Certificate!

We discussed as a group what we thought which certificate our film would be and have come to the decision that a 15 certificate would be most appropriate.

This is the wikipedia definition:

The 15 certificate is issued by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to state that, in its opinion, a film, video recording, or game should not be seen or purchased by a person under 15 years old.

The following is a list of what is most likely to warrant a 15 certificate, although it is a very rough guide:

• The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour. 
• Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. Promotion of drugs which are easy to obtain are unlikely to be allowed. 
• Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised. 
• Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) can be allowed provided the detail of such is low so that it can not create too much of an impression of the viewer. Abuse of weapons which are easily obtained will not be tolerated. 
• Frequent use of strong language can be permitted, although very strong language needs to be restricted and would have to be seen as reasonable in the context. Frequent usage of very strong language would be seldom allowed. 
• Nudity in a sexual content must be restricted however nudity in a non-sexual content does not. 
• Sexual activity without strong detail would most likely to be allowed. Some strong sexual references may be allowed to, but very strong ones may not, unless used within reason. Sexual acts or references with the intention of causing arousal is not likely to be permitted. 
• As long as the film is appropriate for 15 year olds, no certain themes are prohibited. 
• Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. The same applies to references. Any sexual violence should be discreet and be strongly justified. 

                                       (The bullet points in bold, would most likely be featured in the rest of the film)

As our film is about, gang culture and killing, themes such as drug taking, violence, possible sexual language, dangerous behaviour and strong language would occur several times throughout the film therefore a 15 certificate would be most appropriate.

These are the different ratings from the BBFC:

I have also added the link to the BBFC website on what they classify as 15 and some FAQ's about the certificate.

BFFC Certificate 15

Here is a snippet from the website:

If we distributed our film to other countries such as America the rating would then become R rated.

these are the primary ratings for the American film certificates by the Motion Picture Association of America.

The primary MPAA ratings are G (General Audiences), PG (Parental Guidance Suggested/Some material might not be suitable for children), PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned/Some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13), R (Restricted/Under 17 not admitted without parent or adult guardian), and NC-17 (No One 17 and Under Admitted).

MPAA formerly used GP for PG, which originally stood for "General Audiences, Parental Guidance Suggested. The M rating was the original name of GP/PG and signified a film with mature themes. X was the original name of NC-17 and started out as no people under 18, but later became 17.

And finally... this is the link to the Motion picture ratings page on wikipedia, to find out the certificates for different countries around the world. This is very useful in providing the rating system across the world incase we wanted to distribute our "film" across the seas.

Motion Picture Rating System