Magazine Review Production Logo

Although I created a Production Logo to include on the bottom of my poster, I have decided against including it in my Magazine Review. This is because a poster is directly from the film company itself, whereas a review is written by someone independent of this organisation. With this in mind, I did not feel it was necessary to include it. I have also done some research on Film Reviews in Magazines and none of them that I have seen have included the companies Production Logo, as demonstrated by the example below;

Image Change!

I did take some original images to place on my review which can be seen in an earlier post. I eventually decided against using these in my review. This is because they weren't showing any of the characters that are featured in my Short Film, they were simply symbolising that my film was about the beauty industry and looking perfected. With this in mind, I feel as though it is not really essential to include them. Once my text had been written there was not an awful lot of space left for images anyway and putting them in makes my review look more cluttered. I have therefore decided to use an image of just the director instead of the original images I took myself. Below you can see the arrangement of the images I tried out;

Arrow

I wanted to create an arrow to put on my Magazine Review. This is in order to show that the man in the picture is the director of the film 'Andrew Woodhouse' and the person that is saying the quote. I didn't want to include an arrow which appeared precisely drawn like the one below;

Instead, I wanted an arrow which looked as though it had been hand drawn. With this in mind, I found some arrows on the internet which replicated the type of arrow I wanted to use in my review;

Having looked at the arrows I found online, I then created my own arrow in photoshop which looked similar to those I found on the internet. This was simply to do and took hardly any time at all. I simply used the drawig tool, changed the colour to black and sketched an arrow. I ensured after I had completed my arrow that the background of the picture was transparent. This mean't I was able to copy and paste it on to my review and it would fit in with which ever background colour I chose.

This is the final picture of the arrow that I created. I was pleased with how it turned out as I feel it looks similar to the arrows which I wanted to replicate that I found from the internet. It also looks hand drawn which was the effect that I wanted.

Here is how my arrow looks now it has been added to my review;

Directors Quote

Now that I have created an image for my director, during my research I noticed a lot of magazine articles be it reviews or not include quotes. Consequently, I have therefore come up with a quote for my review which can be seen below;

I ensured the quote itself is written in a different font to the rest of the review text so that is stands out. It is in one of the fonts which I tried out for the title of my review called 'Neou Thin.' The word 'Director' is in the same font in which I used for the word 'False' in my review title called 'Jenna Sue.' This was done so that similar fonts were used throughout. If too many different fonts are used in the text the review can look untidy. The font 'Jenna Sue' was also used because this font is like handwriting and a quote is personal to the individual that says it. By writing 'Director' in a hand writing style emphasises this.

Director Image

Now that i've come up with a way of presenting my images, I now had to take original photos of people/objects to appear in my review.

I wanted to take a picture of someone who could be named the director of my film. I took this primary image of my sisters boyfriend, Andy.

                                          
Like with my original image of my sister, I ensured that I took the picture of him up against a plain background. This is because it is easier to edit and in my opinion, looks more professional when nothing is behind him. As well as this, I also particularly like what he is wearing and is outfit was consciously chosen. I feel as though he looks like a young upcoming director. Especially the sunglasses which are iconically resembled with celebrities.

I ended up editing the photo of Andy in iPhoto on my mac. Firstly I cropped the image slightly using the crop tool;

 Then I made the overall look of the image brighter. Including the background and Andy himself;

I then copied and pasted the image into word and resized it so that it was an appropriate size for my review;

Finally I added a border line in the colour white all the way round the photo;

Idea Change!

I have decided not to go ahead with designing my images as polaroid photo's. This is because I tried doing this but I didn't feel it worked. I think for this idea to work properly i'd need to take the images directly with a polaroid camera and I simply do not have the funds to do this. I have however found a new way of creating a similar technique as demonstrated below;

I have not made this original picture in to a polaroid photo but having a thick white rim round the edge of it makes it look similar to a polaroid and makes the image stand out more.

Images

Today I decided to take some original image to put on my Magazine Review. I considered putting pictures of all my characters on my review however there is rather a lot of them and my A4 document simply does not advocate enough space. I feel it would look odd if I could included pictures of a few of my characters and not all of them. With this in mind, I decided to take some images of objects that convey the idea of what my film is essentially about - beauty. Below are the primary images that I took and edited;

This photo is taken of a hand with painted nails which  are typically associated within the beauty industry.

This is another beauty product. A picture of a mascara by Maybelline.

This is a photo of another make-up associated item, a powder brush.

I did also consider using the photo I took for my poster and putting it on my magazine review.

A picture of various colour eye shadows.

Laslty, a close up picture of an eye.

