Film Magazines and their purpose

The purpose of film review magazines differ greatly to that of a film poster. Some of the main features of which differs the two apart is that for a film poster the audience are gathering basic information from the poster. The poster will usually have a positive attitude to the film in the hopes of trying to get audiences to go and watch the film. In the case of the film "Ted" there are constantly reviews at the top with ratings four and up from companies such as Empire or The Guardian. All this make the film poster slightly biased with films constantly praising the film. Whereas in reality it might not be that good or a piece of the review might be taken and put on the poster and the word which is used helps to make the film better. Audiences are more likely going to be intrigued to watch the film because of the reviews on the poster where they might think if companies such as Empire are rating it good it must be good. Therefore, being more inclined to watch it.



Film review magazines on the other hand are not produced by the production companies but are usually produced be third parties. The majority of the information that is written normally contains an impartial subjective opinion which for this reason makes the review much more balanced when to film posters but not all wholly accurate. The audience interaction compared to film poster also differs. Film review articles for the audience utilise third party impartial opinion in order to inform the audience about the film. Film reviews are significantly important to a films marketing campaign due to some people judging on whether to see the film or not which has an important part in the businesses profits.





In the UK there are three main film magazines those being:

• Empire
• Sight and Sound
• TotalFilm

Whilst all of these do the same similar job as in some way or another they will all review a film whether it be out currently or a film made in the past. The difference being between them is that their layout, content and who their target audience is will be different.

The Empire for example will differ greatly to that of Sight and Sound. The Empire, has an informal approach making it seem almost like a conversation that one would have with a friend. It also is quite simple to understand using only some words which some people might not be able to understand such as ominous. In the case of image caption for the film "Dealine" it is quite humorous which in a way mocks what the people on the images are doing. In this way, it clearly again illustrates the mode of the audience as informal and not as intellectual as other film reviews. Therefore making the content suited more for the younger audiences and having light-hearted content that is amusing yet interesting to read.

The layout of the Empire is also constantly the same throughout each of the reviews. From the two film reviews that are shown in the image. It presents the images dominating a large majority of the A4 paper with breakout boxes taking over the rest of the page besides from the actual review. This was done so that the writer was able to take up all of the page as leaving spaces filled with white is not possible due to the whole page having to be filled up.

Unlike Empire, the magazine Sight and Sound takes a very different approach in terms of its mode of address, audience and the whole design of the magazine. Sight and Sound takes a more formal approach in terms of its language. It has a more sophisticated and articulate approach when comparing to Empire which was more informal.

The biggest difference from the two however is in fact the page layout of the magazine. Whilst Empire's review was on one page the image was still dominating a large majority of the page. For Sight and Sound that is not so there are more images present but there are more columns which give more detail and depth to the film and review compared to Empire which was just summing up the film. This again sets the audience as one who has seen the film already due to making certain references to the film. Also, unlike Empire's image caption which was mocking what the cast were doing the image caption here is actually sticking to what the cast are actually doing making a joke on gravity at the end. Therefore, the audience are made to be a lot more mature compared to other film magazines.

The final major film review magazine comes from TotalFilm. It's mode of address is similar to that of Empire though being slightly more mature than it, not really giving any mocking jokes like that of Empire. The layout of the film though containing the same even structure as the others has features a large variety of images and graphic compared to the other magazines. The graphical image of the star rating compared to Sight and Sound gives a less formal sophisticated audience. The image again here dominates a large majority of the page which seems to be a common feature in magazines which are not equal to Sight and Sound. This was deliberately done again to take up more space but also because they have not got much to talk about unlike the other magazine.