LO4, Task 5 Legal and Ethical notes

-The impact/ affect of our film on the audience
- Legal issues the film has to address, for example copyright permissions for soundtrack and music
- Who certifies films- BBFC  (British Board of film classification) and ASA (Advertising Standards Authority)


This task is worth a Merit

Learning outcomes
To apply knowledge of audience theories (active/ passive to your film)
To apply basic knowledge of representation to your film
To apply "legal" and "ethical" analysis to your film
To apply relevant regulatory bodies to your film and film marketing (BBFC/ASA)

a) The products impact and effect on the audience

Active audience or a passive audience member

Passive audience-
1. Hypodermic syring model (Theodore Adorno, 1930's)- media has negative impact. Mass audience believe everything they see/hear- the media inject a passive audience with negative messages and value.e. they copy what they see. For example
Issues about violence- atogonist Cal slapping Rose
Issues about sexual content
Issue about representation- How women and lower class citizens
Positive impact/role models

Active audience
They question what they see, doesn't copy what they see in media products
2. Gauntlett- we are able to filter and adapt to content in media


b) relevant issues of representation

Stereotypes represented in my film. All representations are mediated (Hall, 1980)
Stereotypes / counter type (Perkins, 1979). Not all stereotypes are negative
Representation of women- are they objectified (Mulvey 1975). Representation of men (Earp and Katz, 1999)- "equation of masculinity with pathological control and violence".
Representation of gay people (Butler, 1993)- are they stereotypical.

1. Women- Mulvey 1975
2. Men- (Earp and Katz, 1999) Equation of masculinity with pathological control and violence 
3. Alvarado (1987)- ethnicity "exotic, dangerous, humorous, pitied'. 

c) relevant legal and/or ethical issues
d) role of relevant regulatory bodies


Legal and ethical

Legal- Copyright infringement- main worry in film industry illegal downloading
use if content (soundtrack) without permission from creator
consequence of this is being fined/sued
Ethical- offensive material? Sensationalism? Censorship- has the film been censored?
racism, representation of people, language, drug use, sexual reference,
age, religious
sensationalism - graphic, dramatic
Censored- re-edit, taken out, removed due to content