We are Clockwork films - an English, independent film company which focuses on low budget horror films. Our goal is to create film franchises that our audiences will enjoy.
When Rambo III was submitted to the board in the late 1980s. Between Rambo II and III the Hungerford Massacre- where Michael Ryan killer 16 people with an assortment of guns- had made firearms and violence front-page news in Britain.
The attitude of the BBFC showed the way it had always had to respond to shifts in public opinion. The issue was that Rambo II seemed to be almost non-stop gunfire- "It's not so much what is shown, but how much and how relentlessly." The examiners fell into an intense debate over whether to grant the film the same 15 certificate as its predecessors (with cuts), or the more adult 18 reflecting the heightened sensitivities surrounding gun use. The film was released with an 18 certificate after cuts had been made.
Films can have different cuts of the film released depending on the country. In extreme cases films can be banned in certain counties. This is something we would have to take into consideration for our film. If our film has any elements that may offend people in other countries it could be censored or banned.
A recent example is the 2015 film Fifty Shades of Grey. The film was released in the UK with an 18 rating. However, in Indonesia, Cambodia and Malaysia it was banned out right. In the US the film came under fire from Christian groups for its salacious content and received an R rating. Fifty Shades was promoted heavily in Vietnam however was cut of all love scenes and many other scenes were heavily edited. Similarly, last year Vietnam took Sex in the City off the air after only five episodes despite cutting racier moments. France couldn't differ more, they awarded the uncut version of the film a 12 certificate. The president of the French ratings board said the film "isn't a film that... can shock a lot of people" and described it as "a romance, you could even say a schmaltzy".
The Biblical epic Noah directed by Darren Aronofksy was dismissed by local censors in China on religious grounds. Noah was a huge hit in the US, despite its unorthodox depiction of the antediluvian patriarch. The film upset Christians, Muslims and secularists. The film was banned in Malaysia, after censor deemed it to be in violation of Islamic law, as well as Indonesia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates due to concerns over the depiction of the prophet.
Promotional material such as posters can also face censorship and regulation. The Sin City sequel poster featuring Eva Green was deemed to risqué by US censors. Green appeared on the poster wearing a revealing thin gown and was banned by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for nudity.
Examples of movies being banned in certain countries:
Here are the legal responsibilities we must consider when filming our trailer:
We must make sure that none of the general public are in the background of our film without our consent. This is because they are protected by privacy. We must also make sure that we do not refer to a member of the general public in a way that would lower their reputation.
We should obtain written consent from anyone who is featured on camera
Insurance: As we are students and our project is part of our course then we are covered by our school. However, if we were an actual production company, we would need Public Liability Insurance which would cover the responsibilities of our production. As we are filming in the street, we would need at least £2 million cover. However, it is probably safest to have around £5 million. The size of our production is quite small which suggests that the costs for the insurance would be slightly lower.
We must make sure that none of the general public are in the background of our film without our consent. This is because they are protected by privacy. We must also make sure that we do not refer to a member of the general public in a way that would lower their reputation.
We should obtain written consent from anyone who is featured on camera
Insurance: As we are students and our project is part of our course then we are covered by our school. However, if we were an actual production company, we would need Public Liability Insurance which would cover the responsibilities of our production. As we are filming in the street, we would need at least £2 million cover. However, it is probably safest to have around £5 million. The size of our production is quite small which suggests that the costs for the insurance would be slightly lower.
U means Universal. This means that anyone of any age is allowed to watch a film that has this certificate. Us only included infrequent uses of mildly bad language and there is no large focus on sexual behaviour. Violence in films that are rated U is also generally quite mild. Us also have no references to drugs. However, a U rated film isn't necessarily a children's film - it is just a film that includes generally positive messages. Examples of films that are rated U are 'Wall-E', the 2015 version of 'Cinderella', 'Inside Out' and 'Home'. According to the BBFC - U means 'suitable for all'.
12A rated films usually contain content that generally isn't suitable for children under the age of 12. However, the 'A' stands for accompanied which means that children under the age of 12 can watch a 12A rated film if they are accompanied by an adult. Strong language, brief sexual nature, moderate violence and drug misuse may all be included in a 12A rated film. Horror films can also be passed as a 12A if they include only moderate physical and psychological threat. Examples of films that are rated 12A are The Hunger Games series, 'Everest', 'Pitch Perfect 2' and 'Jurassic World'.
