Laws
In the film sector there are certain ethical and legal constraints that they have to take in to consideration when making of producing a film. Ethics are the moral principles that define how a person or group of people act. A constraint is a limitation or a restriction on something to prevent something else from happening. Legal considerations are when people or companies consider potential laws which affect their industry and weather or nor they are within or breaking that law.
One of the biggest laws that the film industry has to obey is Copyright and Trademarks. Copyright applies to work that has been recorded in some ways: right exist in way such as literary, artistic and musical as well as films and sound recording. Copyright is the exclusive and assignable legal right given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform and film material. Trademarks are registered at a national level with an appointed government body and may take anywhere between 6 and 18 months to be processed. A lot of products have trademarks meaning if a film maker wanted to use a bottle of coca cola or a pear of nike shoes they would have to get permission from the brand to be able to use it in the film.
A legal issues that film makers could encounter in the early stages of a project is the intellectual property rights which include things such as the book, screenplay, life story etc. The intellectual property rights are the rights given to a person over the creations of their minds. They will usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of their creation for a certain amount of time. In film this tends to be the author of a book or screenplay. the intellectual property, which will give the production company the right to use their intellectual property during a certain amount of time.
The broadcasting act 1990 is a series if laws, that relate to legal and illegal broadcasting on Tv and radio in the UK.
Video Recording act 1984, this is law that states that all videos are sold or available for rental must be classified by the BBFC. This means that films must be given an age certificate.
- U- universal, suitable for all
- PG- parental guidance general viewing
- 12- suitable only for people whoa re 12 years or older.
- 12A- this means that children under 12 could can watch when accompanied by an adult.
- 15- suitable only for people who are 15 and over.
- 18-Suitable only for people who are 18 and over.
The BBFC stands for the British Board of Film Classification. the company classifies things in the media such as television, films advertisement and video games. They are responsible for the classification of these things in the UK. The classification restricts the age in which the content can be viewed because something may not be suitable for certain people or age.
Race Relations act 1976, this act was established by the parliament of the united kingdom to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race. This covers race, colour, nationality, ethic and national origin in the flied of employment.
Privacy law, this law ensures that broadcasters avoid any infringement of privacy in programmes and in connection with obtaining material included in programmes. If the there is any infringement on privacy they must have a warranted.
Films Act 1985, this act was introduced to make further provision with respect to the financing of films. When this act was introduced it make the British Film Fund disappear. So this means that films now have to meet specific outlines and criteria to be classified as "British", because of this legislation fewer films are now classified as "British".
The 1937 Cinematograph Film (Animal) Act makes it an offence to distribute or exhibit a film whose creation involved cruelty to an animal. The Animal Welfare act 2006, where it is illegal to show with intent to supply video recordings of an "animal fight". These two law mean that if a company is creating a film they must treat animal well and not be cruel to them.
Ethical
Representation of gender, In the media women are still often represented as being part of a family, friends and colleagues and work and think as part of a team. In genre such as dramas they tend to take the role of a helper or they tend to be passive rather than active. Although in the last few years, there have been a good amount of films with strong female leads such as Rey in the force Awakens or Maud Watts in Suffragette. However representation of women in media tends to highlight beauty, size or physique, sexuality, emotional as opposed to intellectual and tend to be shown in relationships and not to be shown as independent.
There is also the Bechdel test which asks whether a film features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Only about half of all films meet this requirement. The test is used to indicate whether there is an active presence of women in films and other fictions, and also to call attention to inequality in genre representation in films due to sexism.
In the media males are mostly represented or characterised as isolated, meaning they don't rely on others. If they are part of a family if often for the narrative. Male physique has also become an more important part of representation of masculinity and is shown a lot in the media. Men that are be represented in the media ten to focus on strength, power, sexual attractiveness and independence.
Representation of religious beliefs, a lot of religious beliefs that are represented in the media tend to be biased towards certain religions. In films characters that are linked to certain religions the characters are commonly stereotyped as violent religious fanatics. In a lot of films and television series religious characters tend to be stereotyped and this is also happens in a lot of media formats.
A lot of religion represented in films or Tv tend to be biased towards some religions. A lot of religions in films tend to be stereotyped as dangerous and violent religious fanatics. In modern films and Tv shows we see Muslims as violent people, killing innocent people, but actually Muslims aren't like this but its portrayed in the media likes this.
Accessibility, films offer more ways to help with accessibility. The most common way is subtitle, can be used for people who are hard for hearing and also to let people watch the films who don.t people speak the language in the film people so there fore the words are in their own language. Another accessibility would be if there was a person in the bottom corner doing sign language, this is for deaf people as it helps them follow the story when they can see the person sign the words. Another form of accessibility is audio description this is when a narrator speaks over the film describing the set or the actions of the characters, this is for people who cant see.
Case Study- Cannibal Holocaust
the film Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is about a rescue mission into the amazon rain forest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew. The film was directed by Ruggero Deodato, it has American and Italian actors. What make the film so controversial was that it had sexual violence and genuine cruelty to animals, because of the content in the film it ended up being banned in more than 50 countries and still is today. In 2006 it was named the 20th most controversial film of all time by Entertainment Weekly. The film was accused for murdering the actors and the director was trailed in court for murder. The director had previously gotten all actors to sign a contract saying they would be seen for a year after the release of the production to give the illusion they were actually died. But when Deodato was taken to court he broke the contract to avoid prison, the court dropped all charges but the film was still banned. Before the film was banned it grossed $2 million. A few of distributors wrote to the National Viewers and the Listeners Association anonymously about the controversy of the film to boost the publicity, this back fired and the companies named the films as "video nasty". National newspapers exposed the film content and the reality of the film had caused a media frenzy. 