Lucie Minty
Specialist Practice
Film's Age Ratings
To help determin what age film I am going to designing my character for I resreached into the different ratings given to films. Depending on what age rating the film I choose to design a character for will really effect my designs and final character hair and makeup as I need to keep inmind the target audience to ensure the final look is appropriate and would been seen in the spesific age rated film.
I looked into a variety of films released in 2014 and 2015 to compare the different dvd covers and see what the common film ratings were for different genres of films.
From my very initial research I found cartoons, animations and fantasy films were usually U and PG, Fantasy, Sifi, Action adventrues tended to be 12 rated and Action, Thrillers and Horros were 15+. These were a few of the basic genres I found commonly in different film ratings. These were only guidlines as certain genres of films cross all through different age ratings.
Films Released in 2014
Films Released in 2015
PG
Maleficent and Into the woods are both Fantasy, Adventure family Disney films. They are two examples of PG films released in 2014. By just looking at the cover they appeare to be magical and trageted towards children and families with no indication of violence or horror instead they just look magical and fairytail like.
12
Here are three examples of 12 rated films, they are all action, adventure, fantasy films. In two of the covers (Guardians of the Galaxy and The Hobbit) the characters are holding weapons indicating possible fight scence. The films still appear to be aimed toward families as they dont have any indications to horror or strong violence. The images on the DVD covers have alot of colour so still look relativly child friendly.
15
The jump from 12 rated films to aged 15 seems quite significant. A lot of the rated 15 films I researched were, Action, Thriller/Horror. Just looking at the DVD covers the images appear to be a lot darker and twisted. The images for the films 'Jessabelle' and 'The Conjuring' look haunting and I instantly could tell the films would be thrillers/horrors.
U
I then looked at films released in 2015 starting with two Disney films rated U. 'Inside out' is a Disney Pixar animation film suitable for all ages, aimed towards young children. The DVD cover signifies this with the brigh colours and expressive characters. The current adaptation of the classic story of Cinderella is also a family and child friendly film rated U. The film includes no violence or action but is just a magical fairytale.
12
A lot of 12 rated films are action, which include mild fight scenes and suggested violence. If I decided to create a makeup for a 12 rated film, the makeup could be anything suitable for fantasy to sifi. I could include mild cuts and scars within the makeup if I desired as from my research as long as it isn't too graphic is used in 12 rated films.
15
These 15 rated films you can tell just by looking at the covers are for an older audience. If I was going to create a character for a 15 rated film the makeup would have to be for a mature audience, I could be very creative with designs but I would have to be careful not to make it into too much of a fantasy makeup and I wouldn't have to rely on as many steryotypes for children to recognise the character, instead I would be able to make it alot darker and could encorperate more graphic scars.
After this research into different rated films and consideration to what type of character I would like to create I have decided to create a character suitable for a 12 rated film. In 12 rated films the makeup can be very creative as the film genres tend to be action/adventure so there were a lot of 12 rated films with fantasy makeup, this will allow me to be very creative. There were a lot of fantasy films rated pg but the reason I chose to design a character suitable for a 12 rated film over a pg is that from my research I would like the option to include dark makeup and possibly include scars and markings within my designs which I feel would be more appropriate for a 12 rated film.