BBFC talk with John Wagland

Quite a while back we had a guest lecture from John Wagland from BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). Here are my notes and what I personally thought of said talk.

First and foremost he explained that BBFC is non-government organisation which grades films and games. Local authorities can overrule the rating if wanted too. Everything that is on the blu-ray's or DVD's have to be rated through the BBFC to make sure nothing slips through, I have noticed this a few times when it says movie rated 15 but the DVD is rated 18 due to bonus content. Rating content on the DVD itself is a good idea I think as behind the scenes or extra pieces of film which may of been cut to bring down the rating before could appear on them.

The details of how many people work there have probably changed since he came and gave the talk but according to my notes there are 16 full time examiners, with various backgrounds and some obviously being able to speak foreign languages. There are 3 senior examiners too and these examiners are all split into 3 teams. Thought there would be more people as the amount of films they would have to watch must be staggering, I will touch on the amount of hours a day later on.

Duties for the examiners are obviously viewing the film, having meetings along with some team projects and pretty much the usual stuff. They have to watch over 5 1/2 hours per day of films, the order, this may seem cool to some and even as a movie buff it sounds like a decent job but the examiners log, post view guidelines and policies along with the reports to be done amoungst other things its does sound a bit harder.

BBFC don't just rate films as I said before they also rate some games. Just managed to find an example almost straight away as there is a copy of the new Mortal Kombat game rated 18 by the BBFC. When they rate the games they are given usually given game saves, level skips and the cheats, this makes the rating process quicker generally. The interaction element has to be taken into account as driving around smashing into building and shooting people in a game is different then watching it in a movie, well it is in my opinion anyway. Repetition of an event or of the same action is also a vital factor to remember when they rate games, sometimes there may only be 1-2 major blood scenes in a game rather than some which are completely filled from head to toe with blood and gore.

Here is a list of the stuff they look out for when rating films and games:

-Violence
-Foul/abusive language
-Sexual references
-Sex
-Sexual Violence
-Weapons
-Horror
-Offence
-Theme of the film/game
-Discrimination
-Drugs
-Story
-Audience
-Morals
-Artistic/educational
-Possible harm
-level of offensiveness
-Context

A long-ish list and im sure there are many more things they look out for but I only noted these down and I don't actually remember him saying any more. Obviously they should be fairly self explanatory for ratings when it comes to violence, sex drugs etc.. It is interesting to see what exactly they look out for and after having the lecture I seem more aware of the rating on games and movies. Personally the best lecture of the year for me as I am thoroughly interested in this sort of thing.