BBFC Classification

1. BBFC Information
Who are the BBFC?
The BBFC stand for the British Board of Film Classification which is an independent, non-governmental body
which has classified films since 1912. They classify films in the UK by age by looking at specific guidelines.
They use the age ratings of: U, PG, 12A, 12, 15, 18 and R18.
How do they do it?
They look at specific guidelines that state and comment the content of the film. They look at:
 Violence
 Sex
 Nudity
 Language
 Mature Themes
 Drugs
 Discrimination
 Horror
 Imitable Behaviour
Although they need to take into consideration the context and the tone and
impact before giving an age certificate. The context, for example violence needs to take into consideration if it
is realistic or fantasy based through cartoon humour or real life blood and horror. For Tone and Impact, for
example if it is an unsettling tone, it may disturb the audience and will increase the age restriction.
When all these are taken into consideration they think about the age rating for that film.
What certificate would our film get?
For our film, the age certificate we would give would be a 15 because our film opening doesn’t show th at
much violence for it to be an 18 but when you get into the film there will be more language, horror and
violence. There would be unsettling content but no humour. How frequent the things occur may be off-putting
for a younger audience in this film.
Violence Lots of violence
Language Moderate, Strong language
Sex/Nudity Verbal references
Themes Romance, conflict, Violence.
Horror There will be lots of horror that will occur frequently
Imitable Behaviour May occur throughout the film
The things that need to be considered within our film are the violence and horror that happens during the film.
As our target audience is males above the age of 35 we need to think of what they would expect to see and
enjoy. In our film opening there is lots of violence in the interrogation scene, such as the slap across the face
and the knife about to strike at the girl, which for a younger audience could be imitable behaviour and quite
distressing. When he is about to strike we don’t actually see the knife go into her so this could reduce the age
rating. Also the gun that the protagonist is holding might show imitable behaviour to the audience.