Research into the Film Review Ancillary task

For the film review, I wanted to get some background information on the conventions of a film review. This ranging from the layout, format, color etc. I visited a wide variety of film reviews to get a diverse look at what the similarities are and the differences among competitors in the market.

Similarities

• All seem to use columns in their layout choice, it is effective in many ways, easy and concise to read, reasonably attractive on the eye and it has a certain professionalism feel to it.
• Most are very formal in their writing, never any slang or loose phrases. Tends to be very strongly opinionated but with an element of fairness. Some film reviews could simply make or break a film just on the vast majority of voters.
• Pretty much all of the sites with have a rating for the film, whether in stars (Empire) or tomatoes (Rotten Tomatoes). Either way there will be some form of rating system present in the film review.
• Pretty much all of the films reviews have shots or the film poster in the review, maybe to break up the text with a bit of visual attraction. Seems like a good idea rather than boring the consumer with facts and figures. Hit them with something from the movie, a teaser and they would most likely be more incline to digest both the review and the film.
• They all seem to include some facts about the film, who its star's, how long it is, director, producer etc.
• They also tends to include the release date if not already released in a certain country.

Differences

• Admittedly some were very formal and factual, but that was not always the case, other websites offering a much more qwerky take. Example (Rotten tomatoes) Effective and funny, very modern and could see why it would appeal the younger generation. 
• Not all the film reviews include images of the film.
• Not all the film reviews provide details on all the elements of the film, some just include big named actors, director, release date and other facts that have been chosen to solely entice the consumer. 

I could go on about many differences and similarities between the film reviewers, but the whole point of this task was to get a general understanding on how and why people use film reviews and how useful they really are. The task has helped me to understand the normal conventions they use, for example facts about the movie is a must, an overall rating, columns seems to be both formal and digestible, the review doesn't have to just be formal, plain, bland, there is an audience for effective, funny and still useful sites such as Rotten Tomatoes.

An example of the Rotten Tomatoes rating system

  

2.	100%	King Kong (19