Specification
The main purpose of a magazine film review is to provide information and opinions about films that are about to be released. This gives the audience an idea about whether they want to go and watch the film or not, instead of waiting until they get there and finding out that they don't actually like the film.
Before actually starting the process of creating my own magazine film review I think it would be best if I actually did some research first so I know what I am doing and what to expect when creating my own.
Deconstruction 1
Here is a deconstruction of a magazine film review for an existing film, Pirates of the Caribbean;
This magazine review has got many of the conventions of a typical magazine review. However, it is missing quite a few vital parts such as; a folio, the verdict which tells you the star rating of the film, page margins and a tag line.
I am now going to embed my evaluation of the pirates of the Caribbean magazine film review, explaining the different conventions and whether the magazine film review has followed those convention;
Deconstruction 2
Here is a deconstruction of a magazine film review for an existing film, Twilight New Moon;
Again this magazine film review has a lot of the conventions of a typical magazine review. However, it is still missing a few of the conventions such as drop text.
I am now going to embed my evaluation of the Twilight magazine film review, explaining the different conventions and whether the magazine film review has followed those convention;
Deconstruction 3
Here is a deconstruction of a magazine film review for an existing film, Kick ass 2;
I am now going to embed my evaluation of the Kick-ass 2 magazine film review, explaining the different conventions and whether the magazine film review has followed those convention;
Software Training
We used a new piece of software in the creation of our magazine film reviews. We had to have a practice first before we could do the real thing because we needed to know how to use it and to get familiar with it. The software that I used is QuarkXpress10.
There are many things to consider before creating a magazine film review such as;
- A house style
- Layout
- Runaround spacing
- Pull Quotes
- Page Furniture
- Folio (page numbers)
- Film Rating
- Font style, size and colours
Lorem Ipsum is a filler text commonly used to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document. Replacing real and meaningful content with Lorem Ipsum allows people to design the layout and how it is meant to look before the actual content is created and put in place. It is like a template of how it should look without having to actually make up lots of real text which is very time consuming.
My Attempt
For part of our task we had to have a go at creating a mock magazine film review to practice using all the resources and software, for this task we had to follow a tutorial and create our own magazine film review based on this tutorial. Here is the tutorial that we had to use;
After following this tutorial here is my first attempt at my very own mock magazine film review;
I am now going to talk about the conventions of a magazine film review ans whether or not my own magazine film review follows these conventions.
Target Audience Research for Magazine Review
As part of our research for our main product we have to create and produce a target audience profile (TAP) and also research some magazines to decide what the target audience for our own magazine would be. This will give us a better idea about who to aim our magazine at and who our preferred target audience will be and also the age ranges of people who would read those magazines.
One magazine that I have found that is similar to ours is Empire magazine.
This magazine is similar to ours because the people who read this magazine is the same kind of target audience that we have for our magazine review for our short film grief. The Empire magazine has a target audience that is three-quarter male who are aged 18-40. They are employed and are in a relationship (although are not necessarily married). Their target audience are usually university educated and time-poor. Empire's audience is passionate about film. They use film as an insight into other worlds. The target audience have constant access to cinematic content.
Another magazine that has the target audience that we are looking for is total film.
This magazine's target audience is also very similar to the magazine target audience that we are aiming for, for our short film Grief. For example, The magazine is aimed at 15-35 year old's which is the same as our target audience because we are aiming our magazine at 18 year old's so the age range for our magazine and total film magazine is the same. Another thing that is similar is the fact that their target audience lives in the UK which is what we are aiming our magazine at. Their target audience have a keen interest in magazines, this is the same as the target audience we are aiming for, we want our target audience to have a very keen interest in magazines, especially film, and even have a monthly subscription to the magazine. Total film magazine aims at an audience that is 75% male, this is the same as our target audience because we are aiming our magazine at a male based target audience. We also want to aim at a target audience that are avid film goers and go to see films as soon as they come out in the cinema which is the same as total film magazine. Therefore I feel like total film magazine is a very good reflection of the kind of target audience that we are aiming for.
