- Reviews and Deconstruction of existing products
- Quark express training for a film review creation
- Product Construction
- Draft product
- feedback and noting improvements
- Final Product of the Review
Reviews and deconstruction of existing/similar products
Begin Again
A review similar to our film narrative is "Begin Again" the movie starts with a non chronological order and flashes back to explain the context. This is a similar narrative to our short so we looked at their review for textual writing style "After the opening scene in which Mark Ruffalo’s A&R man is blindsided by watching Keira Knightley’s reluctant songwriter perform her song to a generally apathetic crowd, the movie rewinds twice, revealing the miserable day — Dan loses his record company job." Because we would need to write a review for our short i needed to identify the writing style of a review similar to our movie so it could be replicated in the construction stage. This movie did not come with a one page review article which we could deconstruct so we decided to look at the content of the review its self for similarities which we could take into consideration when construction begins on ours.
Lust, Caution
Design and composition
The orientation of the page is portrait as its a single page spread with the picture placed at the top spanning just under half of the page, this is one of the first things the reader will lay eyes on so the picture must be interesting, as you can see above the picture doesn't divulge much information about the movie or plot apart from the 2 characters on screen have a connection or relationship of sorts, this means the image pertains to the movie and out of the 2 characters one is the main protagonist but it isn't clearly indicated in the still, the use of this will encourage the viewer to want to read the review and discover what this movie is about.
There are 4 columns of main text in standard grid format the first column however is divided by a bold pull quote designed to entice you into reading the review. The colour scheme presented is primarily Red, Orange and black contrasting on the white article page for a stand out look but has no relation to the movie and is rather just the house style for the magazine.
Facts about the movie are presented on the middle left hand side of the movie still, to inform more about the back story of the crew than the movie its self.
Text Elements
The feature header which catches the readers eye here is the movie title 'Lust, Caution' it stands out in bold black block letters on the white magazine background, meaning this section is the selling point for the magazine, people want to know new movies out and they value their reviews which is why the text for the movie and the second feature heading being 'In Cinemas' are the eye catchers. This is what the reader will be looking for in the magazine so both feature titles are bold and contrast starkly.
The main body of the text has 4 columns segregated with bylines and a pull quote reviewing in short the movie if the reader doesn't have time or still isn't interested in reading the whole review.
Images
The main image of the article takes up just under half of the page it's the only image and depicts a woman lying in a mans lap looking up into his eyes, this shows a level of intimacy between the two and are most likely the main characters of the short as it would be pointless putting 2 characters in the review who are not of relevance to the plot, the image tells us that the genre of this is along the lines of romance, the title included deludes to a romantic intimate movie.
Graphical Furniture
The graphical furniture of the magazine is fairly standard to the magazine. The colours and fonts used in the graphical furniture are design in the house style and in the same colour scheme as the rest of this section of the magazine. The left hand side of the main picture there is a facts box about the movie titled "Look closer" for the reader to learn more about the behind the scenes production. The first section of text is segregated from the rest giving information about the movie it's self like the release date, certificate, cast, director etc and a short paragraph for the plot. This is put first to fill in the reader of the movie before they read the review. At the end of the text on the 4th column there is another segregated section giving the verdict of the movie and a star rating, typically placed at the end to summarise the review.
The logo is in the top left corner of the review and overlaps the picture to show importance it is swathed in its in house style and the actual name of magazine is at the bottom of page next to the page number and date of publication.
Using Quark Xpress
To help us grasp how to use Quark express Mr Hood created a helpful video tutorial in which he made an example film review and talked us through what he was doing. The video is posted below;
Along with help on tools we were also told the typical layout of a film review so that when we began to create our own review we knew the typical layout of quark express and the layout of the review.
Following the video to create our own mock review
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| Adding the border, picture and title |
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| Adding pull quote and main body of text |
After adding some conventional bits like a pull quote and a title the practice draft was done and we knew how to apply this to our actual magazine review.
Flat Plan
After researching and deconstructing other magazine reviews we decided this was the layout we were going to replicate for ours. Dependent on how much text there is for the review depends on how many columns we decide to go with, our rough draft was an experiment of layout but after receiving feedback we decided the flat plan above was the layout we shall do for our finished product, with the experimentation of changing the layout though we picked up how to manipulate Quark express easier and we discovered that if we didn't follow the conventional layout it wouldn't be aesthetically pleasing.
