Friday, 26 September 2014

Codes and Conventions of Magazine Film Reviews

Short film reviews are very rarely put into newspapers, they are mainly online on film enthusiasts blogs. To find the codes and conventions of a newspaper film review I had to look at full length feature films as they are the ones that tend to be in magazines and newspapers.



The writing in this review is in columns which is what I expected to find with all of the film reviews as all writing in newspapers is in columns. In this review they have used a picture from each film and a quote from that scene. The use of colour here is to highlight the film name and the headings, all being in bright blue and in block capitals. The review itself tells us the main information; Film name, Release date, Certificate, Director, Cast, Run time and some of the plot. Then at the end a verdict is given by the writer followed by a star rating system.


This film review is a lot more basic than the previous, although it does still follow some of the conventions seen in the last. The writing is in columns, with the film title being the boldest / largest thing on the page that your eyes are drawn to. There is much less factual information in this film, there is the name of the film and its rating, there is slight talk about the plot but the whole thing is more of a discussion about the film, there is no rating system or verdict of the film.


This review again follows the convention of writing in columns. Different to both previous
reviews the whole thing is placed upon a picture from the film. The title is again in bold capitals. The content of the review itself is similar to the first in that there is more information, it includes; The Director, The voices starring in the film, Certificate rating and runtime, However unlike the first it does not have a rating system but does have the comment 'WALL.E GRADE - A'. There is a brief explanation of the storyline but nothing too detailed.


From these reviews the codes and conventions I have found and will follow are:
  • I will write in columns throughout the review.
  • I will use at least one image from the film.
  • I will include a basic explaination of the storyline.
  • I will list the directors and actors as well as run time.
  • I will use a star rating system.



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