Rating of the Film

British board of film classification (BBFC)

How do they classify films?

The BBFC classify films, trailers and advertisements on behalf of local authorities who license

cinemas.

The General Classification Considerations:

Context. They consider the context in which an issue (such as sex, language or violence) is presented

within a film. In doing so they take into account the setting of the work (historical, fantasy, realistic,

contemporary); the manner of the presentation (aggressive use of bad language versus light-hearted

use of the same term).

Theme. They will consider the treatment of the theme and how you have presented it. The most

challenging themes (drug misuse, sexual violence, racial hatred or violence) are unlikely to be

appropriate at the most junior levels of classification.

Tone and impact. A work with a dark or unsettling tone may receive higher classification. They will

consider the impact of a work- how it makes the audience feel about the topic.

EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT AGE RATES:

RATING OF YOUR FILM:When producing our thriller opening we strongly based our target audience in mind. We decided not to rate our film a 12a due to several of reasons. Firstly in a 12a film the BBFC states that the violence has to be moderate and that there shouldn’t be any injuries or blood. In split violence is indicated especially when the girl is kept hostage, there is blood on her top, and running from her nose, she has dark circles under her eyes, all these characteristics show that she is suffering and harm has been done to her, this is not suitable for a 12a. Another factor is threat, the BBFC states that the overall scene must not be disturbing, in SPLIT the whole opening in disturbing in different ways, such as the beginning we created an unsettling cold mood, also the use of the close ups of the food which look like human flesh is considered as disturbing and sinister and the close up of the dog chewing highlights disturbance and intimidation for the audience, this due to the fact the food the dog may be eating could be flesh of a human, all these shots may cause distress to the viewer, resulting in

psychological harm been done. Lastly another reason why we did not choose to class our thriller a 12 due to the Imitable behaviour, the BBFC state that there should be ‘no glamorisation of realistic or easily accessible weapons such as knives’ in the kitchen scene of split, a knife is used to cut the fleshy meat and the end the antagonist grabs the knife and forcefully stabs it in the chopping board, this is considered as violence and might cause excessive fear within the viewer.

We decided to give our film the classification of 15, this is due to many factors. One of the main reasons is all the characteristics present in our psychological thriller perfectly incorporate the guidelines the BBFC has given for a film which is rated a 15. For example in a 15 film its states that there can ‘be violence’ and ‘threat’ this is shown in SPLIT, when the vulnerable teenage is kept hostage, this indicates to the audience that she is under a bad threat, and that the antagonist is a threat, resulting in her trying to get away/escape. Also violence is shown through the mise en scene of the girl her ripped top, bloody nose and her hands being tied up, this implies that she has been through a lot of danger and violence. The use of the knife implies that this thriller will have violence. Another reason why classified it as a 15 film is because so that we could gain a wider audience, therefore making more profit. We did not give our film a rating of 18 as this would limit the audience and not allow us to make as much money as we know we are capable of.

Examples of thriller films with similar age rate:

SevenMementoSecret WindowFinal Destination

The demographic we want to aim our target audience at:We decided that our potential target audience would be female and males from the ages 15 – 24, but mainly teenagers as there is a teenager in our opening so they can relate to the character as they are around the same age as her. We think our target audience would enjoy this film due to its context involving mystery, confusion and a suspense narrative. Our target audience enjoy watching thrillers; they love the theme of suspense, crime, using their brain to figure things out. Our target audience favourite movies include se7en, the silence of lambs, Black swan, Psycho or Sixth Sense. The ethnicity and nationality of our audience is open to any for example white, black, Indian. However we predict there will be more ‘white British’ people since it’s the same nationality and ethnicity of our actors in our opening. This ethnicity and nationality are more likely to watch this psychological thriller because they can relate to the characters more. We thought that the social class our potential audience would come under is middle class, once again due to the fact the actors look like they’re from that type of class. We think the target audience for SPLIT would be in education or recently finished their education. They could have a strong passion for psychology, because of the psychological themes which is present in SPLIT. They are likely to have an interest in media and enjoy solving puzzles, putting pieces together in a film, and mysteries. Also our potential target audience may read magazines such as Total Film or NME. This target audience would use social networking sites such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Their enjoy watching shows such as criminal minds and CSI. This target audience may have a part time or full time jobs as SPLIT would be

exhibited in small British independent cinemas such as Phoenix or Curzon and tickets to these cinemas can be expensive ranging from £5 – £9.50, due to them having jobs will allow them to easily buy cinema tickets on a regular. Our potential target audience will live in the core region of the UK, they will live in the urban areas, we decided this as these urban areas excellent accessibility and transport system, they are easily connected, and this means our target audience get access their nearest small cinemas easily.

Who is your primary target audience?We decided our primary target audience are mid teenagers who enjoy thrillers, who have education in their life such as sixth form/college or uni. They have a part time job which gives them the income to buy the cinema tickets. They would buy the DVD of the movie, as its a film which can be watched in the cinema and at home.

