Film Review Inspiration

I have previously researched The Guardian and Empire film reviews, making note of the structures, layouts and audiences, so I make sure I create the right style of review for our short film.

We feel Empire would be the right magazine for our review as it is read by the same demograph as those who would watch our film (18-35) and due to being a worldwide company, it can help with the promotion of our film.

As we can see with the ‘Inception’ review from Empire Online, they arrange it with a Plot, Review and Verdict structure, which we feel is a good way to layout our review. We believe it is easy for readers to follow as this way they can choose to read only certain sections if they wish to do so.  

Empire Online - Plot, Review and Verdict structure

Regarding the magazine versions of Empire, they still employ the same structure as the online versions. The review below incorporate still images from the film which is something we intend to do, as it will give the reader an insight into our short film and the locations and actors involved.

Empire Magazine Review - Use of still image from film

Some film reviews, for example the one below, has a still image from the film, set as the background of the review page with the text overlapping, which I feel is a nice feature. This review also includes other images as well, proving to be an interesting layout.

Empire Magazine Review - image set as background

Although we are adopting an Empire style film review, I did look at The Guardian film reviews, as they too are read by a wide audience, albeit it only British. The feature which The Guardian employed which we liked was the fact file box, as shown in the review of ‘The King’s Speech’ below.

The Guardian Review - Fact File box