Film Certificate.

Film Certificate.

From looking at the regulations of the film certificate and the different categories, we have decided that out film fits into the 12/12A Section, rather than a 15. Below is the explanation to how we have reached this decision. 

The Regulations for a 15 film are: ( Taken from the BBFC Official Website)

• strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

After looking at this list of Regulations, that are included in a 15 film, I looked back and watched our film opening, to which we have none of the above Criteria, as our violence scene is broken up showing very little of the actual death scene, we have no dialogue so there is no room for swearing and no sexual references or drug taking. So our film can defiantly not be rated a  15. 

So after deciding against 15 completely, I looked up the requirements for a 12A/12. Which I felt would fit the film opening a lot more than a 15. 

The requirements for a 12 Film are: ( Taken from the BBFC Official Website)

• Violence is present, but is not shown in detail or dwelled upon. 

• Moderate physical and psychological threat. 

• Action sequences and weapons may be present, but should not be glamorised. 

These were the most relevant points from the 12 rating that I think we completely comply with. The violence in our clip is present, but there is no clear detail or gore shown, which shows we meet the first criteria point, and we have also not dwelled upon this as it moves swiftly on, and only focuses on certain clips of violence for around 2 seconds, so the audience do not have time to pick up on the detail of the violence. There is a moderate physical and psychological threat, but it is not too frequent, and constant throughout the trailer.  As for the action sequences and weapons, we have included a few weapons within our montage sequence, but they are not glamorised, and are infrequent, and not dwelled upon, showing that we have stuck to the guidelines of a 12 rating, and we are not advertising weaponry to a 12 year old audience. 

Results of the shortlist of names.

Shortlist of Names Results. 

We wanted to see what our target audience thought of our suggestions for names, and also wanted to see if they had any new suggestions on names that we had not thought of which could be a good idea to maybe use for the final name.

Here are the reasons why we picked each name for the shortlist and what we felt about it:

• White Face: As the clown's make up base is pure white, we felt that this could be the 'name' of the Clown, and how it is known to those who see it/come across it. Also as it is supernatural, having a completely white face is almost connecting with ghostly pale white, which links to our genre, and shows the connection between our antagonist and our supernaturally within the film opening. 

• Zeppelin : We chose Zeppelin as it was another name for balloon, which we felt as we are going to be including balloons that are left as a calling card on our victims, then we could somehow incorporate this into the name, in which we searched for other meanings/names for balloons and came up with this name. 

• Harlequin: We were looking of other names connected with clowns and came up with this one, which is a type of clown, although it did not fit in exactly with the type of clown and costume that we were using, it did correlate to the colours, and was also a clown, which is what our antagonist is, which meant that the title includes all of which the audience need to know. 

• Cirque de la Mort: This translates to Circus of Death, which was thought up as it includes what happens within the plot, it also implies the plot and links to the killer clown, but does not reveal it as it is in a different language. Therefore is subtly conveyed. 

• Smile: We wanted to find some names which summed the film opening up in one word, without giving too much away, so that the audience would want to watch it, and came up with Smile, as it seems like a innocent, and light name, which is contrasted to the plot and all that happens within. 

• Grin: Alike Smile, we wanted to find a name that completely summed up the plot in one word, which Grin does completely, as the antagonist leaves the victims with a clowns grin, but also seems like a light hearted, non horror film, completely contrasting to the plot within our film. 

The results percentages are as follows:

The most popular name is Smile, in which I feel personally is a strong name, due to the nature of the clown's smile, and also the fact that he leaves a smile on his victim's after he has killed them. As this was chosen as the most popular, it shows us that our target audience understand the plot and motive of the story and are connecting it with the name in which they feel is the most appropriate.

Although Grin was closely second, with only a few votes behind. 