What makes your film different from competing thrillers?One reason which makes SPLIT different, from competing thrillers is that it’s a British independent film; meaning it had limited funding, so didn’t have enough money for things such as CGI or known factors. This will attract audiences as they want a change from the typical same American action or crime packed thrillers. Also independent films are used based on social realism; however we developed that by basing it in a social realism environment but having a psychological thriller genre, this will catch audience’s attention.

Another reason why SPLIT is different from other competing thrillers is where its set, the location of this thriller is in a more realistic place for example your own home, compared to thrillers such as Se7en being in their final scene it was set in some sort of desert. Our location being more realistic will attract more audiences as they can easily relate it to their own experiences in their home.

Another reason which makes this thriller different to competing thrillers is that our media opening sequence explores the inequalities between genders, power and dominance. I think that some of the female audience could relate to the female victims character, due to the fact they could be in a similar position themselves, but not to this extend present in SPLIT.

Another reason why this is different to competing thrillers is that our opening does not give too much away, not like other thrillers, when the audience can instantly figure out what is going on. In our thriller we made sure just to give out simplistic small hints to the audience, so they are able to use their mind and try solving what these hints are trying to show. This makes our thriller very unexpected, as audiences never know what to expect for example they primarily thought that the antagonist may just be normal man, but in the opening we gave small hints to indicate he’s suffering from a disorder e.g. schizophrenia, this was shown when we edited him writing to have a ghostly effect, also when the antagonist does normal everyday activities in a sinister way, this confuses audience on what to think of him. Subtle actions are essential in our opening.

Lastly a way our thriller opening is different to competing thrillers, is we were able to get the audience to interact more, through the use of creating enigma and having subtle actions and lack of communication in our opening it allowed audiences to form a series of questions such as wanting to

know what the purpose of having all these items on table?, what was the man doing?, is he planning something? Why is the girl upstairs? What has she done? Who is knocking on the door? And so on. This makes it different to other thrillers as the audience are part of creating tension and suspense in the film.

How does psychological thriller opening appeal to this target group?

This shot creates mystery within the viewers and confusion. The technical aspects portray the antagonist as being dark, cold, having no identity; however the introduction of the dog will startle people as the antagonist shows care and love towards the dog by stroking and patting it, showing a sense of companionship. This will appeal to our target group as the opening is playing games with their minds, they don’t know what sort of person they should make of the antagonist, since there are two different personalities currently present, is he good or bad?. Our target audience love solving riddles.

Our opening thriller will target our audiences, due to the ounce of violence which is present, in this shot you can see that blood is gushing out the girls nose, her mouth is covered so she’s not able to speak, this creates mystery and suspense as the viewers would want to know what got her to this place? When? This will have a thrilling and exciting impact to our target audience.

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Our film appeals to our target audience because of the actors we used. First of all we used a teenager, this is beneficial as most of our target audiences are in their teens, which means they can relate to it as they are from the same age group, and probably have been through the same things the girl has been through e.g. high school. Having this teenager will attract more viewers. Another reason is due to the old man, they can’t relate to him, but the massive age gap between him and the teenage girl will intrigue viewers to watch it, as they would not expect this behaviour from an older male and wondering why is he doing this. This creates mystery for the audience, which our target audience LOVES.

SPLIT appeals to our target audience as we have build tension and suspense throughout the opening, especially when we made the audience think the antagonist heard the noise the girl made, and now is going to enter the room where the teenage girl is, a lot of quick cuts were used to create tension, and we used the calm before storm’ technique to create suspense as the music kept getting louder and louder until he got to the door, where viewers think he’s entering the same room as the girl. The suspense appeals to our target audience as at this point they are on the edge of their seats, as fear is filled within, wanting to know what is going to happen.

Our opening sequence appeals to our target audiences, as it’s very realistic and in a natural environment. This appeals our target audience as they are confused by the fact that something mysterious and bad can happen in a normal house this intrigues them. In the screen shots it’s the cooking scene, the use of extreme close ups and quick duration of shot make the everyday activities seem more sinister, this appeals to them, as the actions the antagonist is doing is playing mind games with them, our target audience love solving and figuring things out, they love getting hints. The use of the extreme close up of the bacon gives hints to the audience, it suggest that it could easily be human flesh.

Who would be our cinema goers?Chris Watts Film3Sixty, found out that some 89% of the UK’s engaged film audiences still think the cinema is the best place to watch a film. He done a survey, the people surveyed were selected because they were engaged with film, representing the top 40% of cinema-goes and 80% of UK admissions. From this survey the found out the different cinema goers.

The four types of groups there are:

Blockbuster Only – 10% of the audience Blockbuster Mainly - 59% of the audience Indie Mainly – 29% of the audience Indie Only – 2% of the audience

We decided that the types of groups which will watch SPLIT are ‘Indie Mainly’. We chose this group because first of all, SPLIT is an independent English film which indie goers really enjoy due to their distinctive narrative and themes. Also ‘Indie Mainly’ is open to watch blockbuster films as well, so if showed a thriller blockbuster they would happily watch it.