criterionforum.org

zedz wrote:I expect the outcome will be labels providing no extras with their films

Except presumably for short films (the best kind of extras!) which were already having to be classified.

Well, yeah, but unless you're the BFI, you're unlikely to have access to relevant shorts for most releases. Obviously this doesn't pertain to the Borowczyk set, but with, say, Robbe-Grillet, your extras options will be more likely to be existing documentaries (with extracts from 'restricted' films) or self-generated ones (ditto).

zedz wrote:That's theoretically a solution, but it's a horrible one. Added value extras are there to add value and persuade people to purchase products. Barebones discs with (expensive to make and license) extras available for free online are still barebones discs, and would totally screw up the economics of disc production, which for labels like Arrow, MoC and Second Run, are already knife-edge propositions.

I expect the outcome will be labels providing no extras with their films, not continuing to pay for extras that will no longer generate any revenue.

Well, obviously it's not optimal, but since this release seems to be a passion project, it may be the only economical way to get the features they want into the hands of the fans. Or they could take a note from video games, and include a code in the box to unlock access to the extras online- though I'm not sure what it would take to develop a password protected section of the site.

Is there an MP, to whom we could write, who'd be receptive to the issues raised here? We may well have the greatest set of DVD and Blu-ray producers in the world in this country and this legislation could irrecoverably destroy them, while being completely futile in addressing the perceived, stated issues. What a sad state of affairs.

David M. wrote:I don't think I would be able to tolerate one of their self-interested podcasts.

But their whole tone is just astonishing. They seem to genuinely believe they are a necessary and valuable contribution to this industry, rather than parasites.

Well, the history of censorship itself is an interesting subject, so that is why I began listening. The more I listen, however, the more I can't help but think that the hosts are completely unaware of the irony of them discussing interesting, quaint censorship topics from their history, when people from outside the BBFC view their current decision-making process with the same attitude now.

jindianajonz wrote:

zedz wrote:That's theoretically a solution, but it's a horrible one. Added value extras are there to add value and persuade people to purchase products. Barebones discs with (expensive to make and license) extras available for free online are still barebones discs, and would totally screw up the economics of disc production, which for labels like Arrow, MoC and Second Run, are already knife-edge propositions.

I expect the outcome will be labels providing no extras with their films, not continuing to pay for extras that will no longer generate any revenue.

Well, obviously it's not optimal, but since this release seems to be a passion project, it may be the only economical way to get the features they want into the hands of the fans. Or they could take a note from video games, and include a code in the box to unlock access to the extras online- though I'm not sure what it would take to develop a password protected section of the site.

Although listening to the BBFC podcasts they seem to be very keen to get into the area of classifying video material available online (not mandatory at the moment but talked about as providing a consumer information service that online providers such as Netflix are glad to use to rate their content, so that their users can be 'confident' about accessing material that has been given a BBFC rating) that seems as if they are in preparation for an online future. They also talk on the podcasts about being in consultations with the government on this issue of internet regulation. So who knows what could be in the pipeline for the UK, especially if the government becomes more hands on with internet regulation or pushes forward on plans to force ISPs to regulate the content they provide.

Soaking in the news of these new guildlines. Absolutely ridiculous.

What is especially vexing to me, is the idea that extras would now have to be vetted even on '18' films or videos. So even where they are restricting sale or hire to adults, a documentary would still have to be vetted as well, just in case it happens to have something that breaks the law...

I honestly think a good way round this would be to adopt a similar system to, say, Sweden or Denmark. I forget which of those two it is, but in one country, you are free to release a film or video without screening for classification, but it has to go to the highest category, which there is 15 and over. I think Sweden also technically has 18 for porn and such (again, self-imposed), but theoretically, anything else is game for those 15 and over.

In the UK, it should just be the same way. No more of this stupid OPA and Cinematograph Act of 1939 bollocks. No more R18 films cannot be sold online. If it's not porn, you should be able to self-impose an 18 for free, at will, and likewise for porn with R18, and then the postman just has an adult sign for it. Britain is a free country, and the idea that, in 2014, there is something that an adult cannot see, or legislation that is almost eight decades old that means because some idiots in another country tripped a horse and filmed it (more often than not, decades ago), the footage cannot be seen, is fucking ridiculous.

peerpee wrote:Hear, hear!

The BBFC's hurdle-jumping and unfairness definitely contributed to me getting out of the business – and I know of a few others who gave up in the UK and set up in the US. Life's too short – and to see the amount of money that could have been spent on better editions, instead of repeatedly going in their greasy mitts, was thoroughly demoralising.

The only good thing about the demise of physical formats (other than environmental concerns) will be the strangulation of funds to the BBFC.

I wish I could agree, but somehow I feel that when this happens (please God, not in my lifetime), the BBFC will simply move online. If all cinema goes to only digital distribution, John Q. Public will wake up and demand classification, and the BBFC will probably jump at the chance.