Greenwich Tunnel On Location

Greenwich Foot Tunnel Visit

INSIDE

OUTSIDE

Sunday 16th December - 8:00am
I visited the Greenwich foot tunnel in order to see whether or not it would be suitable in order to film in and also to see how many people passed through the tunnel early in the morning. When I first entered the top of the tunnel it looked quite old with obvious work which has been stopped on the stairs resulting in unfrequent lighting down the stairs which matches inside of the tunnel and therefore it may be a good idea to start the CCTV on the stairs in order to carry on that lighting theme throughout. The lighting in the tunnel is shown in High Contrast lighting creating circular shadows and part of the light which would be good in order to show antagonist and protagonist by placing the characters in different lighting. I also attached my camera to a broom in order to show it being filmed from a CCTV height so that you can see from a high point of view of the camera and also various other places we could put it in order to show where the camera could be placed. Apart from a couple of people who pass through there is no one there at that time plus earlier in the morning and therefore you might have to get there around 6:30-7:00am to having a good amount of filming time before it starts to get busy around 10am but that is something to decide as a group as to what time we would all be happy to get there. There is a lot of dirt up the walls of the tunnel with scratch like marks of the stairs making it extremely con notable to horror/supernatural.
Outside it is too bright in the morning to create the dark effect however there are quite a few lights out which will create the street like effect. Around the back of the tunnel entrance there is the skyline of London which will create a nice backdrop in order to start the opening or it could be shown when  the camera is panning with the actor to the tunnel entrance. Also there is a college and pub nearby which could supply reasons for that person being there which is also handy in order to tell the audience what type of person the protagonist is and what their background may be. There is also the Cutty Sark in the middle of the area which is also another landmark which people will recognise and therefore interesting shots could be taken through the glass that surrounds the bottom of it without getting the camera in the shot as well. To film at night would be a good idea and therefore by having a few people around it indicates that although it is late it isn't busy therefore indicating it being set around 11pm etc.
Overall it was a successful visit to the location.

Clowns

                    Coulrophobia -  

an abnormal or exaggerated fear of clowns

Coulrophobia is a very common fear and many film makers play on this film to make the film more scary. I think that using a clown would be very effective because it is a very different idea that moves away from the typical 'man in a mask' situation. 
Generally the makeup could be quite easy to re-create because it would just be face paint that would be previously practised. 
One example of a clown used in a horror film is this scene from Zombieland 

The clown in this scene is quite scary and I think that this is due to the makeup.

• Starting with the hair; the clown's hair is green and this shows corruption. It is easy to see how this clown is corrupted, but by making the hair green it shows how the corruption is in the head.
• The way that the stars on the clown's overalls clash with the spots on his, rather large, bow tie show that how much is wrong with this clown. It draws our attention to many different things at once and we do not know what to concentrate on.
• Adding to this, the stripes on the braces add another dimension to this shot which makes it seem as is something is seriously wrong.
• Focusing on the bow tie, the way that it is wonky also adds to the idea that we are being told that something is off about this clown. That there is something more than just the obvious. 
• The makeup on this clown is quite basic. There is just a base coat of white all over the face, some dark shadowing around the eyes and then some triangles on the cheek.
• I think that this would be a good shot to use as a base makeup idea because it is very simple, yet the clown is still incredibly scary and it has the same effect. 
• Also, I think that, sometimes, simple is better as it would make it easier for us to recreate the look ourselves.

The next clip that I found was from the film 'It'. I chose this clip because I think that the way the clown is presented is done amazingly well. The clown does not have any particularly scary makeup and is not wearing anything that a normal clown wouldn't. I think that this is what makes it much scarier - that it could be any clown.

• I really like this shot because I think that it is really effective. Although the clown is quite small in this shot, it still manages to stand out from the background.
• The hand gestures that the clown is doing in this shot make him seem much more intimidating because it looks like he is inviting us in to try and fight.
• The way that this character has been given balloons adds, for me, to the scariness of this clown because it makes it much more relatable. We all see people standing selling balloons and clowns are known to shape balloons at the circus. This immediately makes the relationship between us and the clown much more personal.

• This shot of the clown is particularly good because it is, quite simply, terrifying.
• The close up of the face means that we can see every little detail, even the shape of his teeth.
• I think that the two scary things about this clown are the teeth ad the eyes. The teeth are pointy and look quite sharp. This would inflict fear because it makes us wonder if he uses his teeth to kill.
• With the eyes of this clown, we can see that they are slightly red - connoting danger. The red also makes the clown seem more of the fantasy type because red eyes are not something that we see on a daily basis.

After looking at these two clips, I thought that it would be a good idea to find some videos on how to do the clown makeup so that we could get some inspiration from them.

The first video that I found was the one above.

I chose this because the makeup is different and looks quite realistic.

Good things about this video;

• It uses makeup that we would all have or could get hold of easily
• Looks professional 
• Fairly easy to do with practise 
• It's very scary when finished
• Different kind of clown - not the usual that we would see
• This could be done on either a boy or a girl and still look good

Good things about this video;

• Incredibly scary makeup
• Could be done with things that are easy to get hold of
• Professional looking

Although the makeup here looks amazing, I think that it would be quite difficult to do compared  to the previous one.