I was wondering what you have to do to get your film reviewed by the MPAA to get a G,PG,PG_13 rating and so on. Where do you send it? What do you send? How much does it cost?

You can always call/mail them to ask:

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
Motion Picture Association (MPA)

15503 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, California 91436
(818) 995-6600

Or search their website: www.mpaa.org

thanks i never noticed their number.

post results here, please :)

I'd be interested to know as well, actually...

It all depends on the budget. There is a sliding scale amount. For example, 1.5mil to 2.9 mil is $4000 and you should give at least 3 months prior to release date time to get in order.

Why do you want the MPAA rating anyway?

So you can have a shot at straight-to-video with the big places, like Blockbuster & Walmart.

:)

So you can have a shot at straight-to-video with the big places, like Blockbuster & Walmart.

:)
I'd like to see someone sue these big outlets for discrimination for not carrying indie films for not having a rating. There's so many excellent DVDs out there these big carriers will not carry in stores because they are minus an MPAA rating.

Depends how you look at it, I guess.

You could also say, "There's so many excellent DVDs out there that won't get seen, because their producers won't make the effort to fill in some paperwork." :)


Walmart & Blockbuster have some basic requirements, and they like to know what they are selling. Neither of them carry NC-17 titles, and as a business they are allowed to decide what they do want to carry. Noone's suing them because they won't stock porn titles... in fact, if they did they'd make a killing seeing as how that market has an endless demand. They have decided what is right for their companies, and are sticking to it.

The MPAA ratings may be semi-useless in a lot of ways, but it's simple enough to use when determining what is "right" to carry... especially when buying many titles in bulk; sight unseen. No surprises.

:)

Would it be possible to get a rating for films under 1.5 mil or can't they be bothered to look at a $2000 film for example

As far as I know, they will rate any film, but the price is the same regardless of your budget.. I believe they charge in the neighborhood of $3500 to rate a film. (That's EACH time you have them rate it.. so if you get a worse rating than you want, re-cut the film and have it rated again.. same price, again.)

shit.