Just this morning, I had to tell a leading VOD platform to withdraw a forthcoming title of ours that is exempt on DVD (and was rated 12A theatrically). They insisted (with the BBFC's backing) that it get at least a "Watch & Rate" digital-only rating; we'd rather not bother than have the Board eat up whatever profits we hoped to make out of a rather niche title.

Anyway, if you think the BBFC are terrible and pointless, don't get me started on IFCO, their Irish equivalent...

JamesF wrote:Just this morning, I had to tell a leading VOD platform to withdraw a forthcoming title of ours that is exempt on DVD (and was rated 12A theatrically). They insisted (with the BBFC's backing) that it get at least a "Watch & Rate" digital-only rating; we'd rather not bother than have the Board eat up whatever profits we hoped to make out of a rather niche title.

Anyway, if you think the BBFC are terrible and pointless, don't get me started on IFCO, their Irish equivalent...

What happens with the Irish equivalent?

MovieMail outlines the changes, and assesses the likely impact on small independent labels.

£97.20 per minute for the BBFC? Where does this money go toward?

manicsounds wrote:£97.20 per minute for the BBFC? Where does this money go toward?

That's seriously misleading. It does indeed appear to cost £97.20 to classify a minute-long film, but a huge chunk of that appears to be a flat-rate admin fee that would apply to all classification requests. For instance, a five-minute film costs £126, not £486, and a typical-length feature usually comes in at around £700-1,000. Still extortionate, obviously, but not quite that extortionate!

You have to get the film classified in the UK, though, don't you? I think that's what kills me about the whole thing. If it's a government mandated thing then I'd almost think they should have to pay the bill, not that I'm for taxpayer money being pissed away, mind you, which it essentially would be. In the States I don't believe you have to get a film rated, though theaters may not show it (I guess that's the whole "free market decides" thing going on.)

cdnchris wrote:You have to get the film classified in the UK, though, don't you? I think that's what kills me about the whole thing. If it's a government mandated thing then I'd almost think they should have to pay the bill, not that I'm for taxpayer money being pissed away, mind you, which it essentially would be. In the States I don't believe you have to get a film rated, though theaters may not show it (I guess that's the whole "free market decides" thing going on.)

Since 1984, you have to get all non-exempt video material classified in the UK if you're planning to release it commercially on video via physical carriers. What the legislative changes will do is make it harder to gain exemption.

And yes, in the US it's entirely at the discretion of the individual distributor whether they want to seek MPAA approval. Which is exactly as it should be in Britain, particularly given the situation that streaming media is exempt from classification - and it's this latter point that makes these changes unfair to the point of being actively punitive. Why the hell should cash-strapped distributors be asked to pay more money to the BBFC when the far richer likes of YouTube (i.e. Google) and Netflix can get away with not paying them at all for providing what is, in essence, exactly the same type of service, in that it involves supplying video material to the end viewer?

What does this mean short term for the various companies? Any of the scheduled announced or futures titles (3 to 6 months down the road) in jeopardy of being cancelled? Do other countries in Europe have similar restrictions?

I would think it will force the serious consumer to go region free, if they have not done so already.

It depends which companies you're talking about.

It seems to me that the ones most seriously affected are those whose business is based mainly or wholly around documentary releases dealing with subjects or containing footage that would attract a 12 certificate or above. Second are labels like Arrow or MoC that are traditionally very generous with extras that would mostly have qualified for exemption under the current guidelines. The majors won't be affected in the slightest.

As far as I can make out, there are very very few countries that have a similarly compulsory classification system that's enforced by law - New Zealand seems to be one (and their system sounds even worse than the UK's), but most other countries operate an opt-in system like the US, which allows labels like Criterion (and many, many others) to release everything unrated.

To agree with Michael, it will be docs on serious subjects that will get dragged into this, which before you did not have to submit. It's a total pain, but will be unlikely to stop doc releases. To be fair to the BBFC it's the DCMS (who would have extreme difficulty running a cake stall) who are at fault here for not bothering to consult anybody outside studios.
At risk of migraine I read the proposed legislation, and it's left up to distributors' common sense to judge if extras fall into this legislation or not, and most will not, so the idea that all extras will get ditched in future is a bit alarmist. But from now on anyone recording an interview will have to tell the interviewee to mind their language...bonkers.

MichaelB wrote: particularly given the situation that streaming media is exempt from classification - and it's this latter point that makes these changes unfair to the point of being actively punitive. Why the hell should cash-strapped distributors be asked to pay more money to the BBFC when the far richer likes of YouTube (i.e. Google) and Netflix can get away with not paying them at all for providing what is, in essence, exactly the same type of service, in that it involves supplying video material to the end viewer?