Polaroid Photos

I was keen to come up with an innovative idea for my images. I watching Ed Sheeran's new music video for his latest song to be released 'Drunk.' At the very start of his video, I noticed a wall behind him full of polaroid photos. As you can see below (0:00-0:21)

I loved this idea. I felt polaroid photos were a bit different. They represent 'snap-shot' moments in a persons life and a review gives a person a snap-shot of what a film is like. As well as this, I could also invisage how they could be used in plastic surgery, through taking photos of someone prior to them being operated on. Example of polaroid photos:

                                       
After looking at sample polaroid photos online, I then set about creating my own in a microsoft word document. How I created the polaroid photos is demonstrated in the print screens below:

Firstly I created a text box and filled it with the colour black.

Then, I created bigger text box and filled it with an off-white colour.

Next, I put the black text box on top of the off-white text box to complete my polaroid photo. 

 I could easily adapt the colour of the polaroid photo by changing the colour of the text box.

Review text

Today I decided to start writing my magazine review. From the research I carried out via looking at reviews written by leading magazine 'Empire' I found out I should include; a table of the films details, a plot outline, a review and a verdict. With these points in mind, this is what I came up with:

This is the information box I created, giving the reader basic details about the Short Film.

FILM DETAILS

Certificate 15

Genre Documentary

Cast Thirla Rich Beth Barwick Alice Leng Jonothan Clibbon

Directors Rachel Howard

Running Time 5 minutes

Plot Outline:

Documentary film interviewing various individuals (including professionals) about how the media affects the way someone feels about their body image.

Review:

This film is in a documentary genre so intrigues an audience purely by its non-fictional format.

The Film has a good introduction. It starts by telling the aim of the documentary via a voiceover and explains why this is an important matter to discuss within today’s society. The audience visually sees a pile of magazines with the ‘ideal’ form of beauty plastered all over the front pages.

Throughout the short 5 people are interviewed about their views. The film does a fantastic job of interviewing people with a mixture of opinions and experiences.  Characters also vary widely in age range from teenagers to the elderly: allowing the audience to see how perceptions of body image change throughout generations.

Despite this, the documentary could be seen as being biased as it fails to interview someone from the media industry who may have been able to justify why they use ‘perfect’ images.

 The questions the interviewer asks are not prejudiced towards either side of the argument. The interviewees answer the questions depending on their own interpretation. Furthermore, it is good how the interviewees include the question in their answers; allowing time in the production to be used efficiently.

The interviewer not always being shown could be seen to be a failure of the film. There is no prominent presenter throughout and maybe having a consistent figure present would have linked the people/locations, which are ever changing. 

When locations change, it uses establishing shots very well as we see wide/mid shots of the area, enabling the audience to acknowledge that the setting has changed.  The film mixes stable shots with unstable shots. This represents a true documentary style as having shots that are not perfect enhances the real life element and constructed footage makes the film more professional.

Another positive is that the interviewees are not all asked questions in a standard interview format, i.e. sitting down. For instance, lady is interviewed whilst performing lazar treatment on a patient.

The documentary concludes that the media does affect how someone feels about their body image as the evidence discovered within the documentary backs this up. It balances the fact that although this may be the case, there are substantial reasons for the media to use airbrushed images.

It is good to conclude on a balanced opinion; however in some ways it can be seen as a copout as the answer in the documentary clearly shows the media does affect someone’s confidence. By ending on a more one-sided point of view makes the documentary worthwhile watching as the audience gets a definitive answer to the question posed.

Verdict:

A very current topic, with a good range of people featured, but lacking participation from the media itself.

Stars

Now that I have come up with a title, I have decided to design some stars to put underneath my title. Stars are a key element in any review so I wanted mine to stand out. I find stars are difficult to draw using software on a computer, therefore I looked an images of stars that I could use that are included within fonts. I went back to the website where I got the font for my title from, 'da font.' I found a font that included a star that I liked in it. Here are the stars I found below;

Although I have not drawn this image myself, I am aware that fonts do not have copy write attached to them. I really liked the look of the star above and thought it fitted in well with the look of the review.

Fonts

Today I have been trying out various font styles for my magazine title, 'The False Reality.' I didn't want to use a font that is really common as I felt this wouldn't make the wording standout very well, therefore I decided to look on the internet and download some more unique ones and try them out. I found this really good website called 'Dafont' which contained hundreds of different fonts that I was able to download for free. http://www.dafont.com/

Below are the names of various fonts that I tried out;

·Aubrey             ·Roadway

·Neou                ·Mabella

·Bebas              ·Jenna Sue

·Ultima            ·Clemente

·Amorino         ·Vieira

Conclusion:

In the end, I chose a font I already had on my laptop called 'Sathu' for the words 'The' and 'Reality. I then used the font 'Jenna' Sue' for the word 'False.' I used a different font for this word has this was something I had picked up from doing my research on magazines. Some of them used a different colour or a different font type for words in a title they specifically wanted to stand out, therefore I changed the font and colour of the word 'False.' 