Constructing Magazine Review Evidence
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| Giving the product an article border A magazine review ALWAYS has a boarder, this is so when you start adding in your furniture nothing runs to the edge and can get lost in sticking the pages to a spine because the magazine won't open far enough to have a proper view of the inner edging. It was simple to draw the border and set it to sit on the blue guidelines that help you suss out where the gutter of the page will be. |
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| Adding the main picture and movie title Following on from the border we then applied a still from the movie to be our main image in the review and applied the movie title over the top of it, but not in the way of anything important in the picture as this would detract away from the picture or look messy. We made the background for the title dark red and contrasted the font against that with a bold white title in the font style 'impact' which didn't only look appropriate but it was name appropriately for the task we were trying to achieve. The bold white font on something dark or vice-versa is a conventional method used to catch the audiences eye. |
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| Adding in the main text body and pull quote After the picture is in place we have a rough idea of how much space we must fill with text so the more wordy work comes next. We started to insert the text box and the amount of columns we roughly wanted for the review and started jigging them about with the pull quote for the most desired look. |
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| Using Bylines We added bylines next to separate the review from other details and then made sure the line was the correct length of the paragraph so it didn't look messy. |
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| Adding the movie details and verdict We last added the movie details and verdict with the star ratings and coloured it to match the background colour of the movie title. |
Peer feedback and evaluation of feedback
Improvements:
- Add in 4 columns instead of 3.
- Detail/Plot of movie suggested to be at the start of the text as it is more aesthetically pleasing and the reader can read the plot of the movie before reading the review for it.
- Change the image - the image wasn't in focus because of the effects used on the film the picture was too soft and made it look like it was just bad quality.
- Add in a Review tagline underneath the title.
- Spelling + punctuation errors need to be changed.
- Pull quote moved within the text and changed for more relevence.
- Plug-in on the image need to be changed as the text wasn't reflecting the review.
- The red writing on the black background is too hard to read on the plug-in so that will need a font colour change.
Positives:
- The red and black works well with the theme of the film and poster.
- The page number and the URL was correct
- The Bylines were equal lengths and spaces apart
- The movie heading colours work well and stand out as well.
Level 3
Marks: 7-8
Evaluation of feedback
I agree with the improvements needed for our magazine review as we had spotted the imperfections our self, but we were mainly concerned with the main body of text as we wanted a less than conventional layout. We will be adding 4 columns to the body of text instead of 3, the detail and plot will be moved to the start and segregated with bylines to make the review look more tidy and professional.
The movie still we have used will be changed to a different still as it isn't in focus because of the effects layered on to the top of it.
The Plug-in needs to match the review instead of contradicting it, so we shall change it to something positive or comedic, it also is hard to read because of the thickness of the text and the colour so a white font or something similar will be inputted instead.
Evidence of improvements
After changing the main body of text from 3 paragraphs to 4 we then manoeuvred the furniture inside the text, meaning we put the movie details and plot at the start and then separated it with bylines we left the verdict at the end of the text separated with lines too. Next was to integrate the quote into the text as a conventional pull quote.
Secondly we changed the plug-in style and content from red thick text on a black background to a transparent box with white writing this made it easier to read and stopped it being contradictory text to the rest of the review.
We then brought down the "In Cinemas" title at the top of the page as it was touching the boarder of the reviews and looked squashed, on further study of the arrow we decided that the text and colour needed changing to match our drop capital we would be adding in our main body of text.
The movie still was changed to a different still finally, to catch the audiences attention and to get rid of the amateur look the picture had because it wasn't focused.
The Drop capital was inserted to match the "In Cinemas" title at the start of the main body of text.
The pull quote lost it's different review name "the daily plug-in" and was chosen from a line in the review its self.
The stars were centred and spaced accurately from the byline and border of the review for a more professional look.
And last but not least the Tag-line was added underneath the title pertaining to the review and the background of the title was lightened to make it stand out more.
Evaluation of feedback
I agree with the improvements needed for our magazine review as we had spotted the imperfections our self, but we were mainly concerned with the main body of text as we wanted a less than conventional layout. We will be adding 4 columns to the body of text instead of 3, the detail and plot will be moved to the start and segregated with bylines to make the review look more tidy and professional.
The movie still we have used will be changed to a different still as it isn't in focus because of the effects layered on to the top of it.
The Plug-in needs to match the review instead of contradicting it, so we shall change it to something positive or comedic, it also is hard to read because of the thickness of the text and the colour so a white font or something similar will be inputted instead.
Evidence of improvements
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| Changing the movie details to the start was the first step. |
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| Changing the plug-in style and content |
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| Changed "IN CINEMAS" title |
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| Change of Movie Still |
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| Drop Capital inserted |
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| Change in Pull Quote |
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| Centred stars |
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| Tag-line added and the title background was lightened. |
Self evaluation and deconstruction
We are much happier with the layout and look for the review now, by taking on the criticisms and comments on areas of improvement we have created a much more professional and conventional looking Magazine review. It also looks more interesting with the change of picture and use of the integrated pull quote there is more to draw the readers eye and the use of the drop capital at the start gets the reader straight into the text with the very first letter and if that doesn't our 'punny' plug-in positioned on the top right over the picture should do.
FINISHED MAGAZINE REVIEW
