Magazine Review First Draft

Today I've decided to focus more on my ancillary tasks to ensure that they get done on time, specifically my magazine review. In my previous post here, you can see that I picked 'Indie Wire' as the website to base my review on as they include independent film reviews which works for me. Below, I am just going to write the review as a first draft as best I can so I have a starting point with the text. In normal black font I have begun writing the review, and in red font I've talked about what I've written in each paragraph and why I've used it.

First Draft:
'Stranger' Review: Short budget thriller grips audiences to the mystery created.
From looking on the 'Indie Wire' website, I've seen that every single review starts with a brief sentence about what the film is and what it delivers to an audience. As a starting point I've picked a brief sentence for mine.

Films with low budgets and short durations are a common thing amongst young students either looking to break into the film industry world, or simply creating a piece for their classwork. In this case, Josh Coe's short film 'The Stranger' relates to his classwork. This modern story about a girl who spends all of her time online, hating and ignoring her Mother, and speaking to random people will be more relatable to a younger generation as the film adopts a more modern theme.
The opening paragraph of the reviews typically start with a quick overview of either what the film is about or who the main character is, along with some information about how the film has been made. In this case, I talk about why the film was created by me and also give a brief overview about my main character Clare and what she is like, as well as talking about how the film is aimed at a modern audience.

Heidi Cooke's character of Clare, the typical teenager who hates her family and locks herself in her room all night is portrayed very well, and young viewers may be able to see themselves in this particular character. Her mother who is never actually named is played by Mandy Coe, and is a character every parent will hope to never end up like. We see her very briefly throughout the film doing nothing but sitting around drinking what we assume is something alcoholic with a tin of opened biscuits in front of her. Her lack of care and love to her daughter is clear throughout and we can easily see the broken relationship these two have.
This paragraph in a review then goes on to talk in more depth about the characters and also presses into more details about the plot itself. I followed these conventions in this paragraph by talking about the way that Clare and her Mum are portrayed by the actors, as well as going in detail about the relationship they have.

As the films goes on, Clare attaches herself to a boy she meets online going by the name of Tom. They soon arrange to meet up in a dark alley where we soon realise that Tom is either not who he has made Clare believe he is, or just a complete murderer. As soon as we see the dark alley, as an audience we begin to predict that whatever comes next is not going to be good. Perhaps what stands out as the film comes to a close is the clear regret we see on Clare's Mum's face as she stands over her grave. Their broken relationship is even clearer to us now, and we feel mixed emotions of sympathy for her Mum with losing her daughter, but also anger that she neglected her so much.
The final paragraph of the reviews I've been reading from IndieWire always close the article up by talking about how the film ends and what type of effect this has on an audience. As you can see from this paragraph, I draw the review to a close by talking Clare's death and the effect it has on her Mother and what this makes us feel as an audience.

Reflective Comment:
Getting this first draft completed for my magazine review has moved me forward a lot with my ancillary tasks and therefore forward in getting all of the coursework done as a whole. With this draft now completed, I can work on improving parts, changing parts, and adding parts to eventually end up with a complete magazine review of my film. Generally, I think that I did this draft quite well and I think the voice and tone of the writing works with the format of a review. My A Level in Creative Writing has helped me a lot to do this, and I was confident when writing it.