Review Examples

As part of the project we have to complete two ancillary tasks. We chose to do the film poster and a movie review as opposed to a radio advert. We thought that these pieces would be more effective and we would be able to create them to a better quality than if we attempted to do a radio advert. Ruby is more experienced on the editing software Photoshop so we thought it would be better if she produced the poster and I have chosen to do the review. In order to have a good idea of the style of reviews I have decided to research into film reviews.










FilmEmpire: FilmEmpire is a very well known for film reviews. They tend to have one review per page and also have similar films in the side. They use the star system to rate how good it is. They give a written review which is written in mixed mode, often posing questions to the reader. It is set out in a very organized way with clear section for each different bit of writing e.g. review, plot, verdict.




The above review was taken from the magazine 'Hip Hop Connection.' When the film 'Kidulthood' was released they wrote a review on it. I really liked the layout of this review as it gave you more information about different factors of the film (music, shots, mis-en-scene, etc) and not just the plot. The overall layout looks really good as well so I've decided to try and recreate this for my review. As our film is a social realism film, like Kidulthood, I thought this sort of layout would fit very well in with our film. I can also use some different still shots within my review to increase the graphological appeal.


Below is the introductary text for my review:


"With some many ways to consume media these days – video games, digital radio, HD television- film has had quite a hard time trying to stay as dominant as it has previously been. Because of this a lot of films, especially short films, have drifted past basically unnoticed. But Final Notice is one of those short films, that is worth noticing as it stands out among all the action-packed blockbusters in the cinema, simply because of the portrayal of it’s main character is so realistic. The main characters plight is shown so well, it gives you the feeling that you are actually there with her following every problem she goes through. Final Notice is the first film made by super-group Filmsecret. Filmsecret, consisting of three female members, is one of the newest independent film companies to appear over the past year. Final Notice follows the day-in-the-life-of format which is very familiar to independent films, as seen in other films such as London to Brighton, Kidulthood and Donkeypunch."




By making references to other independant films (those in blue) we are able to refer and maybe draw comparisons. Therefore, if people liked particular parts of these films, they are more likely to want to watch our film.