Film Reviews Analyse Layouts.

The image at the top of the page takes up about 50% of the article as this shows its importance of the article/review, it is an iconic image as they are celebrities so the audience recognise them straight away. The article has 4 columns which is a standard layout for magazine article. For writing, the title is the largest bit of font, the other fonts involved in the article are different colours to make them stand out compared to the others. It uses contrasting colours of the picture and the writing to make sure that they both stand out from each other, resulting in the audience engaging themselves into the article. A white box is used on top of the image to show different comments from the review. The first line of review is bold to make it stand out from the rest of the review. The title is also written in sans serif font so it is simple and effective as well as traditional.

Again the image taken from the film takes up half of the page as well as an iconic well loved actor is shown in the preview to engage the audience. It also includes under the title all the different ratings that the film could or has been rated. It also includes a table of the predicted interest curve that the film could possibly get as it can be seen as a controversy film to its audience. It also uses bold writing where it is most important as well as it has a black box with yellow writing as it is a different part to the review.


From analysing the layout of the above magazine articles I am going to follow the layout of Empire's reviews because I feel it is simplistic yet effective and in this case less is more as the second review looks too busy and cluttered. 

10 Film Reviews

1. The Guardian's review on "The Forest".

"American movies don’t know what to do with Japanese culture. They aren’t world war two baddies anymore and the fear of their determined economy “coming to buy us up” has dissipated. The Forest, a trashy horror picture from first-time feature director Jason Zada and screenwriters Nick Antosca, Sarah Cornwell and Ben Ketai, plays to an audience that probably hasn’t done too much thinking about Japan lately. They eat weird food (it’s still moving!), all the girls wear the same school uniform and everyone believes in ghosts. What powers those ghosts have or how they can harm you is all rather vague, but you best believe it involves being real quiet, then charging at the camera when you least expect it, emitting a high-decibel shriek."

This review starts off highly critical, therefore straight away you get the impression that this film review is going to be biased as they practically begin with 'they don't know what they are doing'. It then carries on to insult the film as 'trashy', therefore this film review seems to very unreliable and biased.



    2. Cinema Blend's review on "The Forest"

"Of course, finding the perfect film to launch Natalie Dormer as mainstream commodity was always going to be hard. Leading roles in blockbusters are hard to come by – even though she has repeatedly been linked to Captain Marvel – while there’s no point in appearing in a well-made indie effort that, while probably showcasing her talents, could easily go under the radar. A genre effort was her best bet, especially a horror film. That’s why The Forest perfectly suits her needs and desires at this juncture in her career, and it gives her the right platform to boost her cinematic profile."

This review automatically goes into phrasing the actress which straight away gives the audience an insight to that the film is going to be biased due to the fact the actress is very well known and liked, as the whole of the first paragraph of the review is about who stares in the film, not the film itself. Therefore if i had to pick out of The Guardian's and Cinema Blend's opinion on "The Forest" i wouldn't choose either however i would side more with The Guardian due to it fixates on the film from the start and doesn't focus to much on the actors/actresses personally.

    3. The independent's review on "The Revenant"

"The Revenant is the brilliant Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu's version of a western – a mad, visionary and quite often preposterous survival tale. It is very bloody, very violent and full of murky religious symbolism but is also often astounding in its flights of macabre lyricism."

This review can begin to be seen as biased due to the fact it starts off talking about the director automatically therefore it can be seen as biased on the person that is writing favours the actor therefore will not want to write a bad commentary on them. However it then goes onto talk about the actual film and the elements that make it a 'mad, visionary' film. Therefore this film is more likely to make an audience believe the critic however is still quite biased thus still making it unreliable.

     4. The Empire's review on "The Revenant"

"Revenge, goes the old Klingon proverb, is a dish best served cold. Which is good news for The Revenant, the new film by Mexican boundary-pusher Alejandro G. Iñárritu, because few tales of vengeance have ever looked quite so butt-clenchingly chilly. It's become the stuff of legend, a nine-month shoot in the wilds of Alberta and Argentina. But Iñárritu has come out the other side with an astonishing sensory experience, one that plunges the viewer into a sub-zero hell that often looks like heaven. It's likely to both storm the Academy Awards and play well on Kronos."

