Students

STUDENTS

This is the page where you will find lecture notes and podcasts (from my lectures) and anything else I think might help for the Media Writing 1 Unit. This information will also be on the University system, but I’ll update this page first. I plan to write a bit about each week’s seminar - the thoughts I had while preparing for each week. They might be a bit of a ramble, but will hopefully be helpful.

You’ll find seminar 2 notes below the seminar 1 notes and so on.

Seminar 1 - Introduction to the Unit

The purpose of the first seminar is to talk about the different types of writing you already know about. You already write in different ways so learning how to write film reviews is simply a case of changing your focus to the act of reviewing. If you don’t think you have experience of different kinds of writing consider: writing a diary, making notes in a notebook, text messaging, emailing, writing a letter, an essay, adding a comment to an article somewhere online, changing your facebook headline, twitter etc. Each of these examples requires a different kind of writing. You don’t write in a diary in the same way you write on facebook because one is a personal thing you probably don’t want anyone to read, while the other is designed to be read by as many people as possible. So you have to approach each kind of writing differently. Reviewing is not something to be daunted by, it’s just another approach.

So what are the purposes of each kind of writing? Break each one down. I’ve started the first two.

Diary: a personal account of private information, a narrative of your daily life and your thoughts and reflections on what you experience. Not written for anyone else.

Notebook: Similar to a diary, but a notebook doesn’t tend to have much of a structure. It’s a place for ideas, doodles and thoughts that all jostle about between the covers. There is no obvious narrative, in terms of a developing story, it’s just a bag for thoughts and ideas you might revisit some time later.

You can fill in the rest of the other examples, and it’s worth doing because this kind of analysis will help you decipher film and TV reviews. It should soon become clear how each type of writing differs and how, probably without you being that conscious of it, you alter the way you write in quite a sophisticated way.

The best thing for you to do to improve your marks on this unit is to write as much as possible. Ernest Hemmingway said writing is like an iceberg. People only see the top but there’s an enormous amount of effort hidden underneath. So my advice to you is to start writing. Write your friends and parents letters, start a blog, get a notebook and start to value your own thoughts and ideas - they deserve to be recorded even if only for yourself. Make comments on online news sites, write as often as you can - in as many different ways as you can - and in each case remember to respect your audience by taking pride in what you’re doing. Check your spelling and grammar, even on emails, read and re-read what you’ve written to make sure it makes sense and that what you’ve written means what you meant it to mean. The more you write with this kind of approach the better you will get.

Now we come to film and TV reviews. The first thing is to read as many as you can to understand what reviews are all about. The second is to understand what the purpose of the review is.

You probably think you know the answer to that one already. You probably think the purpose of a film or TV review is one of two things.

1. A preview of an advanced screening, where the purpose of the review is to give just enough information to the reader so they can make up their own mind whether or not they want to watch it.

2. A straight review, where the purpose is to critically assess the merits and failings of the film or TV show.

But neither of these options are the purpose of the review (for reference the second is the kind of review we will be doing in this unit). The purpose of the review is simply to make sure the reader reads it. That is the purpose of the review. How do you make sure the reader reads your review? By getting them interested and keeping them interested. You’ve got to make them want to read through to the end. You are not entitled to the reader’s attention simply because you’ve taken the time to write something. That goes for any kind of published writing. Journalism, poetry, fiction, non-fiction - above all else a writer wants their words to be read. So that is the purpose of a review. Writers are egomaniacs that think they have something important to say and they want people to listen to them. When I write something - anything - I want the reader to be entertained by what I’ve written and I want to make them think in a way they might not have thought before. I want them to finish what I’ve written and say, ‘this bloke has a really interesting way of looking at things - I’ll look out for his stuff again.’ So you’ve got to care whether what you’ve written is worth reading. If you don’t care then no one who reads it will care either and they’ll give up half way. You can’t fake it. You’ve got to mean it. That might sound over the top for something small like a review, but you have to have high standards and have respect for everything you write if you want to earn money doing it. If you don’t approach every single thing you write with enough respect the editor who is paying you will replace you with someone who does. You can’t freewheel. You have to respect the audience all the time or you’ll get spiked.

