As you can see we really need to pay close attention to detail, like magnifying glass detail. After all the precision we'll probably be needing glasses! Our review needs to show the positives and some of the negatives within the film...but mainly the positives! anyway, instead of all this chit chat, we'd better get going with the review!
Research and Planning for the review:
So before we actually being to create the poster, we needed to do a bit of research of the features of a magazine review which will include deconstructing existing reviews and breaking it down into the different features within. Sounds simple, eh? But there are so many different features within a magazine review that when we flick through the latest edition of Empire magazine, we don't even realise its there. Most people are just interested in the slates and greats (liking that phrase) of films that are released.
Right, it's time to get cracking on the magazine deconstruction. For the deconstruction I chose to do a film review that's a little similar to ours in layout, genre etc. So twilight it was. Yes, I can hear the groans...its going to be even worse because its a deconstruction of the second film. The worst of them all! But anyways. This review can be deconstruction to show the conventions of a film review so here it is:
Right, it's time to get cracking on the magazine deconstruction. For the deconstruction I chose to do a film review that's a little similar to ours in layout, genre etc. So twilight it was. Yes, I can hear the groans...its going to be even worse because its a deconstruction of the second film. The worst of them all! But anyways. This review can be deconstruction to show the conventions of a film review so here it is:
Evaluation of film review:
Overall this review follows the typical conventions within a magazine review. It grips the audience with a still image from the film that sets the scene for existing drama within the film. The idea of having a comedic tagline underneath the main heading reflects later in the opinion within the verdict whereby they state that it isn't really a serious film. So the connections between features within the review is cleverly done. The title isn't in the traditional place at the top of the page however it works as the reader views the image first and in a way the title acts as a caption to tell the reader what the film image is before they read the actual image caption which puts the still frame into context.
The review in a way is more gossip, however it does give a brief plot at the beginning in the plug about the film which enables the audience to get a brief insight into the film before they decide if they want to see it or not or even read on for that matter.
The review follows the house style of the magazine Empire well, incorporating the colours and text styles of the magazine into the design of this review spread without being too bright or over crowding.
Second review:
The second deconstruction is for a film called Animal Kingdom. Again I am going to deconstruct the review and discover what it within the depths of this monstrous magazine (my impression of a wildlife presenter....sorry).
And here it is:
- So now that we've found the elements within existing film reviews, its time for us to begin the process of making ours. It would help if we understood the software we were using to create our review so that might be a place to start!
QuarkXPress Tutorial and Practise
- How to enter text and shapes into the review
- how to import images to show what film you're actually talking about
- setting out the text so that you can have it in your typical 'film review' column style rather than as if you are writing some letter in a magazine.
- how to overlay text boxes over text without it actually covering any of the under layer text (sounds easy but trust me it isn't!)
- Changing the colour of font and boxes etc. So why not take a look at the QuarkXPress tutorial below:
So now we move onto practising with the software we will be using to create our magazine review. QuarkXPress is the software we are going to be using to create our short film review. We needed to get use to using the software before we had any chance of knowing where to start with our film review and the format of it.
So we had a video tutorial to follow that explained how to create a basic layout of a film review and how to achieve these features in a step by step style.
This video tutorial showed us:
This video tutorial showed us:
There were different approaches you could have taken to create this practise review; I decided to go with the 'split screen' way so I didn't have to keep pausing the film then do a bit, watch the film, pause it, do a bit otherwise slowly it would drive me insane!
So once I'd followed the steps in the video (only pausing it when I'd really messed up which thankfully wasn't as much as I thought) Here is the practise finished product for a film called 'The Great Gatsby'
As you can see, non of the text makes sense but if you watch the video tutorial we used a filler text called 'Lorem Ipsum' which just generates a load of letters in the amount of text you want to fill the text box.
OBVIOUSLY when we come to do the actual film review for our film we will actually write real words in the review otherwise the review is kind of pointless....literally!
Flat Plan:
So the flat plan for the film review is just a basic outline of what the review is going to look like and the layout so we have something to follow when creating the actual review. Here is the basic plan for our film review and where everything is going to go (roughly... we're not exactly tied to this plan but it should look like this).
