This post will discuss my development of the writing structure of film reviews. I have previously discussed my research in previous posts regarding my initial and further research, and I will re-iterate those discussions as well as add new ones that I have researched further.
Firstly is part of my initial research, I looked at many film reviews from different authors and different outlets. The many reviews differed in what points they talked about and how they arranged those they presented. From what I observed, the reviews tend to discuss more about individual characters and the cinematography of the film. Some also summarized the reviewed film as they discuss the elements, such as one about "Seven" written by Owen Gleiberman (1995), while some focus more on what the film shows like Mark Kermode's review of "First Man" (2018), but rarely do they spoil the plot for the reader. Looking at these helped to gain a basic understanding, but I needed to learn more.
As part of further research, I found a book on writing about films, but not explicitly about a review titled "A Short Guide To Writing About Film" written by Timothy Corrigan (2014). It was at this stage that I decided to write about the characters in the film specifically, so I focused more on the section detailing how to write about characters. It said to consider the appearance and behaviour of the characters, as well as evaluating the performance of the actor and the actor themselves, alongside considering if the character is supposed to be portrayed to be realistic or unrealistic based on the previous factors. This book was helpful when writing about the many aspects of a film, and was not too complicated.
I also looked at an article detailing Owen Gleiberman's writing technique on Roger Ebert, written by Matt Seitz after Gleiberman was fired from Entertainment Weekly (2014). Seitz evaluated Gleiberman's writing style, which can be described as someone writing in the way of someone who cares about what they write, and also writing about the "style" and "worldview" of the film and how it creates a mood fitting for its genre. I observed many of these when I read Gleiberman's review, and took some of these techniques to help write my first draft, but unfortunately I tried to copy his style too closely that I didn't even find my own voice. It was only after reading the next piece of research that I really gained traction, alongside help from my tutor.
Also as part of further research that was not covered previously in a blog post, I looked at some more accessible online guides on the internet on how to write a film review. One such guide is written for the New York Film Academy titled "9 Tips for Writing a Film Review" by an anonymous author for the website (2017). It had nine short, but informative tips to writing film reviews. There were some tips that were obvious such as watching the film and expressing an opinion, but there were more that was useful. Some notable tips is to consider the audience, which is what kind of people it is being written for and adjusting what highlights of the movie are covered and the language used in the review.
Another important tip was to talk about the actors in the film and their performance of their character, independent from the writing of the film. I used this tip very much for my review as I talked about some of the characters in their film, as when I discussed one actor's brilliant performance playing essentially two different people, but I also stated my disappointment that they weren't given the spotlight enough. The last tip was to find my "voice", which is the personality that brushes off on my writing. This was also suggested by my tutor Miss Zoe, so when I re-wrote my review I did my best to write from my heart, write as if I'm talking about the film myself with my own words.
After looking back at this, I realized I have come a long way at learning how to write a review. I thought at first that writing a film review would be very simple, but I soon learned there is a lot that goes into a film than just talking about what it has. It needs close analysis of the characters, writing, and the reputation of everyone involved in the making of the film, among other things. I slowly gained more appreciation at reviews and reviewers as I looked into the process of writing a film review, and soon came to enjoy what I was writing as if I was watching the film all over again.
References
CORRIGAN, T. (2014) A Short Guide To Writing About Film. 9th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education.
GLEIBERMAN, O. (1995) Seven. [Online] Entertainment Weekly. Available at: https://ew.com/article/1995/09/29/seven-3/ [Accessed 01/06/20].
KERMODE, M. (2018) First Man review – an inner space odyssey. [Online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/14/first-man-review-damien-chazelle-ryan-gosling-claire-foy-apollo-11-neil-armstrong [Accessed 01/06/20].
New York Film Academy (2017) 9 Tips for Writing a Film Review. [Online] Available from: https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/9-tips-for-writing-a-film-review/ [Accessed 01/06/20].
SEITZ, M. (2014) For The Love Of It: Notes On The Decline Of Entertainment Weekly, The Firing Of Owen Gleiberman, And The Ongoing End Of An Era | MZS | Roger Ebert. [Online] Roger Ebert. Available from: https://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/for-the-love-of-it-notes-on-the-decline-of-entertainment-weekly-the-firing-of-owen-gleiberman-and-the-ongoing-end-of-an-era [Accessed 01/06/20].
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