So now you are focused, and I hope have sufficient respect for the act of writing a review, what exactly is a review? Well, what do you think? Add it to the list of the different kinds of writing I started above (that you have added to) and analyse it in exactly the same way. Just get a review (the one for the Simpsons Movie in the course handbook) and break it down into paragraphs and make a note of what each paragraph tells you. What is the author saying? How are they saying it? How much is their opinion and how much are facts? Are they making critical points and then proving them with descriptions of the film? How does the way it’s written differ from a diary, email or an essay? At what point do you find out whether or not the author liked the film? Is there evidence of background research? Now you’re starting to pull it into bits you’ll notice that there is a structure. Every paragraph tells you something specific and is self-contained. You could move most of the middle paragraphs around and it wouldn’t change the readability of the review very much at all. Each paragraph is brief and to the point. It’s almost exhausting to read because it contains so much information. You get lots of personal reflection - it’s not stuffy or pompous - and it’s clear that he’s a huge Simpsons fan.

But it’s not perfect. There are a few clichés (‘razor-sharp’ ‘lightening-swift’) and one of the quotes is incorrect. In my view the opening gag is forced and there’s no balance. It’s all GREAT! GENIUS! THE BEST THING ON FILM OR TV!’ etc. But I read to the end and I am in no doubt about his view of the film.

Importantly for a review he’s put the film in a cultural and political context by comparing it to other animated movies and highlighting references to other films. He’s addressed criticisms of the time it took to make a Simpsons movie. He’s told us how long the show has been running on TV and who created it. He’s pointed out the irony of Rupert Murdoch funding it, he’s told us practical stuff about how the normal Simpsons narrative switches from a half hour programme to fill a full length feature, revealed a puzzle about who Homer Simpson was inspired by, given us tons of quotes and scenes from the film to imagine and then closed with a condensed version of his opinion of the movie, just in case we missed it. It’s packed and not a word is wasted. He’s given loads of factual information but it’s only when you’ve finished reading that you realise how much you’ve learned. The relatively dry information about the context of the movie is put across in a lively way and you don’t really notice it.

This is a really important thing to remember when it comes to the craft of writing. Imagine if the review had started like this

‘The Simpson’s Movie, from the 17 year old TV series devised by Matt Groening (ironically funded by News Corp’s boss Rupert Murdoch), has been extended beyond it’s normal 30 minute episode length and been released as a feature film.’

Everyone would know the same information that Bradshaw has conveyed but when it’s delivered all at once it sounds incredibly boring. Very few people would bother reading this review. Peter Bradshaw has hidden these facts all over the place and you’ve picked them up without really being aware of it. He respects his audience. You can see how much work he’s put into entertaining you. He cares passionately about this film, and even if you think he got a bit carried away you have to accept that he’s managed to retain his journalistic ethos by giving you lots of relevant facts and ideas too.

Next week we will look at writing for different audiences.

Suggested reading (from the course handbook)

WRITING FOR NEWSPAPERS

Randall, D (2000) ‘The Universal Journalist’ (2nd Ed), London, Pluto

(This is really good. Very practical and useful.)

Links:

Nancy Bank Smith (TV reviewer for the Guardian)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/nancybankssmith

Charlie Brooker (TV reviewer for the Guardian)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker

Seminar 2 - Academic and Journalistic Register

The purpose of this seminar is to work through the exercise in the course handbook (page 14) looking at discourse and register in three reviews of AI: Artificial Intelligence.

Discourse: To express one’s ideas in speech or writing

(We did this in the seminar, if you didn’t come you can do this exercise on your own at home)

From now on we will also spend the final 15 minutes of each seminar looking at how you actually go about writing a review. This is stuff I will cover in one of my lectures in much more detail but there is no harm in me introducing you to the broad concepts now. The more you write, and the sooner you start writing, the better you will do.

Stage 1 of review writing

So, you’ve watched the film or TV show and you are now sitting with a blank screen or a blank piece of paper in front of you. What do you do next?

The first thing you’re going to do is type out all the things you want to say in your review. Essentially your response to what you’ve seen. You do this before you worry about the structure. The ideas you put down don’t have to be in any particular order at this point. It’s just about getting your thoughts onto the page. You can add to it later too. This is just to help you work out what you want your review to say. It’s a way of putting onto paper your immediate thoughts about what you’ve seen. Incidentally I do this every time I write anything for a newspaper. Usually pulled together from thoughts and ideas I’ve written down in my notebooks. (BUY A NOTEBOOK!)

To show you what I mean, I watched Artificial Intelligence the other day to prepare for this seminar, so I’ll write down what my personal, honest, responses to the film were. In the notes I’m talking to myself, not an audience. I’m trying to extract my own response to the film.

1.It’s way, way too long.

2.The kid is convincing, and as he’s playing the part of a super intelligent robot coming to terms with the fact that he’s not real this is quite an achievement.

3.Jude Law seems too flamboyant and weird to me - I can’t tell whether his portrayal is incredibly sexy or just a bit camp.

