Research and planning - deconstruction of film review pages

When starting research on film review pages i looked at magazines which are widely known, I took into account how much they cost, the frequency of their release, their audience and what coverage of films they give. As well as deconstructing these pages i tried to look at them as an ordinary reader of the magazine for example what does my eye draw to? Although reviews are not directly advertising, the critics responses are very closely linked to the films success. I looked at these magazines in order to get a better understanding of their conventions which would lead to ideas for my own review page.

  1.The first magazine i looked at was Time Out London, it cost £2.99 and an issue is released weekly. They do not really have a specific audience but from what i think it is mostly used by tourists. Time out is made up of reviews, from restaurants to film, because of this they only really cover the main movie releases so you would not find a film like ours in there. Despite this i found it interesting to study the film reviews and it gave me a better idea of layout ideas and what to expect when reading one of these.

2.The second magazine i looked at was Sight and Sound, it cost £3.95 and comes out monthly. I found it very different from Time Out, the most obvious reason being Sight and Sound only covers films. It is funded from the BFI (british film institute) and covers all films from blockbusters to independent short films, because of this their audience is very different and is aimed at film enthusiasts. After deconstructing and studying this magazine i found it to be a lot more relevant to my film. The layout was plain and pictures were minimal, i came to the conclusion that this is because the readers of the magazine did not need to be drawn to a certain page as they would already be interested in its contents just from buying the magazine. Although this magazine was a more suitable match for our review page and film it did not inspire me when it came to the layout.

3. The third poster i looked at was my school sixth form magazine, it cost around £1 and comes out roughly twice a year. Although this is the magazine which is most likely to print my film's review, the layout is not professional and due to costs the pages are all printed out in black and white. So whilest it being probably being the most relevant magazine i will not be following it's layout patterns or conventions.