So this is the basic idea of what it looks like but probably with a few more details rather than 'still image from the film'. Right lets get going on actually making the magazine review
Magazine Review Construction
So now we really need to get cracking on making the film review. Each step of the construction will be shown below so you can follow our work right up until the time we can breath a sigh of relief when it is all over with, joking! Right lets get started:
A dark rectangle is drawn around the outside where the border is in order for the magazine to have a space whereby all the writing and ornaments will be placed for the magazine review.
Next up was the 'In Cinemas' Sign that is on all empire magazine posters to show the different pages and its content. This was created by making two text boxes changing the colour of each and then adding in the text. The two boxes were then grouped together (once aligned which was a nightmare!) to enable the whole thing to move and be placed as one rather than seperatley moving them.
The banner at the top which is a convention of the empire magazine is added in the exact colour and style of the empire magazine. This was made by simply adding a text box, colouring it red and then adding in the black fancy style (technical term) writing into the box.
So this is the blank canvas we have begun with to create the review in Quarkxpress. The first step is to create the border for the magazine.
So next up was the image, once it was selected from a scene within the film and caputured, the image box was drawn and then the picture of Mallory is added to the box. It took a little moving around to get the positioning of the character correct to enable a full view to be seen but still leave enough room for the caption box that was added later on (all about thinking in advanced you see).
The main body of the text was next however, just to get the layout before we write the actual review, we used something called lorem ipsum which is just made up text to fill in the columns before we added in the real writing. This just enabled us to enlarge or shrink the created column layout before adding the review. The text font style and size is also selected here so it is big enough to read but not too big that it drowns out the rest of the elements on the review.
The title for the film is then added underneath the image and made bold using a text font different to the main body. The title needed to be the next thing the audience looked at and so by making it large and bold, it can clearly be seen what you open the magazine.
Right so now we added the pull quote which isn't the exact quote we will be using as we don't know what the review is going to say yet. But OBVIOUSLY we know it is going to be a positive quote as why would we want to promote our film as shockingly bad?! Also in this image you will see the furnishing of the lines to separate sections is added just through a simple drawing of a line and making it the colours of the magazine.
The plug at the beginning of the review is added and divided from the rest of the text including in information about the film like who is in it, when it comes out what BBFC rating it has etc. All of this is added into a box along with the basic plot of the film narrative. The star ratings and the verdict are also added in this one to show the audience a summary and the conventional star rating of films at the bottom.
With a few alignment changes in this one to layout and the addition of the caption within the poster to anchor the image and give it context. The font style was made plain to enable it to be seen on its background of the image.
Right I think thats it for the construction, lets present the finished first draft review!
Draft Magazine Review:
So after all the work and deciding on text fonts (as much as we like Trebuchet text style....) we finally finished our first draft.
Without further ado here is The Illusion of Existence in Empire magazine!
Feedback From Draft:
Had the review ripped apart, I mean given constructive comments that will enable our review to be improved. So, lets see what they have to say in the feedback video below:
The layout is good
The layout means nothing is overlapping each other following the typical layout of a film review in its style which we followed existing film reviews for.
Justification issues, non matching lines
The lines/furnishing isn't even across the review. Some of the lines are longer than others and slightly out of place meaning the balance of the review is slightly messy. This can be solved by adjusting the alignment to ensure that the lines are evenly spread.
Pull quote box, line doesn't match up
The line underneath the pull quote is far too close to the text making it look a little squashed together which of balances the pull quote box. This can be solved by either removing the line which we probably will do or move the line further away so there is an even gap between the quote text and the line as well as the line and the main body.
Need to space the pull quote over 3 columns rather than being in the gutter of the magazine
The Pull quote looks uneven due to it ending in the gutter of the main body columns. To solve this the pull quote needs to be stretched over 3 columns to even out the white balance in the run around and make the quote look evenly spaced across the review.
Half a sentence in the pull quote, doesn't make sense.
The pull quote seems to stop half way is what people thought. It felt like it needed to continue and wasn't the strongest quote we chose. We needed to add in a proper quote ones we removed the lorem ipsum and replaced it with the real review. The sentence as we agree doesn't make sense, it needed to continue on to add to the quote.
Conventions followed
The conventions of a review are followed, containing all the features you would see in a typical magazine which was liked.
Follows Empires magazine house style.