4.Visually it looks quite dull, grey and unimpressive and as it’s been made by Spielberg and Kubrick this is something of a surprise. (Some set pieces are ok.)

5.It takes you to quite a crazy place in your head. You get emotionally attached to the boy, even though you know it’s supposed to be a robot.

6.The story (essentially the boy is Pinnochio but he can’t find a blue fairy to turn him into a real boy) is cliched drivel but it’s still wierdly compelling, because it makes you think uncomfortable thoughts about whether or not we are actually just sophisticated machines too. What does it mean to be human? The film shows human cruelty, selfishness, grief. Why does the boy want to be human? Because he loves his ‘mother’ and more than anything he desperately wants to feel what it means to be loved. This is a universal truth of human existence. We all want to be loved. Maybe that’s why it’s so compelling? The story is so basic to us all. (This seems to be the emotional crux of the movie, so spend more time thinking about this.)

7.The boy spends half the movie being lost and the film feels lost too. As though they had the bones of a good idea but couldn’t find a good way to do it. Perhaps Spielberg and Kubrick were too afraid to step on each other’s toes. (Turns out Kubrick died before shooting, perhaps Spielberg didn’t want to cut his stuff out of respect? Research more about this.)

8.They bottle it and give us a really mental Hollywood ending.

Summarise the movie in 5 words: dour, empty, lonely, cruel, alluring.

If I were you I’d start practicing this at home. When you watch a TV show or a movie spend a few minutes doing a list like this to get used to writing down your thoughts and ideas. Every Friday I’m in room 3.36 in the St George’s building between 10.15 and 11.15 so students can come and ask me questions about the course so far. If you want to bring some of your lists to show me I’ll happily go through them with you and give you a few pointers. This is a really good exercise to practice. If you get into the habit of doing it by the time it comes to the film and TV show you are going to review you’ll have done lists like this dozens of times. You will already have started to make sense of your personal responses to what you watch and your responses will be more focussed and refined the more you do it.

If you’re not sure what to write down just make a note of how the film/TV show made you feel, if anything about it stood out and made you think. If anything about it connected with something you’ve experienced, if so, why? Did the costumes, dialogue stand out? Write it all down, you don’t have to use all it, but make a note of everything. You have to practice responding to films and TV shows so that when you come to do your reviews you’re already used to the process. This is the start of a process of collecting information that you will eventually distill into your review.

Next week we’ll look at stage 2 of writing a review - research.

Seminar 3 - Grammar and Concision

This week we did a few exercises on grammar, spelling and editing from the course handbook.

We also spent twenty minutes going through some thoughts on the research process for writing reviews, but this is outlined in more detail in the lecture notes for Lecture 5 you’ll find below.

Seminar 4 - Levity, Brevity and ins and outs.

This week we examined three different reviews and examined how each worked in relation to the objective of writing a review.

Lecture 5 (6/11/09)

In this lecture we looked at how to prepare for writing a review. I had hoped to put up a podcast of this lecture, but the recorder didn’t work so you’ll have to make do with this condensed version of the lecture taken from my notes.

How to prepare for writing a film or TV review

Step 1. Watch the film or TV show

An obvious, but important, first step.

Come to the screening - The film has been made to be seen on a big screen. It makes a difference. There are an army of people employed to make every element of what you see appear exactly how it is. Very little of what you see has been done by chance. It’s been planned meticulously. Keep an eye on how the director has used the screen. The cinema experience is crucial. Everything about the film has been designed to be seen on a huge screen with loud sound in a dark room. That is the director’s blank canvas. The sense of expectation is also different when you see something on the big screen. It’s a kind of visual alchemy - you need to see it in the way it was designed to be seen to be able to treat it fairly. Imagine the difference in watching a horror movie in a cinema with stereo sound compared with a small analogue TV at home. It’s the same principle. You should approach the film with great respect - it might not retain your respect once you’ve started watching it, but come in the right frame of mind.

Leave your preconceptions at the door - you might not like the sound of it, it might be the last film you’d ever choose to see, you might hate the leading actors, but be mature enough to judge it on its own merits. You’re working so you have to be professional. Preconceptions will cloud your judgment and ruin your review. Give it a chance.

Pay attention - You’re working so approach it seriously. Think of it as a work of art. How do you respond to a work of art? What does your response to a work of art mean? Your response to a work of art tells you more about you than the work of art you’re looking at, you’re looking out for what this work of art pulls out of you.

