Film review on The Matrix: Reloaded
The main aim for this piece was to persuade with a second aim to entertain the reading audience. I chose this genre because it gave me the chance to explore the language within the genre but also the presentation. My targeted audience was from fifteen to twenty as I feel this age range will read the film review on “The Matrix Reloaded” which I did my piece on. I looked at a number of film reviews and their style but I decided to create my own with my ideas, which I hope made it, more, creative.
Throughout my piece I have tried to add humour as well as adding relevant and consistant points. This is shown in the section “the story so far”:
“for one, you’re stark raving crazy”
I have used this humour because I was trying to steer away from the standard review because I wanted to personalise it with my own unique style.
Developing on this I didn’t want to have too much comedy within the review as I feel it would be hard to sustain it to a high a quality if I persisted with it through out the piece. So I included it in short sharp bursts to add `colour` to the review. When I did add the comedy I wanted to bring the reader back to the point I was trying to get across with phrases like: “seriously though”. This helps to remind the reader that the most important part of the writing is not the comedy but the actual review.
I tried to use the above technique to involve the reader but I also this by using words like “you’re” and “we”. These pro nouns makes the reader think that you are talking directly to them which keeps them involved in the writing.
As the main aim of the piece was to persuade and secondly to entertain I had to choose my language very carefully. So I decided that I would use a lot of positive emotive adjectives to persuade my readers to share my opinion of the film:
“funky” “cool” “impressive”
The other main thing I had to think about was the audience I was writing for. As I aimed it at fifteen to twenty years old I tried to include some teenage jargon:
“Check out these visuals”
I used the phrase “check out”as I feel that the bulk of the people who would read this would relate to this kind of language as it addresses them in a friendly tone.
Finally one of the main features of my piece is the layout and presentation. This is a key part because when people pick up a review of something the first thing that attracts them is how it looks. So I have tried to do this also by including a front cover which I put there to attract the reader and gives them a brief introduction of what the review is about.
Where I think theses presentational devices works best was in the main review. I included a picture from the scene with writing wrapped around it. The writing is actually about the picture, which gives the reader a taster to what the film will be like. This in my opinion is the form of persuasion as it makes the reader want to see the rest of the film.
In my writing I made a lot of amendments in the presentational side of my review. As you can see from my first drafts, the presentation is bland so I had to change so it was appealing to the eye. I did this buy using appropriate pictures from the film to complement the writing. The other main thing I did to the presentation was to use a background of “The Matrix code” which is a trademark in the films, but I feel this could only be truly appreciated by a “Matrix” fan.
Regarding the actual writing the first draft I did was the style I was looking for so I only had to fine-tune it which gave me the opportunity to concentrate on how it looked.
In my opinion the most successful thing which was included in my piece was the presentation and the way I adapted to my target audience.
The presentation in the final draft in my opinion looked really professional and captured the mood of the films.
I thought my language in my writing really suited my targeted audience, this is shown here:
“get ready for the ride of your life”
I think that the age range that would read this would relate to this in a way they could appreciate.
A major problem that faced me when I was writing my review was trying to get my presentation right. I found it hard to produce the picture I had in my mind, which I wanted it to like. But I got there in there in the end with a lot of fiddling around on the computer.
Overall I am happy with my final piece as I feel I met all of the criteria for writing to persuade and also adding my own style. If I was to do this piece of work again I would do some more research on the film as I feel this would strengthen my writing further.
