Joe Oliver

3322
Certification of our Products
BBFC
In a 12 certified product, references to illegal drugs or drug misuse must be
innocuous or carry a suitable anti-drug message. We are trying to promote a
negative image of drugs and hopefully include an anti-drugs message. In our
narrative, as a result of taking drugs, the protagonists relationship ends, he
injures himself and pictures himself carrying out domestic violence as part of a
hallucination. The theme of domestic violence doesnt condone unacceptable
behaviour as it is a hallucination of where he will end up in his relationship or
future relationships if his drugs misuse continues. This violence is justified by its
context as it is furthering the anti-drugs message. This links in with the Effects
Model or Hypodermic Needle model of Audience Theory as we hope to prevent
the taking of drugs among our audience as it can lead to addiction in certain cases,
violence and in the long run death. To further this, we could include the numbers
of drug helplines such as Frank in order to inform our audiences there are places
to go to get help.
Our digipack complies with all BBFC regulations in regards to packaging as there is
nothing illegal, indecent, dishonest, unsafe or anti-social within our packaging..
Our exterior panes are taking a similar design to that of Gorillaz Demon Days and
the interior panes are similar to that of Maroon 5s Overexposed.
OFCOM
As in all programmes broadcast before the watershed, any violence included in music videos pre-
watershed should be appropriately limited and justified by the context. The use of domestic violence
and drugs in our video helps to further promote an anti-drug message and therefore is justified by the
context. We as producers and directors feel it is inappropriate to dwell on the infliction of pain and use of
violence and therefore the time that the violence is shown in the video is short. This is to avoid the
Hypodermic needle theory, which links to the Bobo Doll experiment, where young children were exposed
to violence on a doll. They were then taken to a room with a doll they werent allowed to touch, followed
by a room with the Bobo Doll-88% imitated the violent behaviour and 40% reproduced that behaviour
within 8 months of the experiment. Although our video isnt aimed at young children, we have to take
into account that young children could be watching our video on music channels on TV or on Youtube. As
our video complies with OFCOM regulations and can be shown pre-watershed it can be shown at any
time of day, either before 9pm or after. The ideal times to show the video would be from 9am-3pm as
this is the time that children are in school and therefore they will not be watching, or from 7:30pm
onwards as it around the time that parents sit down and choose what they want to watch and young
children will be getting ready for bed. However, some TV Channels such as MTV have a music video editor
that will re-edit the video to take out some elements to suit the scheduling of the video on TV. This
means the video if re-edited could be shown at any time of day.
(http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/guidance/831193/watershed-on-tv.pdf)
ASA
The content of our advert is similar to that of our digipack- a combination of the two above album covers;
the white squares on the Gorillaz album being filled with a similar background to that of the Maroon 5
album. The dates the album is available will be at the bottom of the advert in bold letters and similarly to
that of our digipack, there is nothing that could be deemed illegal, indecent, dishonest, unsafe or anti-
social in the advert.