After researching the empire house style, it was clear to the audience that we had followed the style in which empire did their magazine to show that it was infact a real review and for which magazine.
Like the picture, Excellent choice of image
The image clearly represents the film as well as giving enough room and space to add in captions without being crowded or confusing to the audience. It contained both of the characters but hid the one which didn't give too much away to the audience who are reading the review.
Good choice of caption, anchoring image
The caption clearly shows who is within the image and gives the picture a context for the audience. It paints a good picture of the actress as well as introducing her indirectly.
Folio Information needs adding
There are missing details at the bottom of the page such as the issue month, the magazine it is from. These are all details within a magazine that are missing. These can be added in which is what we shall do to keep the conventions of a magazine running throughout the review.
By line identified in different colour good
The fact that the by line has been identified and to give the person who wrote the review clear credit, it has been written in a different colour which is conventional to a magazine review. This gives the writer full clear credit for their work.
Add in a drop capital at the beginning of the review main body
The suggestion of a drop capital at the start of the review main body was suggested to show clearly the beginning. We are going to try this but we think we are just going to use a serif text font and bold to show it is the start of the main review.
In Cinema too close to the bleed, won't be seen in magazine
We knew it ourselves when we looked, the IN CINEMA box is too close to the bleed of the review and when printed in a magazine (empire hopefully) the box will not be seen as it will be cut off part way due to it being too close to the edge of the page. This can just be shuffled alone as there is plenty of room to move it across to prevent this issue.
Evaluation:
The actual conventions of a review are followed clearly, including all but a few of the features within our magazine. The main image of the review shows a clear idea and key scene from the film but doesn't give too much away about the characters or the plot line.The style of the poster follows the conventions of the famous empire magazine (even though they have now changed their house style) which is the kind of magazine we would expect to see a review like this in. The only real issue is the alignment of text and the furnishing within the review. Some of the lines are out of line (no pun intended really) so they need moving as well as issues with the run around on the pull quote not being even. This is mainly due to the fact that the quote ends in the gutter of the main body columns instead of stretching over the three columns.
So now thats out the way its time to get cracking on the re-editing of the review. Making those tweaks for the final time before the review is published and ready for the printing press!
Questionnaires:
Just to gather some more research into what our target audience thought, we decided to ask some other people not from a media perspective what they thought of our review. All the people asked were within the age range of 14-45 which is our target audience so this was even better. Here is what they had to say:
Questionnaire 1:
Questionnaire 2:
Questionnaire 4:
Questionnaire 5:
Questionnaire 6:
So as you can see all in all they think that the review is shaping up nicely. They like the layout even though there are a few alignment issue they say we could play around with. The actual image is received really well which is really great news and as hoped for with the responses we were given. It was a little disappointing to here that they thought the text and some of the layout was a little boring so we really are going to need to work on that. If they find the layout boring they aren't really going to want to read the review which is a bit rubbish eh? So now we'd better get onto making the changes they wish for. its bee really helpful and we do agree with the majority of what they are saying so its onwards and upwards!
Re-editing Review:
Well now we need to sort out the bits and pieces that were picked up on such as the alignment issues and some of the runarounds especially on the pull quote. So lets get going on the re-editing!
So one of the improvements was to add in the little quirky comment which is usually contained within a magazine review. It is underneath the title and we thought it would be better than having a red line running all across the bottom of it.
We also decided to double up on the red lines to have them parallel to each other. This just ensured that it was a lot more obvious that a new set of text was beginning (not that we're saying the audience are thick!)
Some of the alignment issues were resolved such as the pull quote in the middle making it run over the 3 columns to prevent it looking half in the gutter between the columns. Another problem with the pull quote was the run around, it was uneven and messy so we adjusted that so it happily sat in the middle of the text (taking as if its got feelings now...)
And the final stages of the re editing, added in the folio of the magazine at the bottom of the page. So the month of the issue, the issue number, a web address for the people who just can't get enough empire and the typical page number.
Deconstruction of Film Review:
Now that the film review has been created, to show we have followed the conventions of a review, its time to deconstruct our own review. We need to pull it apart like it is straight out of an Empire magazine this month!
Final Review:
So here is the final review for our film The Illusion of Existence, in this months Empire Magazine:
