LO4: Certificate Classification

After our screening, we created this survey for the audience to respond to.
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/R5FKR9Z

We designed this survey to help us decide what certificate the film should be given. It is important that the film is given a rating based on what is appropriate for certain age groups. This helps the audience determine whether the film is suitable for them, or any younger persons they may be responsible for. To determine this we had to look at the different classifications provided by the BBFC

These are the BBFC classifications as provided by their official website at http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/guidelines :

- U (Universal): Suitable for audiences aged four and over. Displays of any sexual activity (as much as kissing) or swearing must be incredibly mild, and it must not encourage anti-social behaviour.
- PG (Parental guidance): General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for a very young audience. Harmful themes must be mild and infrequent.
- 12A and 12: Suitable for ages 12 and over, or if accompanied by an adult. Moderate language is permitted, alongside discreet sexual activity, drug portrayal and moderate threat.
- 15: Nobody below this age can view a 15 film. 15's permit the use of strong language, drugs and nudity without either endorsing anti-social behaviour or without strong detail of it. There also may be strong threat and horror without a sustained focus on sadistic actions.
- 18: As the highest age rating, explicit shows of sexual activity, strong language, threat, and drug use are allowed.

 100% of our survey results showed that the audience thought this film fitted the horror genre. Because of this, it will likely recieve  a higher BBFC rating.

 The darker setting helped reinforce the horror genre in our short film, focusing our lighting on the actors helped to increase their visibility and make the film feel more intimate. These results show that most of the audience agreed with this.

 The excessive use of offensive language means that our short film will recieve a higher rating, as it is innapropriate for a  young audience.

 These survey results show that our audience thought that the use of recreational drugs made our short film innapropriate for younger audiences, this also means that it will recieve a high BBFC certificate.

 All of our respondents decided that this film would be more appropriate for an older audience, and the film will therefore be marketed as such.

Most of our audience agreed that our film would fit a 15 certificate. This was the rating we had originally planned to aim for and so in relation to these survey results and the BBFC guidelines, the film will be certified as a 15.
Our film fits this age rating due to fact that the film is a psycological horror meaning it is unsuitable for children but the use of gore and violence is so little that it would still be appropriate for teenagers. The use of drugs may be shown in a 15 however they may not promote substance abuse, whilst our film shows characters use LSD it in no way promotes the substance and instead shows the drug in a negative light as the characters become considerably more paranoid after taking the drug. 

LO4: Evidence of screening our film

For the screening of our shoet film 'False Awakening' we chose a diverse audience to help us determine what film classification it should be given, and if that fitted our target audience.

Due to the nature of the film our youngest audience member was 15. We also had a teenager aged 18, three adults between the ages of forty and fifty and two elderly people over the age of 70.

 

LO3: Final Product

To create the final version of our short film I created opening and closing credits, and included our production logo. I created a glitch effect on the titles in Adobe Premiere using different video presets and changing the scale and animation of the text. In order to make the film better fit the genre we also added sound effects and music which was also edited to match both the video footage and the titles. During filming we recorded different natural sounds, such as rushing water and bird sounds, we edited this over the top of the footage also to create a better sense of verisimilitude.

I think our short film was successful in the fact that it fit the horror genre and different camerawork and editing techniques helped to reinforce that. The audio in the the video footage was distorted in some places due to the location we filmed in, and so in future projects this is something we would have to work on preventing.

LO3: Evidence of Editing

This video shows the group all helping to create an offline edit for our short film. Because this was our first time looking through all the footage we had to go through all of the individual clips and decide which we could use. It was important that we focused on keeping clips that would help to construct the film's narrative and that we removed any bad takes or faulty clips.



In this video Maddie edited the clips to ensure that the narrative was ordered correctly. In order to make the film appear more professional she had to use a stabiliser on the clips and cut the clips together to make the film more interesting and create spectacle. What Maddie found difficult here was linking several clips so that the audio crossed over seamlessly, to do this she had to unlike the sound clip from the video clip and perfectly time the cuts between each clip. Due to our location some footage didn't turn out the way we had hoped, some clips were out of focus and had to be abandoned completely for example.




This screenshot was taken whilst Maddie edited the end scene for 'False Awakening'. You can see that the amount of cuts begins to increase towards the end of the film, Maddie did this to increase the amount of tension in the final scenes and ultimately I think it worked well.




For this edit we began to work toward creating a final version of the film, which included adding the extra footage that hadn't yet been used. I added all the titles in this version and added effects to help those title fit the style and genre of the film, I also added atmospheric shots that would reinforce the genre and edited the film's music with natural sounds we had recorded such as rushing water and bird sounds.

 This screenshot was taken as I lined up the final versions of the titles with the video clips and sound.



In this recording Maddie completed the film's continuity and tried to create more of a shot-reverse-shot structure


  In this video Maddie worked on adding extra sound effects in order to creater a greater sense of verisimilitude.

In a final, unrecorded, edit I edited the music towards the beginning and end of the film to line up better with the titles. Maddie added in sound effects of the woodlands with more eerie music to enforce the genre and I also made the animation for our production logo line up with the music to create more spectacle.

LO3: Offline edit and drafts

This is the short film's offline edit. Because of this, more footage still needs to be added to improve the continuity of the film. For this initial edit we aimed to create something which accurately reflected the genre of the film. At the beginning I edited the clips to create a shot-reverse-shot strucutre which I think helps to show the audience that there is believable comradery between the characters. The actors are lit well and there is a clear contrast between the foreground and background because of this. Maddie used the glow of the campfire to create a simple and natural glow effect in this edit which is visually pleasing for the audience.

In the next edit the audio needs to improved by using a denoiser to remove the white noise, this will also make the actors' dialogue much clearer. Later on, natural sounds and music will be mixed with some of the dialogue and action to create a sense of ambience and of threat at appropriate times.

 In the first draft of our short film Maddie was able to complete the majority of the film's main narrative and only one scene needs to be added before creating the final draft. In this edit I worked on creating the films titles and editing them with the music so that an eerie effect that reflects the genre is created.

The main objective of this draft was to ensure we had a narrative that flowed well with characters the audience could relate to. Cuts were put in place to reflect the relationship between characters, for example when Stephen suspects Dwayne is lying a cut is made to focus specifically on their characters.


For this draft we worked on improving and finalising the continuity of the film. Every scene is included in this draft and by using faster cuts towards the end there is a build up of tension that wasn't as prominent in previous drafts. 

The audio will need to edited for the final version so that the dialogue is clear. In the final version we decided we would also include more 'fade' style transitions to create a sense of eeriness and help better display when a scene has ended.

LO3: Rushes Log

LO3: Edit Decision list