Film Reviews: Part III

Does A Bad Review Ruin A Film's Chances? & Do Audience's Take Notice of Them?

Film Reviews: Part II

Who writes reviews?

There are many different reviewers, for example Mark Kermode. Kermode does reviews on BBC Radio 5 Live, often with Simon Mayo. I found footage of him reviewing The Angel's Share by Ken Loach. I chose a review of this film because it is of a similar genre to mine (Independent Comedy.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00td0nn. Also, because I have decided to use silent film as my main style, I found his review for The Artist, in the style of a silent film. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP2kdKjGVSk. 

Who reads reviews?

Many people believe that just the film "Buffs" read reviews. A buff is "One who is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about a subject." In this case, film buffs are extremely enthusiastic about films and will generally be drawn to more independent, art house films. 

However, as they are now on the radio and in magazines and newspapers, such as The Guardian, reading reviews is far more common. People read reviews in order to understand the quality of the film or whether they feel they would enjoy it. 

Film reviews even stretch to magazines such as ZOO, Heat and Nuts. This shows that there is a wide range of different people who read reviews. 

Film Reviews: Part I

Written reviews in magazines and newspapers...

Here are a few reviews I analysed in terms of layout:

This first example, from The Sun. As can be seen this is two reviews on one page rather than a page spread devoted to one singular film, which is more often for large "Hollywood Blockbusters."

My second example is from Sight&Sound magazine, created by the British film institute, reviews far more independent films.

"The BFI was founded in 1933. We are a charity governed by a Royal Charter. We combine cultural, creative and industrial roles, bringing together the BFI National Archive and BFI Reuben Library, film distribution, exhibition at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX, publishing and festivals. We award Lottery funding to film production, distribution, education, audience development and market intelligence and research."-BFI

As you can see there are many similarities between the two reviews, for example they both feature large screenshots from the films and are written in columns. 

In strong contrast I have also analysed a review from ZOO. However, for obvious reasons I did not buy a ZOO magazine so I have analysed their online review. There are a few similarities between the three in that they all show large screenshots of the film. However, ZOO'S review is very different to that of either of the other two as it's writing is in chunks, not columns. 

Alternate Ending... The Girl (COSTUME)

I have had several ideas for the girl's costume (Other than obviously, the lion hat). I chose the theme of bright colours and bold prints to clash each other. This outfit will appear more as a costume than an actual outfit... showing she too is a very unusual character, much like Jack. Also, her bright colours will be very different to Jacks grey and black costume making them seem both unusual in their own ways.

Audience Research....

Alternate Ending... The Girl (MAKE-UP)

I am (Hopefully) going to use Evangeline Calaby as my Actress for the "Girl" at the end of the film. Here is an idea of what she may look like in my film in terms of make-up...

Her look is inspired by Unicorn Kid, a musician. This is because she will be wearing a lion hat, which was designed by Unicorn Kid. The idea is that she doesn't look like UK but is merely inspired, for example, the blue UV face paint on her cheeks. OR I was thinking perhaps blue eye-shadow.

I created a small mood board of pictures of me as UK and of UK himself to give a feel for the character

I created a short video showing the two ideas and how I will use them....

Here is part II of my exploration of film posters. I decided to create a lot of very different posters in order to choose my favourite.