RESEARCH- What's allowed in films rated 15 and 18?

For my part of the research I had to find out what content was allowed in films rated 15, and films rated 18. To find this information out I went on to the BBFC Classification Guidelines for films. We needed to know this information so that we could see what we would be allowed in our own film, and so that we could find out the difference between a film rated 15 and a film rated 18. We also needed this information to help us with our survey, so we knew which type of questions needed to be asked. 

Some examples of the regulations for Films rated 15...

Discrimination-  "The film may not endorse discriminatory language or behavior"
                                This means that we will need to make sure that our film doesn't promote    
                               discrimination, or include any language that does.

Drugs-               "Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole may not promote or               
                             encourage 
                             drug use. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous 
                             substances isn't                                                                                                                
                             acceptable."
                              If we are going to include any drugs in the film, then we can't be promoting 
                              them or endorsing them. Many thrillers do include drugs and drug misuse so 
                              this is something we will need to think about when planning.

Horror-             "Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised"
                            Many thrillers include threats and violence, and our film will most likely include 
                            this so as long as ours doesn't include threats that are easily imitable then it 
                            should be fine to include this content.

Imitable behavior- "Dangerous behavior, e.g hanging, suicide and self harming shouldn't
                                   dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons 
                                   shouldn't be glamourised."
                                   As a group we will have to make sure that we don't glamourise behavior
                                   that can be copied, although it's likely the film will include weapons of

                                   some sort.         

Images taken from the BBFC website:
                     






                                   

From finding out this information I was able to see what the differences are between films rated 15 and films rated 18. 

Differences...

• films rated 18 have no limit on the amount of swearing used, whereas films rated 15 have restricted rules on swearing; although it is allowed it has to be justified and used in appropriate context.
• full nudity is allowed in films rated 18; 15's are only allowed partial nudity and it can't be shown for long.
• 15's can't include any discrimination, 18's are allowed to show discrimination as long as it isn't being endorsed.
• films rated 18 are allowed to include more violence and more graphical images of violence.

When it comes down to making the decision of the rating of our film we will be able to refer back to this research and chose the rating based on all of these classifications.

Target Audiences for Thrillers-

For the next part of my research I looked at the target audience for thrillers. We need this information so that we can compare it to the answers we receive from our survey.

I looked on many different websites in order to find out this information and each page I went on suggested a different answer and a different age, this shows me that the target audience varies depending on which type of thriller it is, for example I found out that legal thrillers are aimed at audiences aged 25-50 and usually men, whereas medical thrillers are aimed at anyone aged 16-25.
After researching I've discovered that most websites and forums agree that the majority of thrillers are aimed at audiences aged 16-30.




Overall, I think that all of this research will help both me and my group when we begin the planning and making of our film. Knowing the criteria for films rated 15 and films rated 18 will help us know what we can and can't include in our film, as well as helping us to determine what our film will be rated. As well as this it is helpful that we know the differences between 15's and 18's as it will be easy to see where ours fits in that rating. The information that we now have on target audience is useful as we can compare it to the results we get from the survey, and use it to help make our own film suitable for people in this age group.