Watch it more than once if you can

Step 2. Write down your notes

I think everyone should keep a notebook with them all the time to get into the habit of recording and valuing your own thoughts and ideas. If you have any aspiration to do anything creative in your life you need to learn to cherish your thoughts and ideas. We live in a world where you’re encouraged to bow to expert knowledge - I.e. someone else’s thoughts and ideas - all the time. You may feel awkward about writing down your thoughts and ideas - you might even think it’s a bit arrogant to think your thoughts and ideas are worth recording - that’s nonsense. Listen to them - let your mind drift off, see where they go. Be confident in what you think and be prepared to challenge and change what you think. Ultimately, existentially speaking at least, thoughts and ideas are all you are.

So, back to the review, write down your thoughts about this film. Be critical, praise it, write whatever you like. Just make sure it’s coming from you. Everyone will have the facts, only you have your opinion. You’re looking to fill an A4 piece of paper with ideas about what you’ve seen. Stay in this room until you’ve filled a page of A4 about the movie if you want to. I would. Then when you leave the screening you’ll feel relaxed knowing you’ve done the first part of your job. Best bit, worst bit, general feeling. What lesson is the director trying to give you? Is there a lesson? What was the point of the movie? Why was everyone involved in making it drawn to the story? Why did they sign up to it? Was it just for the money or is something else going on? Did it mean anything to you? How did it make you feel?

Stream of consciousness. Just write everything that comes into your head. You won’t use it all, you can cut stuff later, just get stuff onto the page.

(Practice this with whatever you watch on TV once a night. Write down your response to Eastenders, Spooks, whatever. Just get into the habit of writing down your response to something you’ve seen. If when the film ends and you start to think about what your response to the film was and you’ve been through this process of recording your thoughts before it will be less daunting. Practice.)

Then write down 5 words

You’ve done your notes. You’ve emptied your head. You have at least a side of A4 full of rambling ideas, responses, questions to yourself, things you think are worth finding out about. Now, take a deep breath and - without thinking - write down the first five words that come into your head when you think about the film. This is your language palette. These words give you the essence of what you’ll need to get across in your review. If you then look these words up in a thesaurus you can extend your potential vocabulary even further.

Step 3. Research

You will get press materials with lots of information about the film, but every one of you should be able to research it yourself. This way you are also more likely to come up with something original.

Websites I would visit first:

Google Video (http://www.google.co.uk/video : Do some searches for interviews with the actors

IMDB ( http://www.imdb.com ): To check facts

Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org ) (I know) for general information, but don’t repeat anything you read on it unless you’ve checked it with another reliable source.

Follow any leads you find and note down everything you discover that you think is interesting or that supports your view of the film

Then search online newspaper archive for interviews with the lead actors / director. Read up on the director and everything they’ve done before. Is this the kind of movie/TV show they always do? Are the actors and actresses the same people they always work with? Etc. Go to fan websites and do serious background research. If the film was originally a novel find out about the author of the novel. Again you’re looking to fill a piece of A4. Look all over the place to find as much information about the film as you can. If you find anything interesting, write it down and ALWAYS take a note of where you found it so you can revisit it later.

You will not use all everything you find during your research but everything you discover will help to give you a sense of confidence that you know where the film came from and what it is all about. You have to marinade your brain in the film to give you confidence in your opinion and your knowledge. This confidence will then come out of you when you actually write up your review.

Step 4. Pick out scenes/quotes

Most reviews will pick out a scene or a piece of dialogue to make a point. Are there any bits about the film that stand out to you for being great/terrible? Are there any scenes that sum up the film for you?

Think about set design, costumes, film locations. Take the film apart and think about how it was put together. Any interesting supporting roles worth looking out for? Does anything in the story jar? Did anything make you squirm?

The scenes and bits of dialogue you make a note of will flesh out or ‘prove’ the points about the film you want to make, so keep your wider thoughts about the film in mind when you select things to record.

Recap

So you’ve seen the film and you’re now well on the way to being able to write down your own sense of the movie.

You have:

At least one page of A4 with your initial response to the movie and some potential vocabulary.

At least one page of A4 with loads of facts and bits of interesting information you’ve found from your research

At least one piece of A4 paper filled with bits of dialogues, or specific scenes that stood out to you because they support your opinion - either of the film generally or a specific part for an argument you want to make.

I hope you’re now beginning to realise that you won’t be able to get all of this stuff down in a 700 word review. You have more material than you need. The more the better at this stage. You’ve now gone from thinking ‘what am I going to write?’ to ‘what am I going to leave out?’ All this stuff you’re collating will have to fight to be in your review. At the end of the process you’ll have to start cutting.

But not yet.

