USA ratings captions on trailers

[Adrian Winchester]

As I collect trailers, I have plenty with US ratings captions. Modern US films seem to always have the captions at the start, but I'm sure that some of the Super 8 ones I have from around the 1970s have them at the end. When a trailer reel has a few trailers, I'm sometimes unsure whether the caption relates to the trailer before or after!

So, I wondered whether any USA members could clarify this by indicating whether there has always been a clear policy to place captions at the start, or has it ever been considered OK to put them at the end?

[Steve Klare]

Hi Adrian,

With trailers it's usually at the beginning: kind of a "Cover your kid's eyes!" warning. I guess!

-otherwise it would be "That last one was just too much for children....(oops!)"

When we took our 4 year old to see his very first movie (something Winnie the Pooh, I think), the theater wasn't very smart about the trailers they lined up. There was one for this really heavy duty action film, one of these where everybody is wearing aviator sunglasses and even at home, has a bazooka strapped on their shoulder. It was one of those where midway through the trailer, somebody jumped a car off a cliff, crashed it into a plane mid-air and then somebody else shot the car and the plane with a missile. The volume was cranked way up and I swear I started to feel plaster flaking off the ceiling, meanwhile the screen was filled with flames and large shrapnel!

-my little kid turned to me and said "Daddy! I wanna go home!", but we calmed him down and then Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin made everything OK.

The average age in that auditorium was nowhere north of ten years old! You have to know your audience!

[Brian Fretwell]

I suspect that is why in the UK now we get, before the trailers, a message stating that they are appropriate for the main feature.

Of course before that we got the down-rated trailer "PG trailer for an 15 rated film, etc.

[Chip Gelmini]

I've written a letter to the MPAA Which is the motion picture Association of America because this is a very interesting subject let's see if they respond and I will reply here with what they tell me

I wish to be clear that I used only my name in the letter that went to the MPAA.

Chip G

[Adrian Winchester]

Thanks for the responses, and I'll be very interested to hear of any reply that Chip may receive. Although I agree with Steve that the most logical place for the caption is at the start, it couldn't normally happen in a UK cinema that anything inappropriate - at least in terms of the classification - is shown to audiences, as Brian has said. So you might (e.g.) get a trailer for an 18 cert film before a 15 cert feature, but only if the trailer is 15 cert. But it seems ages ago that we had informative captions saying (e.g.) An A cert trailer for an X cert film, as now there's no caption at all. So the audience don't then discover the cert of the film, and the onus is on the cinema to check the cert of the trailer, if there's any concern that it might be higher than the feature coming later.

[Paul Adsett]

Maybe Chip can also find out why trailers are always about 20db higher in audio level than the main feature!

[Martin Davey]

I have a trailer (iver films) for 'Mad Mad Movie Makers'. It has the american certification at the end of the trailer. This always struck me as interesting when purchased the trailer as a 12 year old, as in the UK we are used to seeing the certification at the begining.

[Maurice Leakey]

Not about trailers, but I thought that American features had certificates at their ends.

Maurice

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

American MPAA Rating tags are not quite the same as British Censor Certificates, in that in the USA there is no legal requirement for a film to be rated or that the tag be shown on either the feature or the trailer. The ratings are strictly voluntary. Most major distributors do submit their film for rating, but it was/is not a requirement.

I am not sure when the rating tags were switched from the end of a trailer to the beginning, but I think it was sometime in the early 1990's. Don't hold me to that, it is my guess based upon my memory of something I never paid attention to when I worked as a projectionist years ago.

Trailers came as either green band (appropriate for all age groups) or red band (adult content) back in the 1970's. I still remember building up the show for the re-issue of Disney's Bluebeard's Ghost at a drive-in back in 1974 and holding the red band trailer for Angie Dickinson in Big Bad Mama thinking "How bad could it be?". Well, there was about 4 minutes of nudity in the Big Bad Mama, and all 4 minutes of it was in the red band trailer. Needless to say, that did not go over too well before a Disney feature and trailer was removed before the next showing.

Originally, there was a rating code of "M" (Mature Audiences) which at some point this was changed to GP (General Audiences, Parental Guidance Suggested), which was later changed to PG. Later still PG-13 was added.

Unlike all the other rating codes, the "X" rating (Adults Only) was never trademarked, so adult (porn) film distributors would self rate their films "X". This poisoned the market for serious adult only films, such as Last Tango In Paris and Midnight Cowboy, so the MPAA eventually came up the the trademarked NC-17 rating for serious adults only films.

[Graham Ritchie]

Like Mitchell I never paid to much attention at the time, however a lot of trailers would arrive with those terrible looking attached censorship ratings at the end of the trailers. The problem like Brian mentioned, was those ratings were for the "trailer" and not the feature, so you could have a "M" rated, but the feature film itself could be a "R" restricted to a certain age where "M" anyone can go to but more suitable for over 16 years of age but not restricted to age. This confusion did lead to the odd complaint. What I did was to remove and throw away, all those attached censorship ratings. We had a trailer shelf simply marked "kids stuff" in one part of the shelf, and the other marked "adult stuff" in another. I used to pick out the trailers to be shown, so nothing got through that I thought was not suitable for the audience that that particular feature was shown to. It really all comes down to using a bit of common sense.

Although I do have to own up to running a feature film to a private screening for 200 kids around the age of 11-12 once. They booked a screen for a end of year school thing, they arrived and I had threaded up the "G" rated film that the school had requested. About five minutes before the start, the cinema manager said to me they don't seem that interested in the cartoon they had booked. Anyway something must have clicked in my mind, as I had just finished putting together on a platter the first "Pirates Of The Caribbean" Black Pearl. The film had not screened to the public, it was a couple of days until its official release, so with no adds or trailers I decided this would be a better choice. I un-threaded the nice safe "G" and without telling anyone, started the screening of the "Black Pearl" instead, cranked up the digital sound and left it at that.

When the end credits were rolling, I went downstairs and opened the doors to let the kids out, to my surprise many were clapping, they were over the moon, it was not what they were expecting. I took of up to the projection room to hide, then started to think I might get into trouble, then it came to me that although the film was not restricted it was a "M" rated film for 16 yrs and over......drat I had forgotten that.

Anyway while I was hiding I heard the manager shouting my name GRAHAM...I replied yes...she called out... THEY ENJOYED THAT ONE ... and left That was the only time in 10 years I did that, at least the kids had a great time watching Johnny Depp doing his thing

Here is a example a a 35mm trailer reel...just wiz past the start to get to the trailers to get an idea how much better it is without any Censorship titles that most of the trailers I ever screened never had to begin with.

[Adrian Winchester]

Graham - That's a nice story, I'm glad you got away with it! I'm curious to discover whether the manager actually knew what you showed the kids?

[Chip Gelmini]

I have not heard anything yet so let's assume that's corporate America ignoring the question from the consumer shame on them

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Adrian...she only found out from the kids leaving what they had just watched, the manager was working downstairs at the time. They were the first to see this film in the city, I had not test screened it, so it was new to me as well. I think the early scene where Johnny Depp casually steps out of his little boat onto the pier, as it just sinks away from him nailed it for the kids. That was a brilliant introduction to Captain Jack Sparrow ....One other time we were asked by a film distributor to put on a special screening for a group of people. I think it was some sort of competition they had won. The film was "How To Train Your Dragon" ,for some reason the film distributor wanted some sort of proof that we had carried out this screening.

Anyway prior to starting the film, the kids paid a visit to the projection room where this following photo was taken. We sent it to the film distributor, who quickly replied, "nice photo but what was the film you cut up"? We assured him that it was not one of his....he was OK with that