Title:

Magazine Review Layout

Aim: To look at various layouts for my magazine film review. I looked at layouts magazines have used for articles that are not necessarily reviews however, because when considering a layout the content is irrelevant.

1. As you can see this layout is just full of text and no images what so ever have been used. This does not look intreguing to read and I don't think many people would what to read the text, therefore I would not use this layout for my review. Something I do like about it however, is that it has used collums, as this is very fitting with magazine text, plus as a reader I am drawn to the title due to the fact it is in a bright colour.

2. This is magazine layout is slightly more appealing as it does include an image and I like how an important piece of text has been taken out and put in a different colour/different font, this ensures that the reader takes notice. In some respects, therefore, it is arguably better than the first layout, having said this, I much prefer the colour of the title in the first layout. This article title is the same colour as the text, meaning it is not very eye catching.

3. This articles title is in a different colour which makes it stand out, plus it is in a far bigger size than the other two articles i've looked at. I feel the size of the text is an improvement compared to the other two. As well as the title being a better size, the image is much larger too which definitely works better than the previous articles.  Furthermore, I think its good that the first word of the article 'B' starts in a different colour.

4. I like quite a few things about the layout of this article. Firstly the fact the title has a strip of colour behind it - the page is not just completely white, which is something thats different compared to the other articles above. Secondly, the fact the title is not all in one colour it breaks it up and makes the fact she transformed in just 12 weeks a key element. This shows me that if there's a specific word I want to stand out within my title I can do this easily by simply changing the colour of the text. Another thing I like is how there is more that just one image included and that they're not parallel to each other. Furthermore, like article number 2 it contains a quote which is in a different colour and which is in a slightly bigger font, which helps break up the text well, this subtitles help to do this also. Lastly, like the article above, I like how the text starts with the letter 'J' being in a different colour, it starts the article off nicely I feel.

5. This is a layout I like. This is because it is quite different. Usually, as we have seen with the other articles the title is at the top of the page, whereas with this article a large image is right at the top. I also like the font of the title and how the colour matches well with the greenery seen in the image. This is not something I have thought about before, making the colour of a title compliment the colours seen within images. I feel this works well, however, I am not necessarily sure this would work well with my film review article. This is because I think it would be nice to include more than one image and including an image this big right at the top of the page wouldn't leave very much room for much text. Nevertheless as I do like this layout a lot, I think I will still consider using a similar style.

6. I specially like this article due to the column on the side. I think it would be good to have a separate column on the side of my review for a box containing basic information about the film, i.e. the age certificate the films been awarded. I also like how the pictures have been arranged.

Outcome: Having looked at many layouts I feel I have gained various ideas of how I want my review to be layed out. I have decided upon the following for my review;
1. To have a strip of colour at the top of my review.
2. To have a different colour for the word 'False' as this is a key word and will make it stand out to the reader.
3. To place my review text in collums.
4. To have a separate collum/table including basic information about the film.
5. To start the first letter of my review text in a bigger size font.
6. To include a quote within my review from either a director or from what has been said by the reviewer.
7. To include images with a border round them like in article number 4.

Documentary Film Review

Now I have looked at what films reviews include I have decided to focus on looking at specific reviews for my chosen genre - Documentary.

Magazine Review Examples

Now I have completed my first ancilary task, I am now going to start on my next one which is creating a Magazine Review for my short. I thought it would be a good idea to start this by looking at magazines which are known for good reviews they have written about films. One of these is Empire Magazine;

Empire Magazine was first issued in July 1989 and is the biggest selling magazine in Britain. It reviews both mainstream films and art films meaning that it appeals to a wide market. It combines regular features which are seen in majority of film magazines, with irregular features that are new and are not seen in the more ordinary film review magazines. It features film news, previews and reviews as well as a unique feature by which a classic scene/transcript is featured.

Example:
1. 'Young Adult'

Young Adult

FILM DETAILS

Certificate 15

Cast Charlize Theron Patrick Wilson Patton Oswalt Elizabeth Reaser.

Directors Jason Reitman.

Screenwriters Diablo Cody.