Step 5. Think until you have an idea

This is just something that I always do whenever I write anything to give what I’m writing more depth. For me it’s the most important part of any piece of writing. What is the point of what you’re writing? Yes it’s a review, yes it will have lots of facts, an argument etc. But what is the point of it for you? How does this work of art touch you?

In my experience the best way to have ideas is to get out and do something physical while thinking about whatever it is you’re about to write. You’re unlikely to have great ideas while sat in front of a computer screen, so get outside and go for a walk.

Walking is the best thing in my experience, especially if you can walk by the sea, but sometimes an idea comes out of the research process. Just go out with a notebook and a pen and walk around thinking about the film. What is the director trying to tell you? You’re looking for an idea about the film/TV show that you can weave into your review. The central thing about it that touched you. Films, especially, are works of art. Where is the art in what you’ve seen? Art should always be able to pull an idea, or a profound response, out of you. What is it? Be bold. Push yourself. What does the film mean?

In the lecture next week we’ll carry on with this process, looking at how to pool everything you have collated together, and then look at the actual process of writing the review.

Lecture 6 (13/11/09)

Step 6. Pool everything together

Right. So you have your original notes and your language palette. This language palette gives you your emotional response to the film. You have your research. You have some scenes and lines of dialogue that stood out for you and you’ve written why they stood out for you. Hopefully you’re clear about your idea. You should have five or so pages of stuff by now.

The next step is to start turning all this work into a 700 word review. The most obvious issue now is that you have too much stuff. You’re going to have to start choosing what to drop. How do you choose what to keep and what to cut?

a) Highlight any themes in the material you’ve collected - If a similar idea keeps coming up then this could be your argument beginning to take shape.

b) Highlight anything that makes you laugh - be careful though, humour is hard to pull off unless you really hate something – in which case juxtapose negative opinion with florid, ostentatious and exaggerated language (this film was so bad it made me want to gouge out my own eyes with a wooden spoon.)

c) Highlight what you consider to be the most interesting things you found from your research (possibly put this bit in the introduction.)

d) Highlight the words that stand out from your potential vocabulary

e) Highlight your best thoughts and ideas

f) Highlight the quotes and scenes you think are most relevant to the themes in the material you’ve collected.

Now you’re ready to begin writing your review.

WRITING YOUR REVIEW

These are a few things to bear in mind while you’re writing.

CLARITY is the key to a good review. Don’t start writing until you are clear in your mind about what you’re going to say. What is your review going to argue? If you’re unclear in your mind then your review will be unclear too.

THE READER HASN’T SEEN THE FILM. Don’t assume they have. They have no prior knowledge.

DON”T USE CLICHES OR ANY WORD YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. Write with a dictionary and a Thesaurus next to you.

USE CLEAR SENTENCES. Make sure each sentence has a point and a purpose to the review.

EXAGGERATION DOESN’T EQUAL AN OPINION. Writing that the film was ‘unbelievably brilliant’ or ‘really rubbish’ is an opinion with no meaning behind it. What about it was terrible/brilliant? Why? Focus on something specific and then widen out your argument to include other examples that make your case.

HOUSE STYLES

GUARDIAN

Sophisticated friend chatting to you about films.

Readership 20 – 65.

Likely to reference the news or life in general as well as films.

Easy to read but occasional Thesaurus vocabulary.

Persuasive and measured opinion.

Subtle humour.

Ends with concise opinion.

See examples at ( http://www.guardian.co.uk )

TOTAL FILM

Very light and jokey but with sophisticated film knowledge.

Starts with a pithy comment on the film.

15 – 40 readership.

Use tabloid vocabulary.

Obviously funny.

Decisive and forthright opinion.

Ends with a ‘verdict’.

( see examples at http://www.totalfilm.com )

THE VERY BASIC STRUCTURE OF A REVIEW

Intro: a few short sentences that convey the fundamental point your going to make (10 -40 words)

Plot summary: not too much detail (20-100 words)

Main body of your argument where you’ll be considering various questions (500 - 600words)

Conclusion: sum up the success/failure of the film. (50 – 100 words)

Now this list is not designed to be stuck to rigidly. It’s much better if you weave some of those things together, otherwise it’s going to read like an essay, but these are the 4 broad sections of a review with a suggested word length for each. The ideas, research, thoughts and quotes etc you have on your list now need to be given a section to sit in. You might want to start by fitting your review into this structure and then play around with it when you come to edit it later.

