The Ontario Film Review Board has teamed with its videogame counterpart in a joint effort to educate parents about ratings systems for the big and little screens.

The OFRB and the Canadian wing of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board – the watchdog of the videogame industry – have produced a pamphlet explaining their respective letter codes – in particular, the confusion-plagued PG.

‘A lot of PG movies are very mature,’ says OFRB chair Janet Robinson.

The pamphlets will be handed out at theaters and, it is hoped, classrooms. ‘We want to target kids in grades five through eight,’ says Robinson. ‘It could fit very nicely into the media studies curriculum.’

The move follows the lead of Nova Scotia’s film board, and is part of a larger campaign to both educate parents and to standardize ratings systems across Canada. ESRB ratings – E for ‘everyone,’ M for ‘mature,’ etc. – are the same across Canada and the U.S., whereas the various provincial film boards often interpret their Gs, PGs and 18As differently.

The boards agreed in principle on standardized ratings at the 2005 ShowCanada conference, and will revisit the matter at this year’s conference in B.C., says Robinson.

The OFRB, which has had some PR problems in the past, also wants to run a series of public service announcements in theaters, further re-explaining the ratings. The board recently put a call out to Ontario film students and plans to commission five 60-second PSAs.

The trick is, the spots themselves must be rated G, but must explain all five of the film ratings, from G to adults-only R.

Robinson has seen a few pitches already. ‘They’re very inventive,’ she says of the students. ‘They’re far more clever than I am, which is why we’re doing it this way.’

The deadline for submissions is March 31. Details are availble on the OFRB website.

www.ofrb.gov.on.ca