This document outlines conventions for magazine film reviews, including large images of main actors, bold fonts, newspaper-style columns, boxes with film information, enlarged text, star ratings, opinions, publication details, and complementary colors. It provides examples from Empire and Little White Lies magazines, noting Empire's formal but image-dominated style and LWL's more in-depth, specialized reviews. The document also includes the author's draft layout for a magazine review of their short film, following Empire's conventions of dominant images, fact boxes, and centralized review text.

1. Magazine Review
Conventions of a Magazine Review…

2. Conventions…
• Normally there is a large image dominating the page that is iconic within the film, usually
with the main actors from the film.
• The font is normally simple and bold grabbing the audience.
• The article is laid out within newspaper style columns.
• A small box consisting of information about the film in terms of the certificate director and
running time.
• Normally there is an enlarged tile within the middle of the article repeating a line within the
text.
• A star rating.
• A sum up of their opinion on the film “verdict”.
• Date and name of the magazine on the bottom corners.
• The website of the magazine on the top runner.
• The colours compliment each other such as the red and orange, with black text for the bulk
of the article making it easy for the audience to read.
• At the top left of the page is a small box consisting of key elements and facts within the film
to look out for.
• They relate to the actors by their real name not the playing role.
• Lots of Superlatives and Adjectives used to up the film.

3. Examples…
Empire
Empire magazine has a particular and
different layout to other film magazines.
The layout of its reviews have a formal
style however always contain images.
These images mainly dominate the page
grabbing the readers attention. After
the review there is normal a fact file box
containing information about directors
and producers as well as a star rating
symbol.

4. Little White Lies
However LWL has a different
format again for its reviews. This
time I found the reviews quite
formal with in depth
information, making the
audience more specific, being
ones that are either
professionals or film/media
enthusiasts.
Both styles of reviews are very
informative about the films as
well as being professional at
the same time. The reviews
can sometimes com across as
both bias and non bias, with
the writers giving their opinion
on the film.

5. My draft Layout…
This is my own draft of a
magazine review for my
short film. I have
followed the style from
Empire magazine as I fell
this was a format that
could relate to the genre
of my short film. As you
can see I have made the
right hand page the
dominate one for my
images, with a fact and
verdict box allocated at
the bottom.
I have also displayed the
title along with
information and the tag
line in one box at the top
of the page, with the
review article following.