1.Introductions

Guardian film reviews usually begin in one of four ways.

a)A quote from the film you can jump off to get you going

This is Peter Bradshaw’s review for Bright Star that starts with a quote from the film:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/05/bright-star-review

So let’s look at the first paragraph. Here we have a quote that becomes an introduction (that gives us his sense of the film) and it also reveals his ‘idea’ for the review. After the first paragraph we know it’s about a poet called Keats, his lover, Fanny. We get the name of the director, the sense that this film is about the lives of the characters but also about all our lives. And also how youth is always overcome by adult compromise and responsibilities. That’s quite an introductory paragraph. Very efficient. Now you have all of that information you can breathe out and relax while the rest of the review teases out the ideas the introduction has touched on.

So when you’re writing your review look back over your introduction and make sure you’re packing in relevant information where you can.

b)A fact about the film you think that the audience will find most interesting

This is a review of Jennifer’s Body that starts with an important fact about the film

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/130890/jennifer-s-body

This one is by Philip French and it starts with probably the most interesting fact about the film likely to interest the reader, who it’s written by. There’s no formal introduction. He then goes straight into a one sentence story synopsis.

Now look at this review of the same movie by Peter Bradshaw

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/06/jennifers-body-review

This one does have an introduction that gives some factual information but also gives you the broad sense of the review.

c)Decisive opinion

This one is for The Men Who Stare at Goats

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/06/the-men-who-stare-at-goats-review

And this one is different too, it starts in a very simple way with firm opinion. ‘Here is a film that made me want to scream with frustration.’ The rest of the review then explains why it made him feel that way.

d) Put it in the context of a current cultural/political event

Now we’ll look at a review for The Fantastic Mr Fox which has another approach, putting it in the context of a current relevant political or cultural news event.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/22/fantastic-mr-fox-review

This is a nice trick, because it pulls you from a real life news story into a review for a film about a talking fox. Think about the newspaper this article is part of, most of the stories around it will be news, so this is a really smart way of pulling the reader in to your review. It’s even more impressive when you think that as a review of a kids movie lots of adults might feel it’s not relevant to them, but the current affairs link will make it seem relevant. I’m not sure how conscious of all this Bradshaw is, but the political opinion of the Guardian is opposed to Fox hunting, so he’s also making a link to his readership who are probably anti hunting as well.

So there we have 4 different approaches in how to start your review from the Guardian. Variants of which you’ll find everywhere. Use one of these and you’ll be off with a good start.

Every Total Film review starts with a pithy one sentence summary of the film but the style of these do vary, as we’ll see. The next paragraph then works as a traditional introduction.

The style of Total Film reviews will appear easier to write than the Guardian, but they are far more restrictive. The Guardian style is harder to pin down so it’s harder to mark. The Total Film style is much easier to recognise, so it’s easier to mark. Total film reviews show great film knowledge. They look inwardly into the world of film and their reviews are seen through a prism of movie knowledge. The Guardian is more outward looking, through the prism of the real world and daily life itself. If you do it in the style of Total Film make sure you do extra background research on other films that are linked or relevant - through the director or actors - to the one you’re reviewing.

Total Film communicates about films to people who are obsessed with movies. The Guardian communicates about films to people who like films but, because it’s a newspaper and not a film magazine, the audience have lots of other diverse reasons for reading the paper too.

In a Total Film review you always get a short, pithy sentence that distills the film into it’s most basic elements. Either of the plot, or the question most likely to come into your head on hearing about the movie, or the thing they think will help you ‘get’ the movie in a single sentence. Then you get the review and at the end you get the verdict.

Here’s the total film review of The Invention of Lying starring Ricky Gervais

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-invention-of-lying

Here the initial paragraph says essentially what everyone is thinking about Ricky Gervais, or at least what this reviewer thinks everyone is thinking about Ricky Gervais. The intro follows.

So this intro very clearly states that your feeling about Ricky Gervais will totally dictate how you feel about this movie. There’s clear opinion here. What does that mean? That it’s more of the same from the man behind the Office. The review then goes into the plot summary, which we’ll come to in a minute.

This is the Total Film review of Up! Which is 800 words so reading it gives you an idea of the extent of the review and the required pace.

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/up-1

It starts with a statement that Pixar have animated everything you can think of. It then goes on to make what it considers the most important point, that they’ve kept away from animating real people. (This isn’t true actually, loads of their films have people in, but the author clearly thinks this is an important point.)

This is a review for The Men Who Stare at Goats

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-men-who-stare-at-goats

So here the film is condensed into the fact that for George Clooney to play funny he needs a comedy moustache. The intro then continues by mentioning the last time Clooney wore a comedy moustache (referencing other films) giving an opinion, that it works and then tells us it was originally a book by Jon Ronson.

2. Plot Summary

Guardian

Summarise the plot with one sentence.Then flesh it out with opinion, factual information or an ‘idea’ you’ve had about the movie.