An 15 rated film is only suitable for those aged 15 or above. 15 rated films may include strong violence, frequent strong language, sexual activity, references to sex, nudity, brief scenes of sexual violence, discriminatory language and drug taking. 15 rated horror films can include strong threat and horror but there must not be a sustained focus on sadistic or sexualised threat. The most common films that are rated 15 are horrors and comedies. Examples of films that are rated 15 are 'Trainwreck', 'The Visit', 'Magic Mike XXL' and 'Mad Max: Fury Road'.
An 18 rated film is only suitable for adults aged 18 or above. 18 rated films may include very strong violence, frequent strong language, strong portrayals of sexual activity, scenes of sexual violence, strong horror, strong blood and gore, real sex and discriminatory language and behaviour. 18 rated horror films may contain sustained threat, horror and gore. Examples of films that are rated 18 are 'Spring Breakers', 'Gone Girl', 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and 'Legend'.
Our Film
We believe our film will be rated a 15 because of....
Strong Language - would be used frequently
Strong Violence - would be used frequently due to the plot of the film being about mystery murders.
Strong Threat - all of the characters are under threat from being killed
Blood and Gore - our film would also include a high amount of this when the murders occur
Although our film would be a 15, our trailer would probably only be rated 12A. This is because a lot of the elements would be shortened and toned down. This would also enable the trailer to be broadcast all day which means that the audience would be able to be targeted at any time (Watershed wouldn't be a problem) - the trailer can be marketed on television pre-watershed.
We made a collage of posters of horror and thriller films. We did this because we haven't quite decided which genre our film will fit into to (it is mainly a thriller but has elements of horror).
The above video is the trailer for the upcoming 2015 release 'Regression'. The film's title appears at the end of the trailer which means that intrigue will build up throughout the trailer as the audience will be wondering what the films name is if they are interested in seeing it. The film stars Ethan Hawke (Sinister, Boyhood) and Emma Watson (Harry Potter, My Week with Marilyn). Both of these stars have been in films before that have received a lot of critical acclaim such as Boyhood and My Week with Marilyn. This means that audiences may assume that this film will be to the standard of those films. Ethan Hawke has also starred in thrillers/horrors before such as Sinister which means he will be associated by audiences to this genre. Emma Watson probably suits the target audience (15-19 year olds) as when they were younger, they probably grew up watching Harry Potter and now they are older, they see her in a much more mature film. The trailer is 2 minutes and 11 seconds long which means that it is a full theatrical trailer.
The trailer begins with a loud bang which immediately grabs the audience attention - this may suddenly create interest. The trailer begins with a close up of a voice recorder which is quite darkly lit which sets the tone of the film and leaves the audience guessing that it could be a crime drama. The main character is first introduced with the voiceover. The character introduces his name as Detective Bruce Kenner which also implies that this is a crime drama. There is also an establishing shot of the location at the start of the trailer which lets the audience know where the film will be taking place. Before the trailer cuts to the name of the studio, the criminal says 'because I did it' - this leaves the audience with even more intrigue. The studios name is in bright orange which is a complete contrast to the colour the rest of the trailer has been. Orange connotes energy and the demanding of attention which suggests that you have to be paying attention to the trailer as the film is something you're going to want to watch.
The first relationships that are developed are between the detective and the criminal and the detective and witnesses/victims. This shows the detective as quite caring towards the victims and quite serious towards the criminal - this once again suggests the film is going to be a crime drama. 40 seconds in, a ticking noise begins which immediately creates more tension and suspense as if a big reveal is being counted down. The trailer is also full of fast cuts and fades which suggests that the film may be quite fast paced which points it more in the direction of thriller films. At 55 seconds, it is revealed that the killer wears a black mask which almost confirms that this is a thriller rather than a drama/ crime story.
The trailer gets a lot faster when the fame character says 'and I'll kill you to' - this is followed by a loud bang which almost manipulates the audience to feel a little more excitement and intrigue. When the trailer says 'from Academy Award winner Alejandro Amenabar', it suggests that the film could be worthy of receiving Oscars and will be of a high quality. This association is also added when the trailer says 'director of The Others' - This film was critically acclaimed which suggests that Regression could be similar.
When the main character says 'do you have any idea what we are up against?' - it creates even more intrigue and excitement and it leaves the audience wondering what the characters are up against. This also suggests that the film will be full of mystery and suspense. The genre of the film is clarified when the trailer says 'comes a new vision of thriller' - this suggests that the film will add something new to the thriller genre and will give audiences another reason to go and see it.