Running Time 93 minutes

 

Plot
Messed-up Mavis Gary (Theron), divorced, alcoholic author of adolescent fiction, heads for her home town hellbent on reclaiming ex-boyfriend Buddy (Wilson) from his inconvenient wife and newborn baby. Mavis' reputation as the beautiful mean girl at high school endures as she follows her self-absorbed path of destruction.

 

Review
The reunion of Jason Reitman, who hasn’t put a directorial foot wrong yet, with Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody proves that Juno was no fluke. And this definitely is not Juno 2, but a scabrously funny, tragi-comic portrait of a pathological queen bitch who won’t grow up.

What a piece of work is Mavis Gary. Mavis is the eternal, unrepentant mean girl and one of those people incapable of self-editing. She just opens her mouth and says whatever she’s thinking, like great boors of today who erroneously confuse being obnoxiously rude with being honest and genuine. Mavis is not that stupid, but she is heedless. Our better angels are gasping in horror or wincing in embarrassment while she says the most awful things, but our inner meanies are savouring remarks some of us might think but few of us would ever dare to utter. Charlize Theron, in possibly her best performance yet, does a remarkable job with this potentially odious, decidedly delusional woman. While she won her Oscar for uglying up as Monster’s tormented serial killer Aileen Wuornos, her Mavis is getting slovenly but is still pretty outside — a knockout when she meticulously dolls up for a date with a mani-pedi, maquillage and dress-to-impress ritual as practised as a warrior’s preparations for battle. Inside she’s in a depressed, slobbish decline she can’t acknowledge, even as we see her unconscious hair-twiddling tic is making scabby bald patches in her scalp. We first see Mavis sprawled prostrate on the morning after the night before, flat out where she obviously fell down drunk. She’s hopelessly late with what is to be the last in a past-it series of girlie novels, and she’s indifferent to the needs of her itsy dog Dolce, who is required only fitfully as an accessory. And then her email delivers a new-baby announcement that energises her with purpose. She will rescue the old love of her life (an endearingly innocent, easygoing Patrick Wilson) from the domesticity into which he has contentedly settled.

The entire ensemble is spot-on, from the women who knew Mavis in her horrid high-school heyday to her uneasy parents. Comedian Patton Oswalt delivers a breakout turn as the classmate Mavis never noticed, a sardonic, scarred soul beaten and left permanently disabled by the kind of boys Mavis hung out with and the only one to whom she can turn now (for his garage-brewed bourbon more than his pointed insights). Some of the choicest moments are Mavis’ solo but hardly soul-searching scenes, like her solitary road trip as she zooms from Minneapolis to the burg of Mercury, rather like the Wicked Witch Of The West in her grim determination but caterwauling along to the ’90s mix tape erstwhile beau Buddy once made her. Theron’s face is an encyclopaedia of trapped-in-dolescence reactions, from giddy rapture to the “who just passed gas?” grimace of distaste. Then there are the moments she spares to work on her trashy teen opus, nonchalantly eavesdropping on gabbing girls in fast food joints for on-point titbits. What parallels there are between Mavis and Diablo Cody, also a Minnesota girl, is anybody’s guess, but Cody’s facility with real-sounding dialogue suggests she’s all ears to other people’s conversations herself. It’s a performance that easily could have been pathetic, bathetic or simply annoying, but Theron is so unbridled and yet so perfectly nuanced — and Reitman’s direction so direct and so tightly calibrated between the blackly comic and the seriously sad — you can’t have enough of her. At a safe remove.

Verdict
Smart, honest, sickeningly funny and supremely well judged in the writing, direction and acting.

After looking through reviews on Empires website it has enabled me to come up with some ideas of what my own review should incude;

▪ Title - Clear title of my Film 'The False Reality'

▪ Star rating - this is out of 5, 5 being concidered a 'classic' all the way down to 1 star where the film is considered 'tragic'

▪ Films Details - the certificate, cast, directors, screenwriters and running time

▪ Plot synopsis - this gives the reader an idea of the storyline without revealing too much as otherwise this could deter the reader from wanting to go and see the film.
▪ Pictures - a couple of pictures of characters featured in the film/scenes which are included, this helps to give the reader something visual to see and break up the text.
▪ Review - good/bad bits about the film, including the actors/actresses, how it was directed, films it is similar/disimilar too.
▪ Verdict - an overall opinion on the film taking everything into account

Final Poster!!

Poster Video

Part 1:

Part 2:

Print Screens

Below are some print screens which clearly show how my final poster was developed.

Background;

Background with Louise's image inserted;

Background darkened and made black and white;

Louise's skin tone edited;

Some shadowing added to her face/neck;

Eyes brightened and lip colour changed;

Both background and Louise made lighter;

Plastic surgery markings on her face and text added;

Production logo added to bottom right;