Another thing I looked at to help me decide on our target audience for my magazine review for our short film Grief is the National Readership Survey;
For this survey I can see that the most common age range that reads this magazine is 15-34 and the gender that reads this magazine the most is male, with more than half of males reading the magazine.
Based on this magazine target audience that we have found here is our target audience profile (TAP);
Magazine Review Flat Plan
Before we can create our very own magazine review for our short film Grief, we have to plan it out first, we need to plan what we are going to do, where we are going to put things and what we want our magazine review page to look like. Here we have come up with a flat plan that outlines what is going to go where on our final magazine review page and we have also created a rough draft of what we hope our magazine review will look like when we have finished.
Here is the flat plan;
Magazine Review Construction
I am now going to take you through the construction of our magazine review, from what it looks like when we started to what it looks like at the end.
In the first image we added the border and the running head. The first part of the construction was fairly easy to do because we just added a border using the borders that are already on quark express and we just added a text box to do the running head, so the first part was fairly easy to do. The most difficult part about doing the running head was aligning the text boxes, they had to look perfectly aligned or it wouldn't have made the magazine review as effective and made the whole page look unprofessional.
After adding the border and the running head we added the main image to the magazine. This again was fairly easy to do because we just used the picture content tool, selected the image we wanted to add and then adjusted the size accordingly.
We then had to send the image behind the running head which was again very easy to do. We also decided to change the colour of the running head because we felt the blue and black didn't really match the genre or style of our film so we decided to change the colour to burgundy and black which we feel suited the genre and style of our film better.
We then had to start adding the text which is the main body to any magazine review. We started by adding very generic information about the production of the film, such as, the directors of the film, the cast, when the film was released and the plot of the film.
After adding the first part of the text we added our secondary image, which is smaller than the main image. This again was very easy to do as we just used the content tool again and adjusted the image accordingly.
The next thing we did was add some page furniture to our magazine review. We feel like this added something extra to the magazine and made it look more professional and appealing when reading it and we also felt it broke up the monotony of the text. We changed the furniture colour to burgundy to carry on the consistency throughout the magazine review in terms of the running head.
We then started adding the main body of the text to our magazine review. We found it quite difficult to write at first in terms of the content but after a while we found it fairly easy to do.
After adding the main body of text we added an anchor to the main image. The image anchor allows people to know what the image is and what the image is about. It adds meaning to the image.
After adding the image anchor we then added the title of our short film 'grief.' Again this was very easy to do because we just added a text box and then adjusted the size of the size of the text to make it look more like a title and to make it stand out.
After adding the text over the main image we then added the pull quote. Again it was very easy to do because we just added a text box, however, the more difficult part was making the runaround equal in proportion with the text.
After adding the pull quote we then added the rest of the text to the magazine review. We added reviews about our film from magazines, such as, the times, the daily mail and the sun and we also added a verdict which is an overall review about our short film.
We then added the star rating below the verdict. This shows readers whether our film is worth watching or not and with a four star rating it goes in our favour and shows that it is a very good film to watch.
Finally, we added all of the text around the edges of our magazine review. The first thing we added was the folio, the page number and the website.
Completed Draft | Magazine Review
Magazine Review Feedback
When exhibiting the first finalised draft of our magazine review we received quite a lot of feedback from peers and from our teacher. Our magazine review was exhibited on the main blog where anyone from our class could give us some feedback or constructive criticism. Receiving the feedback allowed us to see which areas of our magazine review were our strongest and which areas of our magazine review were the weakest, we would then go and improve the weaker areas of our magazine review to a higher standard.
Here is the feedback we received on our magazine review;
Evaluation of Feedback and Action Plan
Unequal Gap Above and Below
To get rid of the unequal gap above and below we are going to adjust the text to make it center from top to bottom and left to right to make the text center and therefore make the gap equal around the text.
Image too Dark
To solve this issue we are going to edit the image on Photoshop and then change the contrast and brightness of the image to make it look lighter and to emphasise the characters in the image because they lack definition.
