Lee Kemp

It’s Friday night. I’ve just gone through about 18 months worth of Empire magazines adding all the films I fancy to my Lovefilm list. The dogs on the bed licking my stockinged feet (stockinged as in socks) while I wait for the house to become empty so I can watch Franklyn and I’ve been asked to be a guest blogger in Birmingham’s Big Debate

It’s a good day.

I’ve got a script ready to go. It’s very short, pretty self contained and won’t take too much to do. It’s called Cherry Pie.

Watch this space.

I went to a lecture this afternoon held by a representative of the British Board of Film Classification with colleagues from work, Rachel and Dave. It was held at the Lighthouse in Wolverhampton which is a nice little place though you’d need to ask Rachel in person about how angry some elements made her! It was a really interesting afternoon. Generally I think the BBFC does a sterling job, in 2006 they classified nearly 14,000 films for cinema release then again for DVD, also games and other little bits. Of these thousands they banned 2. Not exactly the reputation they still seem to carry from the video nasty.

There are 29 full time examiners and they watch on average 5.5 hours of material around 3-4 days per week. Screenings are selected at random. Our lecturer once spent a day viewing The Departed, 2.5 hours of hardcore sado-masochism porn followed by several episodes of Noddy.

He gave us a detailed explanation of how some films fall into the margins of each classification and how those grey areas are defined, such as between a 15 or an 18 certificate. We explored Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm episode that features two usages of the C-word along with Veronica Guerin which has a violent sequence with 6 instances of everyone’s favourite shock factor cuss word. Curb Your Enthusiasm managed a 15 certificate on the basis of the inherent comedy and the rather sweet way it was intended (you really need to see it) whereas Veronica Guerin got an 18. Sustained and most importantly aggressive use of the word alongside sudden and prolonged male to female violence was sufficient to bump it higher.

Saving Private Ryan (15) was compared to The Last Temptation of Christ (18) with an interesting focus on history. Hard lobbying from Christians on the basis of special educational merit failed to get the certificate reduced to 15 because of the sustained and particular focus on one individual.

The BBFC has an interesting history and stands in starkly independent contrast to the MPAA. I think it’s a British institution to be proud of and it will become of more interest in the near future. It is funded entirely out of charges paid by studios for the legal requirement of a certificate. It’s been financially sustained over the past  few years by the classification of studio back catalogues that are running out. The other factor is that their remit only really covers theatrical releases and there’s nothing required for online delivery so keep that in the back of your mind because it’ll be a topic of conversation in film circles in years to come.

The presentation ended with a Q&A and I asked if there was support within the BBFC for a lower age limit on the 12A certificate. This was a polite re-phrasing of the question I wanted to ask, how do I stop adults taking kids to films that are clearly not suitable for them, not really understanding what the A means in 12A and through their own ignorance abrogating responsibility for that decision? The answer to both questions was the same; the BBFC is undergoing a lengthy public consultation. Let’s hope they ask the right people.

Yes. I mean me.

Technology is ace. I love it. Check this out from from Crunchgear. US Army scientists, so often the bad guys just because they spend their time working out more efficient ways of wiping out civilisations, have come up with nanofibre technology that means missing limbs and damaged organs can be regrown.

One guy re-grew a fingertip, bone nail and all, that he’d lost in a freak model aeroplane accident. (Not sure what was so freak about it, he probably stuck his finger in something sharp and fast moving)*. And apparently a little girl grew a foo foo she never had in the first place!

Perhaps not the head he wanted

This is so awesome I almost don’t quite believe it. The full story’s here.

*what constitutes a freak accident, as opposed to a run of the mill accident?