At the top of the page there will always be the lead actors
name or names, it can vary whether it says the character they play or not.
There may or may not be a slogan underneath the lead actors
name in this case of the poster for ‘good morning Vietnam’ there is but for the
majority of films there is not.
In the middle of the screen there will be an image, it will
always be of the main character or a number of main characters depending on how
many lead or supporting roles the film has.
If there is a background to the image it will be of
significance to the film, in this case it has an American flag which shows that
the character is an American involved in the Vietnam War. Another example would
be the Kong: Skull Island poster where the figure of Kong, the main character,
is central to the screen but seen as a distant figure but the background and
foreground show the island, which tells the audience where it will be set, it
also shows the helicopters and troops which tell the audience who the enemy is.
The title will always be bold as it has to stand out to the
Audience, this can be done in the style it is written in or the effect it uses,
in ‘good morning Vietnam’ it uses a bold yellow that stands out from the blue
in the military ring whereas Kong: skull Island uses a bold orange on a blue
and black background to make the title standout.
Lastly there are the credits at the bottom of the screen,
these consist of the studio that makes the film along with the director,
writers, producers, lead actor, co-producers, executive producers, original
score and any other main roles from behind the scenes.
For the magazine review I have researched empire magazine and
therefore my final print product will replicate empire magazine.
The first convention they have is that they always have
review written in the top left hand corner of the page to inform the reader
that the double paged spread is of film reviews.
The most striking thing on the page however is the image as
it takes roughly half of one side of the page if not more and is there to
advertise the film as it will often not be a poster image or a scene from the
trailer but in fact an entirely new image taken from the unseen film. This is
used to advertise the film because it generates a buzz around the film because
it is drip feeding images and information about the upcoming release.
Covering the image will be the film’s title in bold and
white so that it stands out from the coloured image. This lets the reader know
which film the image is from and the film that is being reviewed, often this is
only necessary for the images that are not blatantly related to the film or for
films that are not being advertised on all forms of media.
Underneath the bold, white title there is a slogan or remark
made about the film. In the case of this magazine review of Sherlock Holmes: a
game of shadows it says ‘the fabulous baker street boys’ which is reference to
the main characters home in the film. The text for this will also be white but
in a smaller font and is not bold.
Then there is the main body of text that makes up the actual
film review which will give some details about the plot, the characters
performance and review how effective the general storyline is. At the end of
this review there is a small piece of text used for ‘extra’s’ which is a form
of advertisement as it details any bonuses that come with the DVD such as the
director’s cut, unseen footage or bloopers depending on the genre.
After this the writer of the review will have their name in
bold underneath the text and then give the film a rating out of 5 stars and do
the same for the extras.
Underneath the review there is a quote, it is unreferenced
so its origin would either be from the writer of the article or from an
audience member that has seen a preview of the film. It will compare the film
to something else so that the audience has a reference point of what the film
will be like. For example in the review of Sherlock Holmes it says “lots of
escaping from traps, like MacGyver with sharp tailoring.” This gives people
something to compare the film to because people recognised MacGyver as a
popular television series and can relate the two main characters together with
the comment about “sharp tailoring” used to reference the different time
period.
Finally Empire use specific characters to do a 5 step piece,
in this case they have used the villain and done 5 steps to make a great
villain which then allows the reader to get to know more about the main cast as
they have not been talked about in depth during the main review. This part of
the review is also written in a navy blue with the background to it being a
yellow long rectangular shape.
