For my final major project I was torn between re creating a short film I began production on last year with a new cast and a re worked script or turn the new re work into a game instead of a short film. After looking more into each idea and the positives and negatives for each I decided that I will create the short film this year and then for the extended diploma next year I will create the video game version as I will have more time and will be able to make the game look how I envision it to look.
The Simulation Theory Research
The genre of Science Fiction:
Science Fiction is a very popular genre in modern films. The name Science Fiction was invented in the 1920’s by the American publisher Hugo Gernsback and has become more and more popular of the years. A lot of Science fiction writers dealt with the same common themes of modern science fiction in their stories however they did not make them plausible to science and technology we know and have now. Most films in the genre follow certain themes such as space travel, aliens, time travel and robots however as the years have passed it has now grown into films with scenes of “utopian aspirations”, entire worlds created from someone’s imagination which have little or no similarities to our world as we know it, disasters and dystopian scenery and much more.
Most science fiction writers use actual scientific and technical developments in the real world to inspire their work and will use them to sometimes shock the audiences or expand their view on the world. For example H.G. Wells book ‘War of the Worlds’ has caused panic in the world due to a dramatised reading with actors and such by Orson Welles made it seem that Martians had actually invaded earth and caused wild spread fear around America.
The dystopian styled stories of science fiction are seen in a lot of modern of films with zombie apocalypses (Resident Evil Series), nuclear war (Planet of the Apes) or the most popular where government has fallen or because of technological advancement like we see in Terminator, Elysium, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Dredd and many more.
unknown. Encyclopaedia Britannica. [Online]. [8 April 2019]. Available from: https://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction
Age Rating:
Before I decide what age rating my short film will be I will first need to find out what constitutes as something that needs to be in a certain age rating and how the ratings were created. Regulation in Film, Television, Newspaper and Video Games is where the creator of the product must have his/her product sent to a group like PEGI or BBFC for example and have them look through it to see if it is safe to be bought by their target audience. Censorship is to make sure that what people are consuming is suitable for them. TV broadcasters do this a lot, if a show is for adult audiences then before the show starts they will exclaim to the audience that the show has graphic content or is not suitable for children etc. They also place shows like that on later times which is more viewed by adult audiences than young audiences as they will be most likely in bed sleeping by then. BBFC: The British Board of Film Classification is a non-governmental organisation which is responsible for the classification and censorship of films that are exhibited at cinemas and video works. They do this by following their ratings board which is this:
2019. Googlecom. [Online]. [8 April 2019]. Available from: https://www.google.com/search?q=british board of film classification ratings
For this I have decided that the age rating my short film will need is an 18 due to it having scenes of violence, blood, suicide and use of weapons such as guns.
There are no racial scenes in the film or scenes where there is offensive themes or racial slurs so I am not worried about the film having racial problems, however I am worried that there may be religious problems with the piece. Why I think this is due to the story of the film revolving around a simulated reality will any sort of religion get offended that the story denies the existence of God, Jesus, Buddha etc. I doubt there will be a problem as many films such as The Matrix subliminally denies the fact that god exists as the world was ‘created’ by robots and AI. Also in the Blade Runner films the creators of the Replicants see themselves as being god, whilst calling their creations (replicants) angels and they have not had any hate, I am guessing they are seen as having more of a god complex than actually being god even though they technically do ‘play god’. I am most probably just paranoid more than anything and overreacting but, it is still good to think these things so that you are prepared for any controversy that may arise.
After looking through the Questionnaire that I sent out to students in the college I found that a lot of them did not like Science Fiction films, however a lot of those who said they did not like Science Fiction films said that they had seen the Matrix film and enjoyed it which confused me as the Matrix is far from being close to reality and is more Science Fiction than anything else. Whilst also looking through the answered questionnaires I found that most of the people who answered did not like seeing blood, the use of guns, fire and suicide in films which is a bit worrying as the film does have these things in it and are important to the film, they have made me realise that subjects like this are not suitable for most viewers and are seen negatively by a lot of people however, that does not change my mind on using those in my film.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVQHfUf3Ne8
I'm a 90's Child... 