TCJ Productions 

Film review conventions

 

Where are They Found

Film reviews are typically found in:

• Newspapers such as The Sun and The Guardian

• Official magazines such as Sight and Sound

• Aggregate sites such as Rotten Tomato's and metacritic.

Each form tackles the review and layout in various forms to incorporate their audience.

 

Newspapers

Depending on the news paper will depend on the style of the review, for example a review from The Guardian will be much more sophisticated the a review from The Sun.

Reviews from The Guardian will use formal language, they will focus on less mainstream films. However, The Sun for example is much less sophisticated and informal; using language such as “have a beer, grab a mate…”. So overall they will give completely different reviews of the same film as they have different audiences and conventions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ofiicial magazines

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aggregate Sites 

These sites combine the film review with the percentage or score the critic feels it deserves, the audience can leave reviews on their thoughts of the film and change the score showing how their views can make an influence. If the film scores over 60% it is considered a film worth watching and in Rotten Tomato’s case considered fresh and under 60% is considered rotten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conventions

 

Film name and year 

Having the film name and year of the film release is conventional to any review as it allows the audience to understand the film genre, credits, details, director, screenwriter, cast, stars, soundtrack and much more information.

 

Quotes and tag lines 

More often then not a review will begin with a quote or a reference or a tag line from the actual film as a brief introduction into the film to grab the audiences attention, hence it is a common feature into reviews. Although it is not used by all short films as they may not have key quotations within them due to their length.

 

Introduction and summary

Its is very conventional for the first paragraph to contain a brief plot summary of the film, often written with the intention of leading the audience to want to see the film. The summary will include aspects of the timeline, location, narrative, cast performance, etcetera. This is often proceeded by a personal view of the film form the writers perspective.

 

Aspects

It is convention to feature the positive aspects of the film by itself.

This is often to create a personal opinion of certain points od interest can be focussed on within the production. This often focuses on points such as the story, mise-en-scene, set scenes, special effects used throughout, music, etcetera. This is then followed by the negatives of the film following the same points.

 

Characters

It is sometimes a convention for short films reviews to focus on the protagonists in a film, explain how they’re good or bad, explore their qualities, personality, etcetera. However, this isn’t always present in a short film review because they have so few characters.

 

Ratings

In film reviews it is conventional to summarise the review in a brief paragraph. Usually with a percentage or a rating out of five stars. However this isn’t always present as it is sometimes just apparent in the wording of the review and is therefore not needed.

 

Other

• Increased size of the first letter of the paragraph

• Image with captions and / or annotations

• Page numbers

• Italic for quotes

• The date Name of writer and publisher 

• Index of other reviews or articles