Wanting to further research how professional film reviews are laid out, I decided to look at whether
EMPIRE Magazine's website had a notably different format to their magazine reviews. For the sake of consistency, I looked for their
Hitchcock review; the way the online version of the review has been laid out is very interesting, and reflects the different ways people use online reviews as opposed to magazine reviews.
Firstly, accessing the review page for
Hitchcock does not bring the reader straight to the full review as accessible in the magazine: it brings them to a 'landing page' (fig. 1), featuring only the plot summary, film bio, review verdict and star rating. (click to enlarge)
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| fig. 1 |
The star rating takes centre-stage, being placed directly underneath the title and is just as large.
This design choice reflects the different roles reviews play online to reviews in a dedicated film magazine: people searching online for a film are less likely to want to read in-depth reviews and more likely to
only want to know quick, easily-accessible and basic information such as the review score, while subscribers to
EMPIRE Magazine are more likely to be
more interested in films as a medium, and care more about what a reviewer has to say on the craftsmanship of a film. The full review
is available online (fig. 2), but requires the viewer to click on the "full review" link.
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