MPAA Announces Changes to the Ratings System
Park City, Utah's Sundance Film Festival is an important medium where filmmakers and studios merge and make decisions on what movies ? studio or independent ? will make it to the big screen that year. This January another event took place that will have a major impact on the Hollywood movie industry when filmmakers met with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to discuss changes to its rating systems.
The MPAA was established in 1922 along with the National Association of Theater Owners ( NATO ) as a voluntary rating system. Ratings are provided by ten board members who view each film, participate in a group discussion, and then vote on its rating, which originally was intended as a guide for parents to decide what films were suitable for their children.
During the last decade, the MPAA rating system has come under continuous attack from critics and filmmakers who have spent many months and large sums of money to produce a film only to receive ratings they felt would negatively impact the film's distribution and alter the filmmaker's vision of the film. Most of those ratings in question concerned drug content, violence or nudity, which at one time received an X rating but years ago, was changed to a NC-17 (no one permitted under than 17) rating. This was an automatic death sentence to filmmakers as theaters typically will not show NC-17 films.
The long war between the MPAA former chief Jack Valenti and filmmakers included complaints no one knew who served on the board or how they made decisions.
The battle came to a head in 2006 when director/producer Kirby Dick made the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Dick not only took the entire MPAA organization to task, he set up investigations to determine who actually made up the raters. "After watching what happened for 20 years with the ratings board and all the criticism from critics, filmmakers, even people around the country, and nothing changing at all, I felt it was really time to set out to make a film," said Dick.
MPAA's new chief Dan Glickman and CARA (Classification and Ratings Administration) chairwoman Joan Graves met with studio chiefs, studio recognized and independent filmmakers at Sundance to discuss the new revisions the organization intends to make. The overhaul discussion included:
Making ratings rules and regulations public.
Describe the standards for each rating, and detail the appeal process.
Warn parents that some R-rated movies are not suitable for younger people ? whether or not they are accompanied by an adult.
Allow a filmmaker to cite scenes in another movie when appealing a severe rating (something never allowed before).
Publish demographic information about the parents who serve on the ratings board and reveal the identities of its senior raters
Offer parents the "Red Carpet Ratings Service," weekly e-mails with reports on new films.
Assign Scott Young, a 19-year long employee to become a liaison to filmmakers to offer advice on scripts and explain the ratings process before filmmakers start their filming.
While Glickman pointed out the MPAA doesn't expect to create a new letter rating, in addition to the considerations above, they will increase the size of the appeals board with both the MPAA and NATO by appointing new members.
"It's an attempt to listen and build relationships and see if there are some things we can improve," MPAA chief Dan Glickman told reporters about the overhaul.
The changes will be formally announced to movie theater owners at their annual ShoWest convention in Las Vegas in March.
The MPAA was established in 1922 along with the National Association of Theater Owners ( NATO ) as a voluntary rating system. Ratings are provided by ten board members who view each film, participate in a group discussion, and then vote on its rating, which originally was intended as a guide for parents to decide what films were suitable for their children.
During the last decade, the MPAA rating system has come under continuous attack from critics and filmmakers who have spent many months and large sums of money to produce a film only to receive ratings they felt would negatively impact the film's distribution and alter the filmmaker's vision of the film. Most of those ratings in question concerned drug content, violence or nudity, which at one time received an X rating but years ago, was changed to a NC-17 (no one permitted under than 17) rating. This was an automatic death sentence to filmmakers as theaters typically will not show NC-17 films.
The long war between the MPAA former chief Jack Valenti and filmmakers included complaints no one knew who served on the board or how they made decisions.
The battle came to a head in 2006 when director/producer Kirby Dick made the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Dick not only took the entire MPAA organization to task, he set up investigations to determine who actually made up the raters. "After watching what happened for 20 years with the ratings board and all the criticism from critics, filmmakers, even people around the country, and nothing changing at all, I felt it was really time to set out to make a film," said Dick.
MPAA's new chief Dan Glickman and CARA (Classification and Ratings Administration) chairwoman Joan Graves met with studio chiefs, studio recognized and independent filmmakers at Sundance to discuss the new revisions the organization intends to make. The overhaul discussion included:
While Glickman pointed out the MPAA doesn't expect to create a new letter rating, in addition to the considerations above, they will increase the size of the appeals board with both the MPAA and NATO by appointing new members.
"It's an attempt to listen and build relationships and see if there are some things we can improve," MPAA chief Dan Glickman told reporters about the overhaul.
The changes will be formally announced to movie theater owners at their annual ShoWest convention in Las Vegas in March.
Source...