what age rating is our film ?

Four our film we are trying to choose the age rating that our film should be. This is difficult due to there being many different elements to our film and all of these need to be taken into consideration.

In the start of our film we have George hitting the anvil but there are no seemingly violent or other adult provisos in this scene. In the following scene Joe is running through a forest again there are no violent areas but he is carrying a assault riffle and a sword which could give off connotations of violence and may not be suitable for young children under the ages of 5 years. This could raise it from being a U rating set by the BBFC to a PG. Then after that scene the antagonist is shown in a negative light and his henchmen are wearing gas masks which could be classed a a more adult area and almost could be put into a horror film. This would push the age rating of the film up to a 12a, this would already be decreasing the total amount of target audience that we could target the film at due to age restrictions. This could lead to reduced revenue and a further drop in potential profit made by the film. In the next scene it is the main protagonist kissing his lover this is not classed as especially elicit content which would still make it classed as a 12a. After this there is more running and a church scene which again could be suitable for children, but after this there is a interrogation scene where the main protagonist is beaten this again is an adult topic and could make it closer to being a 15 rated film this would again lower the potential target audience for our film. Then after this there is a lot more running and going through a church. This is followed by the protagonist running out of the forest and confronting the Antagonist, they then run at each other and clash swords. This is moderately violent but not enough to put it at a 15 age rating.
Some factors that could lower the age rating of our film could be that it is a fantasy based film which means that it is not a serious action film that involves people killing one another just for the fun of it. This type of fighting is less realistic and not as serious.
On the whole I think that this film and teaser trailer should be classed as a 12a film classification set out by the BBFC. This is due to the moderate violence that is current in the video and some of the costume and mise-en-scene through out (e.g. gas masks for Antagonist lackies). Also the fantasy nature of the film would stop the age rating increasing to a 15. But there is no form of swearing or bad langauage or gore in the teaser trailer so this also would keep the age rating down. This would be benifical to the producers as this would keep the maximum amount of people able to view it up.