Main Task - Magazine Research

Style

Sight and Sound
Sight and Sound magazine is produced by the BFI (British Film Institute) and is therefore an informative piece from the industry rather than a journalistic piece of entertainment like Empire or Total Film.

The review is simplistic with the only colour used other than the black is the red in the banner and on specific words highlighted on the page in addition to the colour in the photo.
There is only one picture from the film which takes up approximately ¼ of the review space. This makes the page look neat and uncluttered.
The article takes up 2/3 of the page as do all their reviews, the end of the previous review is visible on the first 1/3 of the page.
The font used is simplistic and clear but also very small.
The only thing that brakes up the monotony of the article is the inclusion of a small text box with credits from the film. This is only found in Sight and Sound magazine as it is written by Industry professionals for professionals

Empire

Empire Magazine employs a blue and yellow colour scheme which is used much more extensively than the colour usage in Sight and Sound. It has been used to highlight the details about the film, running time, certificate etc. as well as in a blue box with yellow writing. This is attention grabbing and makes the page look bright, fun and colourful which will appeal to a very different target audience to Sight and Sound

Total Film

Total Film magazine uses colour more sparsely than Empire Magazine and similarly to Sight and Sound. However, in my opinion Total Film Magazine is more similar to Empire in terms of style as there are extra pieces of information that make the article more “fun”. For example, in the corner of most Total Film full page reviews, there is a graph which measures how much enjoyment they predict the audience will gain from the film. In this article (see figure B) Total Film have compared the main film to other films suggesting that the reader may want to see the main film (in this case Kaboom) if they have enjoyed the other three films on the list (Mulholland Dr, Donnie Darko, Scott Pillgrim). As well as being eye-catching and an interesting way to mix up the monotony of the block of text, it is also a good technique to get readers to watch a wider variety of films as they may have seen two of the films from the list and liked them, therefore they will then want to check out the final film on the list.

The main film review is accompanied by a large photo that takes up nearly half of the actual review. It’s a big eye-catching still from the film

Linguistics

All of the magazines share the same primary purpose to inform the readers about the film as well as keeping them entertained whilst reading the article. Sight and Sound differs greatly to Empire and Total film in many ways whilst still sharing that core purpose.

Linguistically Sight and Sound magazine uses a lot more low frequency lexical choices than Empire or Total film. This implies that the readership is a more educated one, most likely of a higher socio-economic class, whereas, Empire and Total Film are more accessible to a wider audience which is reflected in their language choices as more high frequency vocab is employed.
Moreover, Sight and Sound magazine uses industry jargon that the ordinary person may not be familiar with therefore it seems to be more aimed at people who work in or study the film industry.

A common feature across all film magazines though appears to be the high usage of adjectives describing the film, either positively or negatively. In addition metaphors and similes have also been used to review the film

Sight and Sound is a very formally written piece of film journalism whereas Empire and Total film have a fun and friendly informal tone to them.

Table

	Sight & Sound	Empire	Total Film
Picture from the film	x	x	X
Star rating		x	X
Release Date		x	X
Film Credits	x	x	X
Certificate	x	x	X
Verdict		x	X
See this film if you liked…			X
Single colour scheme	x		X
Small font	x
Magazine name and date in the corner	x	x	X

I plan for my article to be more like that of Total Film or Empire as I want to appeal to a young audience (16 – 24 year olds) and it is unlikely that they will read sight and sound magazine.

Things I will include.

·         I would like a basic layout so as not to cause reading issues for the reader.

·         A single coulour scheme used throughout as a decorative feature, attractive the eye of the reader, most likely a primary colour.

·         Large image at the top of the page

·         Date, page number and magazine title in the bottom left hand corner

·         Star Rating

·         Important details box – Director, running time, certificate etc.

·         Verdict

·         Quotes from the film in article

·         High frequency language

·         Lots of adjectives

·         Fun friendly style of writing: Informal