Caption Required
In the original magazine review there is no caption on the secondary image which means that the audience cannot form any relationship with that image because they don't know or haven't got any hint as to what it is, what is happening in the image or what scene it is out of the film. So in the improved version of the magazine review we will add a caption to add meaning to the image.
Drop Capital
In the improved version of the magazine review we will add a drop capital to the first letter of Marc's name to follow the typical conventions of a magazine review
Punctuation
In the original version of the magazine review there is no punctuation in the pull quote which makes the quote sound unprofessional and gives the magazine review an overall unprofessional look and therefore will make people not want to continue reading. Therefore in the improved version we will add punctuation to the pull quote.
Column Misaligned
The first column is misaligned with all the rest of the columns which makes the magazine review look very unprofessional, in the improved version of the poster we will justify the text until the columns are aligned perfectly.
Have you got a Model of a Magazine that References other Reviews in other Publications
We added a reviews section to our magazine review because a lot of magazines give reviews and star ratings to films. The example that we found was the New York Times;
Not the Worlds Most Exciting Caption
The caption that we have added to anchor the image in our original magazine review is too boring and in unoriginal, in the improved version of our magazine review we will come up with a much better and more inventive caption to anchor the image a lot more effectively.
Look Closer Box
In the original version of our magazine review we didn't add a look closer box so in the improved version we will add a look closer box to add something extra to our magazine review and therefore following the conventions.
Construction of Improvements of Magazine Review and Final Magazine Review
I am now going to take you through the construction of the improvements of our magazine review, from what it looks like when we started to what it looks like at the end.
The first improvement we made to our magazine review is that we added a look closer box. In the original version of our magazine review we didn't add a look closer box which didn't follow the conventions of a typical magazine review. We have now added a look closer box to make it look more like a typical magazine review and to make it look more effective and more appealing to the audience. It also gives the audience more information about the film and the production of the film.
The next improvement we made was we added a drop capital. In the original version of our magazine review we didn't add a drop capital which didn't set the magazine review apart from any other text. A drop capital is a major convention of the magazine review so we added one in when we improved it to make it look more effective and to make it look more like a typical magazine review and also made it look more professional.
We then changed our caption on the main image due to the fact that the original caption that we put in was very unoriginal and it made it look like we hadn't spent a lot of time coming up with a good and effective caption and therefore made it look like we didn't care, which in turn made it look unprofessional. We therefore changed the caption on the image to a different one. The new caption ties in with the short film and even gives a subtle hint as to what the film might be about and what genre the film is without giving too much away.
We then added a caption to the secondary image on our magazine review because in the original one we didn't have a caption on it. In the original version no one was able to establish what that image was and whether it had anything to do with the film or not, or even what the image had to do with the short film. We therefore added a caption to the image to allow people to establish a relationship between the image and the film and therefore gave meaning to the image.
The next improvement we made was we added punctuation into our pull quote to make it look and sound more professional. In the original version there was no punctuation in the pull quote and most of the words were spelled wrong. This made it look very unprofessional and made it look like we didn't check through our work. In the improved version of our magazine review we added punctuation to break the sentence up a bit and also spelled the words correctly.
The next improvement we made was we made the gap around the text "in cinemas" equal. In the original version of the magazine review the gap was unequal, there was more of a gap at the bottom than at the top which made the magazine look unprofessional so in the improved version we made the gap equal to give it a more professional look.
We then changed the lighting of the image to make it brighter. In the original version of the magazine review the image was really dark so it was hard to distinguish the features of the characters and was therefore hard for the audience to establish a relationship with the characters. In the improved version of the magazine review we changed the contrast and brightness of the image in Photoshop and therefore made the image lighter and easier to see the characters.
the next improvement we made was we justified the text in order to align the text evenly because in the original version the text wasn't aligned correctly so it didn't look very professional now that we have justified the text the magazine review looks much more professional.
The final improvement we made was we added in the page number at the bottom of the page. This allows the reader to establish what page it is and it allows people to reference the page number which we didn't do before.
Completed Final | Magazine Review