The ticking resumes at 1 minute and 32 seconds which is when the trailer begins a fast cutting montage of exciting/intriguing scenes - every tick is a new scene. The slogan 'fear always finds its victim' also suggests that the film could fit into the horror genre and fear is usually a big element in horror films. The relationship between the detective and criminal seems to be broken down towards the end of the trailer as he seems to be getting frustrated with her.
At the end of the trailer, the main character says 'this can't be real' and a voice that hasn't been heard before says 'course its not real'. This plays on the dream and illusion element that made Inception such an original and well talked about film. The music is quite subtle throughout the trailer but there is occasional stings of loud noises. This music isn't supposed to be heard but helps add to the tone of the trailer.
The reason I picked to analyse this trailer is because the end fast cutting montage is very similar to what me and April want to do with our trailer. This film also includes a mystery killer which we are going to include in our trailer.
To get knowledge about how horror films are marketed, I made a case study on how The Purge was marketed. I chose this film as it won awards for its marketing campaign and how effective it was. The Purge also similarities to our idea as it includes masked killers (iconography).
Here are 20 key moments, scenes and features that we are planning to include in our trailer.
Red Riding Hood
Research: Target Audience React to The Hallow, Scream - The TV Series & Red Riding Hood (Male)
We decided to do another 'reaction' video but this time with two males. We did this because our target audience are all teenagers of both genders - we thought we would show some similar trailers to two males to see if they liked them. If they didn't, we could then adapt our idea to be more female targeted. The audience members gave their views on trailers for 'The Hallow', 'Red Riding Hood' and 'Scream - The TV Series'. We chose 'The Hallow' because it is a trailer for a British horror film that has recently been released and has received lots of praise for how effective it is. One of our audience members thought that the trailer included good camera angles which is something we could try and put into our trailer. Both audience members felt that the trailer wasn't very scary and felt that it was quite 'silly'. They also felt that the trailer wasn't very shocking and a little predictable. The trailer was also described as giving too much and away and not engaging. This suggests that for our trailer, we need to not give too much away, build suspense, have shocking elements and be engaging.
The next trailer we got our audience members to look at was Red Riding Hood. Even though this trailer isn't for a horror, it has a similar 'murder mystery/whodunnit' concept that we would like to create. This trailer was probably received the worst out of the 3 as the audience members believed that not enough was told. Based on this and their previous comments, it suggests that our target audience like a happy medium of how much is given away in a trailer. The audience also didn't really like the romantic element of the trailer - however, due to them being male viewers, the trailer may of had a different reception if 2 females had watched it. The audience members also felt that the trailer wasn't very dramatic and could have done with a better soundtrack. Once again, the audience members appreciated the camera angles and they also liked how the trailer followed the two main characters which helped establish a relationship.
Finally, we showed the audience members the same trailer we showed the female audience members for 'Scream - The TV Series'. We did this because the concept is an inspiration for our idea so we wanted to know whether both genders approved it. One of the audience members felt like the trailer had similarities to Midsummer Murders which is a good thing as that also has a similar concept to our idea. Both audience members felt like this trailer was the best one as it had the happy medium of how much was given away. The audience also liked the use of soundtrack in the trailer which is something we would be able to incorporate in our idea. Both audience members favoured Scream- The TV Series.
Overall, from both sets of audience members, the Scream trailer was received much better than any other we showed them. This suggests that the concept appeals to our target audience and the way Scream is marketed is something we should look into for our promotional material.
This is our second questionnaire that we carried out. This was much more in depth and was mainly about our new idea. We found that all 15 people who were asked had at least watched one of the TV shows that have similarities to our idea - this suggests that our idea would be of interest to our audience. The audience said that the most important factors in a film trailer are a gripping story, not giving too much away and the soundtrack. We have adapted on this as we will include a twist in our film and have a plot line that includes a lot of twists and turns so the audience won't know what is going to happen next. The whole idea of the mystery killer also helps the idea of the film being unpredictable and the audience shouldn't be able to guess who it is from the trailer. When we gave the audience our 25 word pitch, 73% said a film like ours would interest them. This suggests that our idea will appeal to our target audience. 87% of the people who filled in the questionnaire enjoy murder mystery storylines which also suggests that our idea appeal to our audience. 67% of the people who filled in the questionnaire were female which suggests that our target audience is predominantly female.
