Film Review Guidlines

Film Review Guidelines
Paragraph 1:  Offer your overall impression of the film while mentioning the movie's title, director, and key actors.
Paragraph 2:  Summarize the plot of the film
Paragraph 3: How did the actors portray key character roles?  Did they fulfill your expectations given your knowledge of the original novel or play (if one exists)?
Paragraph 4:  Were any particular film techniques used in key scenes?  How did the film techniques anmd music enhance the setting and themes of the film?  You may need two paragraphs to explain this information.
Paragraph 5: Address how well the film represents the novel or play.  Offer evidence for your opinion. Remember to mention use of symbols and literary devices.  Do they "transfer" from the novel/play into the movie well?
Paragraph 6: Ending paragraph--your last opportunity to guide the reader.  Offer a clincher that tells the reader to attend the film or not.
 
Guidelines by M. Garbis and C. Adams,  Baltimore, 2001.
 
General Terms
    • Shot: continuous, unedited piece of film of any length
    • Scene: a series of shots that together form a complete episode or unit of the narrative
    • Storyboard: Drawn up when designing a production. Plans AV text and shows how each shot relates to sound track. (Think comic strip with directions - like a rough draft or outline for a film.)
    • Montage: The editing together of a large number of shots with no intention of creating a continuous reality. A montage is often used to compress time, and montage shots are linked through a unified sound - either a voiceover or a piece of music.
    • Parallel action: narrative strategy that crosscuts between two or more separate actions to create the illusion that they are occurring simultaneously
Shots
    • Long Shot: Overall view from a distance of whole scene often used as anestablishing shot - to set scene. Person - will show whole body.
    • Medium or Mid Shot: Middle distance shot - can give background... [continues]

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