Layout for our film review

Today we have been looking through a copy of Empire magazine to get some inspiration for our film review. I have taken pictures of some of the pages to show examples of what we would like to create. If this particular magazine chose to include a review of our film, we would need to ensure that our review follows their style. This is similar to what we would like to create, a double page spread consisting of a review and a picture. Here the main picture takes up the majority of the review, and is the only picture included. I think that if we used such a large picture then we couldnt really include any smaller ones, as this would take up lots of space and make it hard for us to write a detailed review.

This is a zoomed in clip of the first paragraph of the review, this short fact file about the film is something that Empire use throughout their magazine. If we choose this magazine for our review then we would deffinitely need to include something like this. The headings are: Released, Certificate, Director, Cast. Screenwriter, Running Time, Plot.

Here is a double page spread showing several smaller reviews, with an advertisement running across the bottom of both pages. Again each review includes the same headings as above, but without any more of a review on each film. I dont think this is something we could really use, as it would take away the focus of our film, as it wouldnt be the main feature. To overcome this issue we could make the advertisement at the bottom of the pages for our film, but as a group we would prefer to make the whole double page focussed on our film.

Here is an example of a single page review on one film, again it includes the same headlines used throughout the magazine, to show some of the key facts. At the end of this review there is a 'verdict' from the critic who wrote it, with a 3 star rating, this is something we would like to include in ours, to conclude the review with a final opinion, which will be positive. The writing in red at the bottom of the page reads 'normally investigators try to make a witness talk - here he wont shut up' this sentence gives away a part of the plot, and stands out so allows the reader to know what type of film this is without reading the whole review. We would like to use something similar to this in our review.


Here is an example of a double page showing an advertisement on the right hand side and 2 reviews on the opposite page, this is something we could use if we made the advertisement for our film. However, we would also have to review another film, which doesnt really fit with what we are required to do, and we would prefer to focus on just our film.


This is a longer review of the film 'Nowhere Boy' which has not yet been released, it starts with a double page spread, showing a big picture of the main actor which takes up the whole page. There is a big title on this page and a few paragraphs of writing. The next page has a larger part of the review with several other pictures, shots from the film. Agiain this page includes a short fact file about the film, as seen previously on the other reviews. There is also a quote included from the critic, which is larger than the rest of the text, and makes it stand out, as well as breaking up the rest of the text, making it easier to read. This is similar to what we would like to create, making our review 4 pages in total. When filming we will need to make sure we take stills of the film to include in our review.

As well as Empire, we are planning to look at the layouts of less mainstream film magazines, such as Sight and Sound :)