We also asked our also want they thought of our pitch. Some of the comments included 'this sounds great. I love TV shows that follow this formula so it would be great to see it moved to a film version', 'it sounds different, but may need more development to make it stand out against other horror films' and 'an interesting idea, that could work well if executed properly. From this type of feedback, we have added a clock element to our film to introduce some iconography. The whole time element isn't something that is featured in similar TV shows/films.
We made a spider diagram of the types of things that scare people so we could get an idea of what would be the 'scare factor' in our film.
Here is our idea put into Todorov's Narrative Theory:
Stage 1: Usual happy life, sets up relationships between characters (mainly between boyfriend and girlfriend)
Stage 2: The girlfriend is suddenly killed
----A Year Later----
Stage 3: Messages send to other friends - want to find out who it is, want investigation to resume
Stage 4: Try and go to police, more murders, anyone who starts to get on to the killer is murdered
Stage 5: Murderer discovered and killed, back to happy life, secrets are outed
Note: Stage 5 wouldn't be shown in the trailer.
We then related our films characters to Propp's Character theory:
Villain - murderer
Hero - The friends
Helper - one friend who is on to the killer
False hero - the girlfriend as she has hidden secrets and also the mystery killer as they are someone in the friendship group
Donor - police/detective
Stage 1: Usual happy life, sets up relationships between characters (mainly between boyfriend and girlfriend)
Stage 2: The girlfriend is suddenly killed
----A Year Later----
Stage 3: Messages send to other friends - want to find out who it is, want investigation to resume
Stage 4: Try and go to police, more murders, anyone who starts to get on to the killer is murdered
Stage 5: Murderer discovered and killed, back to happy life, secrets are outed
Note: Stage 5 wouldn't be shown in the trailer.
We then related our films characters to Propp's Character theory:
Villain - murderer
Hero - The friends
Helper - one friend who is on to the killer
False hero - the girlfriend as she has hidden secrets and also the mystery killer as they are someone in the friendship group
Donor - police/detective
Todorov's Narrative theory:
Stage 1 - The state of equilibrium is defined
Stage 2 - Disruption to equilibrium by action or crisis
Stage 3 - Characters recognise problems and set goals to fix them
Stage 4 - Characters try to fix problems but there are obstacles
Stage 5 - Equilibrium is re-instated, problem solved, conclusion
For film trailers, stage 5 would not be applicable as the ending is rarely given away in a film trailer.
We got 2 students who fit into our target audience (teenagers) to comment on and react to trailers that our film is similar to. Scream - The TV Series is one of the biggest inspirations for our idea so we wanted to see how our target audience would react to the marketing style of that series. Even though, we will be producing a film trailer and not a TV trailer, we still decided to look at this trailer as the concept is quite similar to our film. We showed our audience two Scream trailers and both times, they were received with a mixed reception - they believed that the series didn't seem to take itself too seriously and seemed more like a comedy horror rather than an actual horror. One of the audience members also relates the series to Pretty Little Liars which is another of our inspirations. From their reactions to these trailers, we have learnt that we need to create a feel of an actual horror movie so it is not mistaken for a comedy. We have also learnt to create developed characters as the audience members liked that - they also liked how there was a lot of mystery.
The second trailer was Unfriended. We chose this as it fits into the slasher horror movie genre which we would like our movie to fit into also. The movie also includes a sense of mystery. The audience pointed out that the trailer began quite 'happy' which was likely to not last. The audience also liked how the film seemed to deal with topics that are quite important/topical right now. The audience also doesn't believe that a spring release is a very good time to release a horror movie. One of the audience members liked how Unfriended was 'a new genre of horror' which suggests she likes originality - we could try and put a twist on our film to make it a little different to your typical horror movie. The gore and violence was another shock factor which suggests that it could be effective if it is included in our trailer.
Overall, both audience members agreed that all 3 trailers appealed to the teen market which is something we would like our film trailer to appeal to also. The audience were split on which film/tv series that they would rather watch - one member didn't like Unfriended whereas the other liked both. This suggests that the Scream - The TV Series trailers were more effective. The audience members also prefer to not be told too much by the trailer or else it isn't worthwhile seeing the actual film.
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Here are the results from the short initial ideas questionnaire that we carried out on Survey Monkey. We did this to narrow down our ideas and to try and find an idea that a particular audience would like. As you can see below 'The Kidnap Idea' was the most popular so we have acted on this feedback and gone with a thriller/horror film but developed the idea a lot more. We will carry out much more in-depth research on our new idea to see what our audience thinks of it. Most of the people who filled in our questionnaire were between 15 and 18 which suggests that that age range is our target audience.
