Codes and Conventions - Film Magazine

Screen Shots / Pictures – In all cases a review page will feature a still screen shot or image taken from the film – either directly from an in-film shot, or from the front cover. Alternatively, many review pages will have some sort of cropped image defining the genre of the film, such as a lone woman victim. The purpose of using an image is varied; to identify a famous actor as a protagonist, to give an overviewing tone of the film or even just provide a teaser, essentially the purpose is to entice the audience into finding the film interesting.

Titles – Many review pages identify the title of the film as a main selling point, or as a point of generating interest. A well-followed franchise of films will make the title of the film the focus point as the reviewer wants to draw attention to the title to attract an already curious audience. Typically the title is not in bright colours or diverse fonts, the reviewer wants the page to be simple and easier to read from not just a long distance – also there is a sense of professionalism, there is no need for flashy colours to entice the audience.

Rating – The most important detail of the review page, apart from the in-depth analysis, is the rating system. In most reviews the rating system will be ranked as number out of 10, or 5, as this is the simplest convention and is easy for the audience to understand. Several others complicate the rating system to provide a greater detail for the review, such as percentages out of 100. The importance of the rating is underlined in the trust and respect the audience has for the reviewer, while a high review will attract an audience just as easily as an extremely low one.

Captions – Although not the most common convention, several magazines utilise a caption to describe the context of an image within the film, or sometimes including a pun playing upon the picture. The purpose of this can merely be interaction with the audience, but sometimes it can provide depth and context which will encourage the audience to read the review.

Short Plot Details – Within all reviews, the plot of the film is summarised without any ‘spoilers’ to give a brief overview of the film, so as to entice the audience into watching it or to provide a backlog for the audience to relate to the review later. Most of the time the plot is written as briefly as possible, giving the opening developments of the film or what has already been revealed on trailers and interviews.

Directors & Actors – In many high-budget films, a major selling point is the inclusion of famous ‘Hollywood Actors’ and Directors, who have in the past featured in popular films. Review pages will often pick up on this, depicting an image of the actors as a screen shot or including them in a headline next to the title of the film. Sometimes an image of both the actor and director will be included in the shot, which increases the interest of the audience massively.

Quotes – Sometimes review pages will feature quotes, either from the film itself or from interviews from the reviewer or generally to public outlets. Quotes can work in both ways; a quote from the film will engage the audience in an active interaction with the film before even watching it, giving them an incentive to watch it themselves. As well as this, a quote from an interview gives the audience depth and context to the reality of the actors or director, which the audience can relate to – often this leads to the audience taking a more active interest in the film and watching it.

Review – The main body of the review page is often the review itself, which consists of several ‘strands’ which create it. The in-depth analysis is just one, albeit large aspect of the review, which the majority of the time takes up a large portion of the page or a whole page in a double page spread. Often the analysis will piece together the positive and negative aspects of the film while attempting to add human feeling to it with emotions. The other aspects of the review include the rating, the main image, the captions, the colours of the page (tone – black and white often connotes a dull sense, while colours spark up an interest).

Title/ Logo of magazine – Lastly, the title of the magazine review is often depicted in high-profile magazines or exclusives. Essentially the title is the banner to attract the audience, as the reader relates the title to that of a film reviewer  – it’s a very simple technique but often examples such as ‘TotalFilm’, ‘Empire’ or ‘NewFilm’ are renowned for their reviews and many will simply choose these names before any others. The logo’s colours are mostly different and unique from others, so the audience can differentiate between them, while a few logos are bright coloured or professional to attract their target audience.