Or indeed Lovefilm, now called Amazon Prime Instant Video. This does answer a question that I had a while back. For a while last year they had available to stream thirteen films by Paul Cox, many of which had never had a UK commercial release and been submitted to the BBFC. Unfortunately I only got to see one of them (Kostas) before they were all removed, but Curzon Home Cinema currently has seven of his films, only one of which (Innocence) is available on UK DVD. Most of the others have BBFC certificates from when they came out on VHS in the 1990s, but one of them (My First Wife) doesn't have a video certificate, and The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky has never been submitted to the BBFC at all. And Curzon Home Cinema also had available recently an entire French film festival and have on their site short films and Q & As, which I would expect would become unviable (or much more expensive to buy) if they had to be BBFC-certified.

MichaelB wrote:It seems to me that the ones most seriously affected are those whose business is based mainly or wholly around documentary releases dealing with subjects or containing footage that would attract a 12 certificate or above.

The company that immediately springs to mind is Dogwoof, most of whose DVD releases are currently exempted.

newwavefilms wrote:To agree with Michael, it will be docs on serious subjects that will get dragged into this, which before you did not have to submit. It's a total pain, but will be unlikely to stop doc releases. To be fair to the BBFC it's the DCMS (who would have extreme difficulty running a cake stall) who are at fault here for not bothering to consult anybody outside studios.

Indeed. The BBFC is obviously the major beneficiary, but they're not the instigators of this, and it's pretty pointless complaining to them.

At risk of migraine I read the proposed legislation, and it's left up to distributors' common sense to judge if extras fall into this legislation or not, and most will not, so the idea that all extras will get ditched in future is a bit alarmist. But from now on anyone recording an interview will have to tell the interviewee to mind their language...bonkers.

I already do this to a certain extent - for instance, if Kevin Jackson had (hypothetically and implausibly) used 12-certificate-or-above language when filming his video appreciation of Sullivan's Travels a few weeks ago, I'd have cut that in the edit regardless of exemption guidelines, because the overall package shouldn't exceed the PG that's been awarded to the main feature. But even under the new guidelines his piece should still be exempt from classification.

MichaelB wrote:

manicsounds wrote:£97.20 per minute for the BBFC? Where does this money go toward?

That's seriously misleading. It does indeed appear to cost £97.20 to classify a minute-long film, but a huge chunk of that appears to be a flat-rate admin fee that would apply to all classification requests. For instance, a five-minute film costs £126, not £486, and a typical-length feature usually comes in at around £700-1,000. Still extortionate, obviously, but not quite that extortionate!

They should just make it a flat cheap price, a pound per minute.
I don't see where such money as a few thousand pounds per title would be going. Plus isn't the BBFC government sponsored, as in also having tax revenue?

No - it's a wholly private entity, and always has been. Its entire income comes directly from the film industry.

Its only connection with the government is that it's the organisation specifically charged by the 1984 Video Recordings Act with vetting films, but it receives no subsidy.

So what would happen if someone releases a movie without a classification in the UK?
In the US many movies are released without an MPAA rating.

I always assumed the BBFC was government backed, so everyone HAD to get movies classified for release. But if it's just a private organization, how do they have the power and the monopoly on movie classification?

By the way, I recently got the Blu-ray of the Scottish film "Lord Of Tears" which was classified theatrically as (15), but the self-released home video release had no BBFC classifications on it, and has a bunch of extras as well. The BBFC website doesn't have any info on classification for video release of this title.

manicsounds wrote:So what would happen if someone releases a movie without a classification in the UK?
In the US many movies are released without an MPAA rating.

If the film isn't exempt from classification (which will be the case with any fictional work), the most likely scenario is that the distributor will be prosecuted by Trading Standards for infringing the 1984 Video Recordings Act and forced to withdraw it from circulation.

I always assumed the BBFC was government backed, so everyone HAD to get movies classified for release. But if it's just a private organization, how do they have the power and the monopoly on movie classification?

Because the government explicitly gave it to them via the VRA. I'm sure if the BBFC hadn't already existed by 1984 they'd have created something similar from scratch, but it was much cheaper for them to do it that way. After all, why pay to create and run something that already exists?

manicsounds wrote:By the way, I recently got the Blu-ray of a Scottish film which was classified theatrically as (15), but the self-released home video release had no BBFC classifications on it, and has a bunch of extras as well. The BBFC website doesn't have any info on classification for video release of this title.

The director is a friend of mine, and as far as I'm aware, the BBFC classification for his film was/is for the home video release only. I donated towards the Kickstarter campaign so I got my copy one or two months before it officially went on sale and was reviewed by the BBFC. Therefore my keepcase had no 15 logo and advice printed.

Yes, you're absolutely right - I should have double-checked the BBFC website, which does indeed make it clear that it's a video classification.

AMEND THE PLANNED CHANGES TO THE VIDEO RECORDINGS ACT petition, sign it Brits!