Certificate research

U:

This means that the film is suitable for audiences aged four years and over. If a film is certificated 'U' it means that infrequent use of very mild bad language. It also means that the characters may also be seen kissing or cuddling and there may be some references to sexual behaviour, this also is very mild. Violence will normally again be very mild. A 'U' rated film also may include small, brief fight scenes or some characters may be in danger but no violence is ever shown. 

We immediately ruled out this rating for our film as soon as we chose to continue with horror. Horror films are always at least a 12 unless based on a book like in the case of the women in black then you can sometimes get away with it being a 12A.

PG:

'PG' stands for Parental Guidance. 'PG' films are generally aimed at children ages eight or older and this should not unsettle them. A 'PG' film will not contain any theme which is inappropriate for a child, instead of this it can make children aware of different situations as some scenes can contain bullying, bereavement or even racism. Some mild bad language can be used such as 'shit' or 'son of a bitch'. violence is usually very mild and is not shown regularly  through the different scenes. 

12A:

The certificate '12A' is not suitable for children under the age of 12. '12A' requires an adult to accompany them at the cinema and if the staff do not think that they are 12 years or older then they will ask for ID. Moderate language may be used in a '12A' such as bitch or twat. Sex may be shown but very discreetly and this is the same with violence which means it is allowed but again is not shown in a lot of detail. 

Although we did consider trying to make our trailer a 12A we realised it would be very difficult and we would have to seriously think about content, because of this we decided a 12A was possibly to low of a rating to give.

15:

In a fifteen rated film there is strong violence, frequent strong language such as, fuck and very rarely stronger terms may be used. a fifteen rated movie allows sexual activity to be shown, sexual nudity and something sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence and finally allows to show drug taking. 

18:

An eighteen rate movie is allowed to screen the following: Strong horror, strong blood and gore, real sex, very strong violence, frequent strong language and finally discriminatory language and behaviour. 
We didn't want out trailer to be an 18 as a large part of the target audience are teenagers, if we would have had to increase our rating we would then limit the success of our film.

·         

   We have decided that the certificate of our film should be a 15, we came to this decision after doing multiple pieces of research into the popularity of horror films and learnt that they were very popular amongst teenagers. Our film will contain violence and strong language but not enough to grant it an 18 certificate. As previously discussed we realised that all of the other films we had studied within this genre had been given a 15 certificate so we agreed this would be most appropriate for our trailer also.