ANCILLARY- DPS Analysis 1

Considering film review double page spreads don't really vary depending on the genre of the film being reviewed, I felt it remained appropriate to analyse a double page spread on The Amazing Spider-Man from Empire magazine. The aim of every film review is to give reader's an insight into the film and to give them the writer's personal opinion on it. For some they rely on reviews to determine whether or not a film is worth seeing in the cinema.

I personally loved the layout of this particular double page spread, particularly the use of the main image essentially being the background of the pages. I felt it really immersed me into the film and helped it come alive, whilst also being a nice visual image for the reader when they're reading the article. It also just generally makes the page more visually appealing and interesting to look at. With this double page spread they didn't choose a screenshot from the film for the main image, but instead a specially shot photo including the main hero, which is obviously appropriate considering the title is the name of the hero. This is more common with bigger Hollywood films due to their significantly larger budgets. As an image it works very effectively as it not only shows off the main character, which helps attract their target audience due to the fact it's a running series of Spiderman films and comics, but the mise-en-scene perfectly connotes to the audience aspects of the narrative and the genre. The costume is iconic in the MARVEL franchise and this, along with the pose, gets it across to audiences not familiar with MARVEL that it's a superhero film. The fact that Spiderman is the only part of the double page spread in colour helps draw attention to his character. 

It's rare to see a film review with only one image, and this double page spread is no exception. As well as the main image it contains four screenshots from the actual film- a necessity when reviewing a film. Without anything to visualise it makes it a more difficult read. Each of the screenshots are from completely different scenes so as to have more of a variation, and I like how they all contain different characters. By showing off all the different characters it makes sure that more of the film is covered, as a film review is supposed to cover the entire film rather than just on aspect, scene or character. The use of an image of Emma Stone follows Laura Mulvey's 1975 theory that argues women in the media are used as; "Erotic objects of desire". Although she isn't the main image, her character was chosen to be a side image to attract the male audience. It breaks conventions by having no behind the scenes images but these don't need to be included for a review, they're more so just an added bonus for people very interested in the film industry rather than just the films themselves. However the choice of people for the images supports Sarita Malik's 1998 theory that states "Black and Asian audiences are still not sufficiently catered for". This double page spread shows no variation in race or culture and although this will represent a majority of their target audience it still leaves other ethnicities unrepresented in the media- an issue still prominent today.

The quote chosen focuses on the acting- they can have the flexibility to choose what aspect of the film to comment on. Quotes will always be in bigger text so as to draw more attention, so the writer will pinpoint on part of the film they feel most strongly about. As Empire magazine is a very big and mainstream magazine they have a wider audience than smaller ones such as Sight&Sound meaning their audience is not necessarily just consisting of people really passionate about film. This means that a large amount of people in their target audience will be more interested in the performance of their favourite/large actors/actresses than the success of, for example, the cinematographer. This means a quote on a large actor attracts people to read the article as they're a fan, or just recognise the actor.

The content of the article contains and reviews every aspect of the film from the acting, to the ability of the cinematographer to the sound and mise-en-scene. This is important for audience's to get a full view and opinion on the whole film, rather than just certain parts of it.