the first place, which motivates our production to be better.

Possible Film Distributors

When researching possible film distributors for our film I first looked at horror film distributors in the UK to look at the distributors that are similar to our film, that way when they distribute our film people will know what type of film our film is because if it’s a globally known as distributing horror films then the audience will know our film is in the horror genre. Another reason is that horror film distribution companies will know how to distribute horror films and how to best reach our audience in turn bringing us more publicity and a bigger audience. However just because it is a horror distributor, doesn’t mean it will reach more audiences. If we choose a distributer that is well known and is bigger than any of the horror distributors we find that could reach more people than a small horror company. But regardless, it needs to be feasible and local so it actually supports our film being a small film.

When I was looking for possible distributors I came across Lionsgate. Lionsgate are a $2 billion company that specialise in production and distribution they are known as one of the top 20-film distribution companies in the world. They have had many, many box office films and are known globally. I also found that Lionsgate are a huge company that are experienced in distributing horror films could distribute our film. They have distributed many films here are a list of a few: The Last Exorcism, Cabin in the Woods, A Vampires Tale, Alive or Dead, Alone in the Dark, American Psycho, Cabin Fever, The Decent, You’re Next, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Saw I, Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Saw V, The Decent 2, Jessabelle and so many more. The fact it is a huge company that distributes horror films it almost sounds perfect for our film however it isn’t that local. Yes it is based in the UK but it isn’t local. Another fault with this company is that it is a huge company therefore may not be feasible and easy for us to convince to distribute our film. So although Lionsgate is a perfect company to distribute our film, they wont be able to distribute our film as they don’t distribute films this small.

The next film distribution company I found is Warp films. I know Warp films because we study it in our theory section of our media work. I know that warp films are a film distribution company based in London and Sheffield. This is useful to us because Sheffield is very close to us therefore checking off the box that it is local to us now to look if it is possible to distribute our film. Looking at the films they have distributed they are not high budget films which makes it good for our film as we aren’t a high budget film therefore a small film distribution company will be good as they know how to distribute films and yet won’t cost much. Warp films produced a TV program known as This is England which is quite a successful program. They also produced Four lions which is also a very popular comedy film in the UK. Looking at all the possibilities I think Warp films would be a good distribution company to distribute our film however they aren’t very well known and maybe they can’t get our film out to the amount of people we need. Also it is a case of that they aren’t known for distributing horror films so maybe they’re not the ones for us.

I also came across Arrow films which is a UK based film distribution company they take films from all over the world and distribute them nationally and sometimes further. They are not a well known company but whilst researching them something just drew me to them. They see themselves as one of the most energetic and lively film distribution companies in the UK. They have produced films such as; Gods Pocket, Honeymoon and a few more. They haven’t produced many horror films but they know how to do it and how to get the films out to the best audience. This tells me that perhaps they are a good company to distribute our film. They turn the low budget films into big successful films which makes it all the more better for our film.