This review straight away comes across as less biased than the independent's review on the same film as even though they are explaining partial information about the film they are also giving the audience a positive insight into the film. Therefore if i had to take a choice out of either of The Independent or The Empire's review on "The Revenant" i would pick The Empire's views due to the fact that it comes across a lot more honest and less one sided.



     5.  The Telegraph's review on "Die Hard (1998)"

"The Die Hard series has become so silly that's it's easy to forget what a brilliant and suspenseful film it was that spawned a five-film franchise that has earned 20th Century Fox more than one billion dollars."

This film review seems to be less biased as it gives off the impression that the critic is explaining that the beginning of the die hard films were original and fantastically produced however as the times and technologies have changed the die hard films have become too 'try hard'. Therefore, this is one of the most reliable reviews due to the fact it is not completely biased and gives off the impression of an opinion rather than over exaggerating the film or completely slating it. 

 

      6. The Time Out's review on "Le Mepris"

"Le mépris. That’s contempt in French, and that’s the rising feeling that Camille (Brigitte Bardot) has for her writer boyfriend Paul (Michel Piccoli) during the time he’s summoned to Rome’s Cinecittà film studios and the stunning island of Capri to help Austrian-born Hollywood director Fritz Lang (playing himself) and coarse American producer Prokosch (Jack Palance) improve their movie version of Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’. Much of the film gives us Camille and Paul’s disintegrating relationship as he’s simultaneously seduced and repelled by the world of filmmaking. You feel that same seduction and repulsion in Godard too: why else cast one of your all-time heroes (Lang) but pitch him against a dumb executive Prokosch (who has the brilliant line, ‘When I hear the word culture, I bring out my chequebook,’ unwittingly misquoting Joseph Goebbels)?"

This film review comes across as more narrative which then gives an audience a insight more into the film thus giving them more of a decision whether it worth while to go and see the film, however overall the review is very positive although it doesn't come across an opinionated review therefore gives the overall review a more trustworthy advice and opinion to its audience.

       7. Roger Ebert's review on "Bleak Street"

"It is not often, unfortunately, that the work of the esteemed Mexican director Arturo Ripstein gets screened in the upper part of North America, outside of the festival circuit. The last film of his I was able to see was his 1999 adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s “No One Writes To The Colonel,” which I felt a misfire. There have been almost ten films between that one and “Bleak Street,” which begins a New York run on January 20. Written by Ripstein’s frequent collaborator (and wife) Paz Alicia Garciadiego, “Bleak Street” (“La calle de amargura”) is a visionary triumph for the 72-year-old director."

This review has contextual knowledge behind it, therefore gives off to the audience that the film review is going to be professional as it seems less biased due to the reviewer giving off a professional approach. Moreover, i would want my reviews to look something like this as it more than likely that the audience that would go and watch the film after if the film fitted their interests.


    8. BFI's review on "Hard to be a God"

"Hard to Be a God is a profoundly, wilfully destabilising experience, one in which all but the most astute viewer won’t so much follow the plot on first viewing as struggle to get the gist of it, gleaning what they can from a smattering of expository voiceovers and the muttered monologues of the saturnine Don Rumata (powerfully builtLeonid Yarmolnik). These are delivered between swills of moonshine and expelled snot rockets as he wades through the murk and mire of the planet Arkanar, which are increasingly mixed with blood and plopping viscera as the film moves along."

This review again seems more professional as it does not give off straight away a point of view towards the film meaning it won't be completely biased. They give off a contextual type of writing style therefore it is more than likely that the audience that is reading this film review will go and watch the film being described. This is a review in which i would like mine to look along the lines of.


    9. BBC's Review on "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

"If someone was remaking George Lucas’s Star Wars, and then they decided that they might as well stick in as much as they could from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi while they were at it, the resulting film would be Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Directed by JJ Abrams, the most anticipated movie in the history of the universe has everything you remember from the original wondrous trilogy – and, oh all right, one or two echoes of the benighted prequels, too."