Let’s look at the Jennifer’s body review again to see how this one deals with the plot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/06/jennifers-body-review

Again, it’s concise – there’s no mention of subplot it’s the basic premise of the movie.

‘A struggling indie band want to sacrifice a virgin to Satan in return for mega-selling fame, but Jennifer, as played by Fox, is no virgin, and the evil ceremony turns her into a parasitic vampire’.

Let’s look at the plot summary in the review for a new film starring Michael Caine called Harry Brown

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/13/harry-brown-review

‘When his only friend, Len (David Bradley), is killed by drug dealers, Harry rediscovers a forgotten part of himself; he was once in the Royal Marines, and now embarks on a revenge campaign against the gang.’

Very simple, concise, with the name of the actor who plays Len. It’s a revenge movie.

Total Film

Simple, short plot synopsis if the story is simple

Plot summary threads through the reviews of films with more complex stories.

Going back to the Total Film review of the Invention of Lying

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-invention-of-lying

Here the plot summary

‘in a world where no one can lie, what would happen if “fat, snub-nosed loser” Mark (Gervais) was suddenly able to fib? Could he get the out-of-his-league girl (Jennifer Garner) and soften the harsh realities of life with white lies?’

Notice how they’ve put in a quote from the film and the names of the two actors in with the plot in a very subtle and unassuming way. Mention the actors early on by their whole name and every time after by their surname.

In the review for Up!

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/up-1

The plot summary spreads throughout the review because the plot is so complex. The story is about an old man whose wife dies who then attaches thousands of helium filled balloons to make his house fly away (without realising a boy who stowed away on his porch) and their subsequent adventures. So this time the plot becomes the narrative structure of the review that all the facts, opinion, quotes, scenes etc are tagged on too. Using the plot to give your review a clear narrative structure is a good idea in complicated films or reviews of 700+ words.

3. Main body of the review

This works for both the Guardian and Total Film, bearing in mind the different house styles mentioned above.

In the main body you’re going to flesh out the points you made in the intro and hinted at in the plot summary and you’re going to mention the things a film review is supposed to mention.

Is the story realistic, does it make sense?

Are the performances believable?

Is it predictable or exciting?

Do you care what happens to the characters?

Is it original in the way it handles obvious storylines?

Is it authentic?

Does the plot make sense to the story or has any of it been fudged, or packed in too quickly or is it stretched out and does it take too long?

Are the lead actors better or worse than in films you’ve seen them in before?

What about evidence of direction? Are the close-ups appropriate? Are scenes of excitement or claustrophobia filmed believably?

Compare it to films of a similar theme, i.e if it’s a romantic love story comparing it to a violent western wouldn’t be appropriate. If it’s a dysfunctional family think about the way families are portrayed in wider culture.

4. Conclusion

Tie everything together with a parting shot that offers a conclusion about the film.

This must follow on from everything else you’ve written. Don’t put a new idea in here.

I should re-iterate that this is a very basic structure and it’s not very subtle. It’s designed to get you off and running. You also have to connect each bit together seamlessly. Total Film reviews have a very specific structure that could conflict with this, so be careful not to repeat yourselves.

5. Review, edit and smarten it all up

Check spelling

Check it all makes sense

Check the word length and cut it down if you have to

Clean it up, go over it with a thesaurus and generally smarten it up.

Leave it 24 hours and do this again.

Remember, the final edit is vital, so spend a good hour making sure your review makes sense and satisfies all the criteria you’ve learned about. If something isn’t clear, don’t be afraid to re-write sections of it or all of it if you have to. Re-writes are always tighter than first drafts.

Good luck.

Lecture 7 (TV REVIEWS) 27/11/09

Ok, so the basic process of preparing for writing a TV review is the same as the process we’ve already looked at for films but there are some differences. This lecture will look at those differences.

Let’s start with the obvious, then we won’t miss anything simple.

1.What is the difference between a film and a TV show?

TV shows have smaller budgets. This means you’ll get characters actors rather than ‘stars’ (this doesn’t mean TV actors are worse, just not as famous). They’ll use cheaper locations, less ostentatious sets, less money for costumes, far fewer (or no) special effects. There will be all sorts of budgetary constraints that you have to bear in mind when writing a review. Comparing the special effects on Doctor Who and Avatar would not be entirely fair.

