“Bully”, Ratings and an Open Apple Media Store [Updated 4/6]

I just got back from an early screening in LA for “Bully”, which is currently famous for the outrageous R rating from the MPAA. I’ll get back to the rating, but first a quick comment on the feature documentary.

The subject matter is important, and this film should be shown to every middle and high schooler in the country ahead of a true crack down on bullying in (and around) our schools. That said, there was way too many lingering closeup slowing the pacing way down. (In fact, I’d say it should be 15-20 minutes shorter than its current cut.)

But my true contempt is for the camera operators. Here’s a clue: do NOT use high shutter speeds except as a special effect. It makes your less-than-stellar jerky camera work look twice as bad because we lack the smoothing the human visual system expect. You make it unnatural.

The absolutely complete fail is with focus. If you’re going to favor a shallow depth of field for crying our loud, lean how to focus!! The poor camera work is a real distraction, constantly hunting for focus (and I question some of the editing decisions to deliberately leave in material with poor and inconstant focus, probably because there wasn’t any decent material shot). If this was a stylistic decision, IT WAS A VERY BAD ONE.

Now I’ve got that off my chest, let’s talk about the insane rating that the MPAA gave this feature documentary: an R rating for language. Be aware that the story is largely middle and junior high schoolers who are the only people on camera other than parents and school administrators. The MPAA is – for some insane reason – trying to prevent these same aged kids from hearing language in the film that they hear on the bus and at school all day every day.

Supposedly the sticking point for the poor old fashioned folks at the MPAA was five instances of the “f” word. You know the one you hear Terence Curren and I use all the time on the Terence and Philip Show (which we voluntarily mark as Explicit in iTunes). I missed them all. Seriously, I got to the end of the film and had to ask those I attended with what happened to them.

Here’s the really, truly insane thing: the uses of the “f” word are off mic, muttered under someone’s breath, and almost inaudible. Recorded on a bus of teenagers, who the MPAA wants to protect from the language they use every day.

This is just one example of how insane the MPAA is. Ask Matt Stone on how “biased” the MPAA is against independents. That’s a link to a 2000 interview with him outlining the corruption of the MPAA. Or talk with Kirby Dick.

That the MPAA are not responsible to anyone for the rating, and that in fact it carries absolutely no legal weight, is why their ratings system is so flawed. They claim not to be censoring, but in fact that is the intent. What is needed is an open, objective and consistent rating – and more importantly a true content advisory. I don’t care about a little skin, sex or language. I hate violence in films. I want the “rating” to be useful as a content advisory: I want to know what I’m getting.

Now, strange as this may seem, two years ago we worked on an impartial, consistent film rating web application for the only other organization that can issue a rating with the same legal force as the MPAA. That “legal force” is almost non-existent. There is no legal requirement for an MPAA rating: it’s merely an agreement between the studios and the theater owners. Unlike almost every civilized country in the world, ratings in the US come from an industry lobby group, not an objective authority.

So, we tested our algorithm against some movies we knew, and our methodology came up with ratings that were very consistent with international ratings, and inconsistent with the MPAA’s capriciousness ratings (and total bias to films from their six owners).

Terry Curren and I believe, eventually, that Apple will open an iMedia store – perhaps with a “publish to iMedia store” button in FCP X. The problem I’ve bought up is that of ratings. The iApp Store and the Mac App Store both have self-rating systems similar to what we were proposing. The iTunes Podcast directory similarly has a self-rating system. Our proposal was a self rating system and that’s probably the direction that Apple must go if they’re going to open up the iMedia store to independents. Right now, the only media welcome in the iTunes store is from the major producers. They then rely on the MPAA or TV rating.

Because I want a true content advisory, which I certainly don’t get from an MPAA rating, that’s how we devised our system: the producer would fill in an online form, rating their film in multiple categories (language, violence, sex etc) with explanations of the context for a true content advisory. The idea was to make the issuance of the rating dependent on the truthfulness of the producer, checked by a look at their website and trailer. Those entries from the filmmaker would be available just one link away, so that any potential viewer – parent or self – would be well informed about the various aspects of the movie.

While self rating seems to work very successfully for apps in the Apple world, it wasn’t sufficient for that proposal and ended up being the sticking point. It would work very well. (Apple, btw, if you’re interested I’d be happy to give you our work, because I want the advisories that would eventuate, and because I’d like to break the MPAA’s defacto monopoly.)

It’s time for a true content advisory. If not Apple, then someone else – Amazon or Netflix perhaps.

And for what it’s worth, our system would have given Bully an equivalent to PG13, which is where the film should be rated.

Update: On April 6th the MPAA rerated Bully as PG13, what it always should have been. A smart move by the MPAA as Bully had (and still has) the potential to have derailed their “control” over ratings. Ultimately though, the MPAA must be destroyed for the good of the movie industry as a whole.