Magazine Review and Film Poster Feedback

After creating two surveys for my film poster and magazine review, I've decided to summarise the results in one post and talk about the feedback I got. Below, you can see two slideshare's, the first with the film poster results and the second with the magazine.

I am happy with the amount of feedback I have got from both of my surveys and they have helped me see what needs changing and editing. When looking at the results, I can see that most people who filled out the surveys were of the younger generation with ages mostly between 15 - 21. This is a good starting point for me as these type of age groups are exactly the type of people I want to aim my general work at and so their feedback is good for me.
As for the actual in depth questions, they all seem very positive;

Poster:

My first question after answering about your gender and age was 'do you think the poster looks realistic', to which the majority answered 'yes' with one person saying 'I don't know'. This is very positive for me because it means that when people first look at my poster the see it as they would any other film poster, and it also means that the design of it is good. The next question then asks whether they like the poster, and if they think the look of it represents a thriller/horror film. Most people answered yes to both of these questions which is again very good for me, especially in saying that the poster relates to the genre I have chosen. The final question then asks whether or not anything should be changed. From looking at the results, I can see that most people said no, with a few mentioning that the text at the bottom could be a bit clearer and others suggesting I add a studio ident or a trending hashtag for the film. These are good suggestions for me, and with this feedback I can now go on and make these changes to hopefully make what will be a final draft.

Magazine:
With the magazine review, after asking about gender and age I asked the same questions as with the poster; 'does it look realistic', and 'does it look interesting'. Like with the poster, the majority of people answered 'yes' to these questions which again shows that the design of my review appears as real as an actual one, while people also think the design I've created looks interesting at first glance. I then asked whether or not they could read the text, as I'd been a bit worried about whether it was blurry or not. However, everyone who answered my survey said 'yes' to this question which is good for me and means I don't have to worry about the look of the text. The final question of my survey then asks what I can do to improve it. Most people were unsure about what to change, the main suggestions were to try and make it stand out more while one person said the text did appear slightly blurry. These are good suggestions, and I can now create another draft that will hopefully be the final one with the feedback I have gained being added.

Reflective Comment:
Getting some feedback for both of my ancillary tasks has been very useful for me as I can now act on this feedback to make my drafts better and closer to being completely finished. To improve, I could have asked more questions on the tasks however I felt that it was best to keep them brief to encourage more people to do it, and a lot of questions could have put some people off. With this feedback I can now move on further and look to finish everything off.

Magazine Draft 3

Now that I have done a few drafts containing the text of my magazine review, I've decided to take it a step further and format it as a the website I based it on, which is IndieWire. As you can see, I took the basic layout of Indie Wire and changed the titles and pictures to help fit my film. This is draft 3, and may turn out to be final draft after I have gotten some feedback on it.

Reflective Comment:

I have moved myself forward massively by creating a third draft for my magazine review, and I am happy that I have formatted it the right way to match the website I decided to base it on. I think that this review works well and looks believable to any readers. To make it better as whole, I could possibly add more photos or change the text slightly, and after I have received my feedback I plan to act on what is said.

Magazine Review Draft 2

With the ending of my film altered slightly, I now need to change the content in my magazine review because I wrote it before I'd decided on changing anything. I have already made a first draft of the review which can be seen here. Below is my second draft, I haven't changed many things because I am happy with most of it so far, I've just altered the end of the review so it makes sense with the end of my film.

'Stranger' Review: Short budget thriller grips audiences to the mystery created.

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.

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.

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. What we don't predict is that the person who stabs Clare isn't in fact Tom, or so it seems. The scene of Clare's dead body fades out to reveal her laptop receiving messages from Tom telling her he couldn't make it, so as a whole we are left wondering what is the truth.
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.

Reflective Comment:
Changing the ending to my magazine review was something I needed to do in order for my new scenes of my film to make sense. My next step is to add a third draft for my film with these new scenes included, and then this new draft will make sense with the plot.

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.

Magazine Review Format

My other ancillary task involves a review of my film from a magazine, which I've already done some basic research for within my previous posts. Now, I've decided to do some research on what type of website I will write my film for, so I know the style of writing I'm going with.
After research online, I've narrowed it down to one website which appeared to specialise in film reviews for independent films. The budget for my film means that it falls directly into this category, and this website could suit the review I plan to write.

As you can see from this screenshot, the website is the 'leading news, information and networking site for independent-minded filmmakers'. This means my film would suit the website, and this is a starting point for the style I want my film magazine review to be. My next step is to actually begin writing the article, which I will probably do separately before adding the text onto a layout of a magazine review.

Reflective Comment:
Finding a website to base my magazine review for was a good next step with my ancillary task in order for me to begin writing. I think I did this task well because I simply found the best website that suited my independent film. To improve, I could have included more examples of reviews from this website, but I will probably do that at some point in the future when I begin writing mine and comparing the styles.

Film Magazine Review In Depth Analysis

After analysing film posters in more depth, I decided that I should do the same with my other ancillary task of a film magazine review. To do this, I create a slideshow just as before, which is embedded below using Google Slides (please view in full screen)

Reflective Comment:
This post has helped me gain more of an understanding of what a film magazine review should include, and how they should be written. An obvious improvement of the slideshow would be to anaylse more magazine reviews, but each of them have different layouts with the same conventions, so I felt it would be more beneficial to anaylse one in depth with the text, and talk about how mine will be designed.

Film Magazine Review Initial Ideas

This post will look at some initial ideas for the film magazine review as the second ancillary task for my A2 course. Again, I don't want to spend too long on these tasks as they don't award me as many marks as the final production will. Having said this, I still want to ensure that I do these tasks to the best of my ability to earn maximum marks. Below are some film magazine reviews I've looked at online, and like the poster I have listed some of the typical conventions from the reviews.

To find these posters I also went onto Google images and typed 'film magazine review', and above is the screenshot of the first pictures. They are of a mix of different genres, because I just want to start by looking at the typical conventions of the reviews:

• Either a big picture or lots of little ones from the film are shown either around the writing or in the middle of the page.
• The reviews typically are read across two A4 pages (A3 landscape).
• There are usually quotes either from the film, actors or directors.
• Title of the film in a large bold font to stand out.

Looking at the conventions has allowed me to understand how I should lay out my film magazine review. I plan to follow these conventions when making mine, but adapting it to suit my type of film. For example, because I'm aiming my production at a modern younger audience, I could include a lot of website addresses or social media links for people to follow as the younger generation will be more heavily reliant on technology and the use of social media in their day to day life.

Reflective Comment:
Like the initial ideas for the poster, this was a good starting point for the magazine review. Again, this post appears brief and without in depth detail, but like the poster it was just intended to be a base starting point to talk about the starting research I have done. I plan to analyse how a film magazine review is done in more detail soon and do some research into the best way to create my own.