TV shows are shorter. This means programmes will often be shown that are part of a series rather than with everything happening in one hit. This totally changes the pace of what is going on. The canvas is smaller and more intense than a movie. In the first ten minutes of the film There Will Be Blood (starring Daniel Day Lewis) the lead character is alone in a dark mineshaft laying explosives. There is no dialogue for about ten minutes, just lots of bizarre jangling music that pulls you into the film in a slightly bizarre and disconcerting way. You would never be able to do that in a half hour TV programme because you don’t have time. A short TV programme has to use different methods to get a similar audience response. This is just one example of how TV works within different parameters than films. You’ve got to try to decipher the methods a tv show can use to push you for a response.

TV shows are put on much quicker. The turn around time for a movie can be years. Some TV shows are live. Even big budget TV shows are usually made only a year in advance. This means TV shows can be more topical and react to events far quicker than a movie. What does this mean? Films tend to be more self contained. TV has to compete and exist along side other forms of media so it can and often does absorb current affairs. Think of how the newspapers keep tabs on something like Big Brother, that would never happen with a film.

TV shows are not rated (U, 12, PG, 15, 18)

There is a 9pm ‘watershed’, which means only supposedly family friendly things can be show on terrestrial TV before this time (although some soaps have stories about rape, murder etc before this time) but you will never get the kind of horror or violence on TV that you can see in the cinema. Even when films are shown on TV really will be cut if they are excessively graphic. So again, this means TV has to operate within tighter parameters than a film. TV shows have to come up with other ways to scare, shock or excite people that don’t include graphic violence, horror or sex. If a soap opera does a story on domestic violence it will be portrayed far more suggestively in Eastenders than in Nil By Mouth (starring Ray Winstone) but that doesn’t mean a soap has less impact. Covering a storyline like that on Eastenders will have a far, far greater impact than any movie because of the number of people watching it. Films have a much greater freedom in that they have more devices at their disposal, but TV can have more impact.

TV shows can be more experimental. They don’t have to contend with the machinery of the movie system. Films are astonishingly difficult to get made. Especially anything truly radical, that is why cinema relies on ‘stars’ because films cost so much to produce. It’s hard to get something made on TV too, but not as hard.

2.How might these things impact on how TV shows are made?

It puts a much greater emphasis on things about the production process that are cheap. If you can;t use special effects and film stars to excite your audience then you have to rely on other things to captivate your audience. Like dialogue. In this sense TV is more like theater than film. The subject matter needs to resonate with the audience on a more fundamental level. You are more likely to have a TV show take on real life than the escapism of the film world. That’s a bit of a generalisation but I think it’s a fair one. So make sure you pay attention to the script.

Issues and ideas can be examined in greater depth. ALthough each individual episode of a TV series may be shorter than a film over a series you have much more time to tell your story. Look at something like The Wire. The characters were examined and explored over 50+ hours of programming so they get developed way, way beyond any character you are introduced to over a 90 minute film. Over the whole of that series the city of Baltimore becomes a character in itself.

3.What’s the difference between a film and tv show REVIEW?

Film reviews tell you whether or not something is worth watching

TV reviews tell you whether or not something was worth watching

That is a big difference. Why would anyone want to read a review of a programme that was on yesterday? If you watched it you watched it. If you didn’t you can’t. (Well, you can now with iPlayer etc but before the days of TV on demand TV review columns were still very popular.)

It will hopefully be obvious that the reasons you might want to read a TV review of a programme that has already been on are also the reasons for writing such a review. So these reasons are very important. Let’s look at them.

People like to compare their thoughts about the programme with those of the reviewer - this tells you that you need your OPINION to be up front and clear

The reviewer might have extra knowledge that could help the show make more sense or just be of interest to someone who saw the programme - Your review needs to contain extra knowledge or a wider interpretation of the programme. So you need to put in FACTS and show evidence of RESEARCH

You can find out if you ‘got’ the point of the programme - You’ll have to show you got the point of the programme. What is it about? Why has it been made? Here you need evidence that you’ve thought about it and some up with an IDEA

The review and the programme become a kind of combined entertainment someone might enjoy reading afterwards - this means your review and the programme will need to interconnect. You’ll have to reference elements of it all the time using your review as a kind of summary of the show. For this you’ll need an ARGUMENT, PROOF, QUOTES

To keep you up to date with what’s on TV, even if you didn’t watch it yourself - Is the programme part of some wider phenomenon or genre? You should be able to put the programme in a wider cultural context that the reader might know about (politics, Alistair Campbell). This means you need to show relevant CULTURAL REFERENCES

You normally watch it but you missed an episode and want to catch up - this is crucial, it means you’ll have to give some kind of PLOT SYNOPSIS in your review.

So there you go. These are all the things you need to put in your review.

Feedback

daniel.kieran@port.ac.uk

dan kieran