Producers work harder to please movie ratings board.

When Joe Fineman was preparing to send the final cut of the film "DisFunktional Family" to the ratings board of the Motion Picture Association of America earlier this year, he had little notion of how long of an odyssey be had embarked upon.

Four months and several cuts of the film later, Fineman's film chronicling comedian Eddie Griffin's standup act finally received the PG-13 rating he had been locking for.

"If we got an R, it would have been the death of the film because Eddie's target audience of teenagers wouldn't be able to see him," Fineman said.

"It just seems that it's getting harder and harder to get the rating you think your film deserves."

Encino-based producer Zalman King, who is known for his racy "Red Shoe Diaries," series on Showtime, also was forced to cut his direct-to-video extreme sports and music magazine series "Sex Y and Z" several times before he could get an R rating.

Going unrated or an NC-17 rating would bar a film or video from being stocked at chain video stores like Blockbuster while also barring it from advertising in most major newspapers around the country.

Whether by design or simple luck, Fineman and his fellow film industry colleagues are facing an increasingly tougher ratings board at the Encino-based MPAA. Whether it's a response to public demand or government pressure, the ratings board is seen by many as far more stringent today than in previous years.

"If you have more than 10 seconds of a sex scene, you're going to get an NC17 and who wants that.?" Fineman said.

"You have to cut and try to work with them or you're not going to get that PG13 or whatever. That's what everybody wants because with an R, half your audience is gone."

Although producers contacted by the Business Journal felt constrained by the ratings board, few would go on the record with their concerns.

"It certainly sounds like it's a lot more complicated than it used to be," said Brick Price, an independent producer based in Chatsworth.

"They seem to be under a lot of pressure from the government and maybe they're responding to it," said Price, whose colleagues have heard or experienced similar problems when submitting films or programs to the board.

The MPAA would not comment. But last summer, its spokesman Rich Taylor defended the organizations ratings system as useful and geared toward parents and not the film industry or the government.

"It's not geared to give great pleasure to producers. It's geared to parents," he told the Associated Press in August.

'Gross-out' humor 

Criticism of the ratings process may well be linked to the growing controversial content of some films which cater to young audiences with a mixture of graphic humor or images showing coarse behavior, said Fine-man.

"Maybe it's those 'gross out' movies that show people doing a lot of crazy things to get a laugh," Fineman said.

"But there's a limit to that and when Congress gets involved about the ratings system, then it becomes serious."

So much so, say industry insiders, that the film industry's own watchdog group, the MPAA, has begun cracking down on content the only way it knows how --by making it harder for films to receive a PG or PG-13 rating which are issued to about 80 percent of films released by the major studios and major independent producers.

Created in 1966 by the major film studios to stem potential government regulations for film content at a time when films had become racier than ever before, the MPAA developed a ratings system that allowed moviegoers a chance to determine whether the films were suitable for families and their children.

The system created by the MPAA has stayed much the same since that time, with a G rating for films suitable for general audiences, a PG, suggesting parental guidance for children; PG-13, developed in 1984, requiring parents accompany children 13 and under; the R rating was established in 1966, requiring parental guidance for anyone under 17; the NC-17, which had been an X-rating, was instituted in 1990, prohibiting anyone under 17 from viewing a film With that rating.

Yet despite the changes in the ratings system, the MPAA has continued to come under fire from some conservative groups and the federal government who charge the system does not protect children enough.

James Steyer, president of Common Sense Media, a media advocacy group based in San Francisco, said the MPAA is not doing enough to help families make decisions about which films to watch.

"It's very confusing for most people because when you go see a PG-13 movie, for instance, you realize your kids shouldn't be watching it," he said.

"The ratings really mean nothing when it comes to parents,"

Echoing the sentiment has been U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft who repeatedly threatened the film industry with potential legislation that would regulate and rate the content of motion pictures.

Catholic pressure

Even the Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops has taken action by developing a ratings system last year to guide Catholics about the films in current release.

Last summer's "Terminator 3," which received an R rating from the MPAA, requiring children to be accompanied by an adult, received a harsher A-IV rating by the bishops, meaning it was only suitable for adults.

Jon Kramer, film producer and president of Promark Entertainment in Los Angeles, said lie's not surprised by the tougher ratings board.

"It usually comes in cycles and you generally can adjust to that, but I've seen a lot more people having to recut and rework their films for a good rating," he said.

"You're talking about an artist's work and that's their vision and you're asking them to alter it and that's a real problem."

Kramer's own run-ins with the MPAA have forced him to change his films which merely adds to the cost and the dynamics of the final product.

"But I'd rather have them tell me to change something than the government telling me," Kramer said.

Although some call the ratings system censorship, since some movie chains refuse to show NC-17 films, for instance, others admit some films had been pushing the envelope of good taste for years.

"I don't know if we really need to see so much violence and people getting gunned down left and right in a very graphic way," said Steve Shor, head of Shor Films.

"Even some of the comedies have become very raunchy so there was bound to be a backlash."

But striking a balance between artistic vision and public demand for quality entertainment that doesn't offend is always a tricky proposition, Kramer said.

"In all these years I've realized these things run in cycles." he said.

"This is just one of them."