On Tuesday 23rd May, Year 12 and 13 Media Studies students took the opportunity to travel to Christchurch for a presentation from the Office of Film and Literature Classification on Wednesday.

Censor for a Day is a fantastic learning opportunity for students not just to learn more about censorship in New Zealand, but to go through the process that the ‘real’ censors do. Pre-Covid, this was a biannual event held across the main cities of New Zealand and we are very happy to see it return. Let’s hope we will get the opportunity again in another 2 years.

The day started with the Classification Office presenters explaining how they censor films. What the 5 areas of classification are and how they define the differences between the ratings. There were a few interactive activities helping students to focus and understand the differences.

A quick break, to grab popcorn and a drink, before settling down to watch a prereleased film. We were lucky enough (or not depending on your enjoyment of comic-horror) to see Renfield, which was released to the public on Thursday. A new, modern-day version of Dracula from his ‘familiar’s’ point of view. Whilst watching the film we had to consider the criteria and decide on the censorship rating. We guessed it was probably going to be R16, because we had to be over 16 to go. It was a bit of a blood fest, but we knew it could not be higher than R16!

Pizza was provided for lunch.

We met back in the cinema to debrief and discuss the classification. There was a great question and answer session to conclude the day.