Movie Reviews Rotten to Awesome: Write, Get Paid
Earn Money Writing Product Reviews for Movies, TV, and DVD Online
Writing performance reviews for anything is a challenge. To do it well, you’ve got to have a love, passion, or interest, for the subject matter. Many writer reviews online seem to favor movies, DVD, Blu-Ray, and video games, as the subject of choice.
Getting Started
Love what you write about. Know how to express your thoughts in ways that readers can clearly understand. Everyone hates a pretentious critic except the people who employ them.
(And believe me, there are plenty.)
Online, people are more no-nonsense. They want to know quickly whether or not a film or TV show or video game is worth their time. So use clear language featuring strong grammar skills.
How to Write Reviews
You are the writer. The writer reviews a DVD. These generally should consist of four parts: how did you feel about the film? Video quality? Audio? Special features? Remember, people are reading your review because they’re interested in the product. Therefore, a little more detail is required than the product descriptions you might read on Amazon.
Movie Review Rating
When giving a movie review rating, address what you liked and didn’t like about the film. Also, give a brief, spoiler-free synopsis. There is now a review called a spoiler review meant to dig a little deeper into the content. Do not write a spoiler review unless you warn your audience ahead of time. Fair warning clears you of any discontent when the audience finds out Darth Vader is Luke’s father.
Now remember, you’re probably not reading this unless you love movies (and talking about them). You had to know Darth and Luke were related!
Video
Remember to tell your audience whether the disc is widescreen or full frame. Include the aspect ratio, and note anything of value, whether a strength or a weakness, about the overall appearance of the image. Did it have strong colors? Deep contrast? More grain than a cereal bar? Your audience wants to know what they’re getting for their money.
Audio
Touch on the audio tracks included with the disc. Some are known to have as many as three or four. Mention them all, but provide details on the one with the most speaker capacity. Note background noise, dialog levels, and how these things are handled in the speaker disbursement.
Special Features
Give a rundown of each special feature. Many discs do not include special features. The standard single-disc special edition runs around thirty minutes unless there is an audio commentary. These count with the total time of special features included on a disc.
So You Love Movies – Now What?
Now you’ll have to find a market for your work. The next installment focuses specifically on this challenge. For samples of the standard DVD review, visit Upcoming Discs. And while you're there, check out some of the other media reviews as well. Like screenwriters say about learning their art form, the best way to pick it up is by reading the work of those already doing it.
Roger Ebert
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