This film review gives off a positive view however not overwhelming to the fact that the reviewer is a massive fan of Star Wars, more to the fact that the film in itself is well made as it is "stick in as much as they could" which can be seen in a good or bad way depending on the audiences view themselves.


   10. A.V. Club's review on "Synchronity"

"Synchronicity is more contraption than movie, its plot as mechanically functional as a clock, rotating characters around like gears. Low-rent but high concept, the film tackles that most joyously convoluted of science-fiction scenarios—time travel, of course—with lots of enthusiasm but not much originality. Writer-director Jacob Gentry, who made the middle third of the underrated exquisite-corpse horror film The Signal, appears to have boned up on his Heinlein and Bradbury and Carruth, the last of whose Primer remains a blueprint for any hungry young filmmaker looking to blow minds on a budget. But the ideas here, many of them just twists in disguise, are largely recycled. If you’ve seen one movie where multiple versions of the same person occupy the same timeline… well, you haven’t necessarily seen them all, but you have seen this one."

This film review comes across as quite biased due to the fact it gives off a negative atmosphere meaning that the reviewer did not like the film themselves therefore they are trying to make the audience not watch it or for the audience to reflect on their view and perceive some of what the reviewer is saying and take it for their own beliefs towards the film.

First Cut

This is my first cut i am with the footage that I have filmed and created as well as the whole black and white 'film noir' influenced theme works really well with the idea of my short film however I do know that they are a lot of improvements that need to make, such as the jittering and bluriness needs to be added to make the narrative easier to understand for the audience. Along with the audio needs to be fixed as at the moment  even though my persona's voice is clear on the audio, the background noise is also very dominant however once i have the music in the background or whatever audio i decide to have in the background it will make the short film a lot better quality.

Film Noir research

Film Noir is a term used in cinematic to describe a type of Hollywood crime dramas especially ones in which empathise cynical actions or sexual motivations. The period of the most popular film Noir films was from the early 1940's going on 1950's; from this era Film Noir is associated with the famous low-key black and white visual edits that has connections into the German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the stories created within this time era and much of the Film Noir attitude sourced from the school of crime fiction that emerged in the US during the great depression.

The term 'Film Noir' was created from the French as 'black film' as it was first used by a French critic Nino Frank in 1946 to apply to Hollywood films, however was ignored by most American Film professionals of this era.

Film Noir was originally associated with only American productions however films now are produced all over the world. Many pictures were released from the 1960's which share attributes towards Film Noir being the classical period of production and often can be seen as its conventions self referentially. Some people see the later day works as neo-noir. The cliches of film noir have been inspired to parody since the 1940's.

There have been many different plots to film noir such as the main character may be a private detective, a policeman, an ageing boxer, an unfortunate con artist, a naive individual pulled into a life of crime or a victim of circumstance. My plot is going to be leading a character of naivety and drug misuse (crime).

At the start of the year we were all put in groups and had to make our own small clip of a film noir film, this then inspired me as I wanted my film to come across as dramatic and intense as most film noir productions do. I want to also break conventions by linking the film noir style to a psychological thriller, as normally the films that film noir is linked to are femme fatal and crime. The low key lighting that is used in film noir I want to try and adopt with my interior shots to help build suspense and tension for my audience. I may also use a silhouette as a stylistic approach to present my villain to my audience.

Film Poster

I'm finally making progress with actually producing what I need to so that my short film will be a success.

Here is the beginning of my film poster, i chose black as it sets more of an eerie atmosphere compared to white would just make it seem more based on the fact it is about a mental disorder as white can be related to hospitals and so on. I added a catch phrase to the poster as it intrigues that audience more therefore creates a bigger audience due to the fact that it is a rhetorical question it leaves the audience anticipating for the answer. I then chose this typography as i looked into other film posters with the same film title and the majority of film posters had this sort of typography as it makes the poster seem eerie. I then chose the colour scheme of black and white as my film is Film Noir theme based.