The Art of Film Reviewing Today

THE ART OF FILM REVIEWING TODAY

Introduction

The technology surrounding both film consumption and journalism have undergone seismic changes in the last 20 years. And yet, film journalism hasn’t done much deep introspection to find out if it is satisfying the needs of their readers now that readership habits and film viewing habits have changed so much. Bunker 15 Films sponsored a study to see if the readers of film reviews have anything to tell us about how journalists and entertainment publications could serve them better. We asked them if they thought film reviews were too long or too short; if they would rather listen to a podcast or a YouTube video; if they read reviews at all? The results show a picture of our modern world and how it is affecting readers of film reviews.

Too much information

The flow of information on the internet is only increasing with each day passing. There´s always new content, more interesting than the one you’re looking at, making us jump from one page to the other, merely glancing and then moving on. It would be of no surprise that the bookmarks tab of our browsers is full of pages we visited and abandoned, promising ourselves that we will come back and read them attentively… later.

The web traffic analysis firm Chartbeat, estimates that - on average – for everyone that lands on a page, only 38% continue reading past the first paragraph. The number of readers plummets even more as we scroll down (1). For film reviewers, this means that much of the reviews we carefully elaborate go unread even by those that land on our page, missed under the avalanche of data streaming before our readers. The picture may appear grim but all isn’t lost.

The importance of reviews

The first bit of good news? With the increasing number of films available to the marketplace, film reviews appear to be becoming more important than ever. Reviews are an integral part of the film consumer decision-making process. According to data provided by marketing firm Vendasta, 92% of consumers consult reviews before deciding to buy a product (2). Although this study was not specific to film, it underscores how conditioned the consumer base has become to reading reviews before making a final decision on anything.

People read film reviews to gain a basic understanding of both the film’s plot and quality. Readers could be curious about anything from dialogue to music to simply if the film merits 100+ minutes of our time. Preferably, they want to read an opinion from a trusted authority on the subject. After all, we are social animals and Social Proof is key to our acceptance of almost anything. Readers want qualitative information, even in Entertainment media (not just puff material), as Vice Magazine states in its 2017 piece, Film Journalism is Broken (3).

The survey results: What viewers want

A survey conducted recently by Project Lodestar (www.projectlodestar.org) shed some light on viewers preferences. With a sample size of 458 people across English-speaking countries (mostly US, England and Australia), here are some of the key findings:

For starters, an eye-popping stat about the lengths of movie reviews preferred by consumers:

• A whopping 74% of respondents said they preferred reviews of just 1-2 paragraphs!
• While only 24% said their favorite length was roughly a page of 500 words – the typical length of most film reviews.
• Only 3-4% favored long reviews.
• NOTE: This would lead us to believe most readers want a quick gist and highlights rather than all the in-depth nuance in a typical film review. This finding should solicit mixed emotions at best from many film journalists that are sensitive to ‘dumbing down’ a movie review and removing the rich nuance that goes with thoughtful film critique.

When asked “I would read more film reviews if….” – we again got a view into the world of the typical Internet consumer of today who’s attention span is divided and difficult to capture. This survey question was Pick-As-Many-As-You-Like. The answers were not mutually exclusive.

• The top answer should be of no surprise having read the comments above: Almost half (48%) said they would read more reviews if they were shorter.
• Next most popular: 31% of respondents said they would ‘read’ more reviews if they were available to be watched via YouTube or some other streaming video.
• Third most popular: 23% said they would read more reviews if they were emailed to them directly in a curated mailing list. It is curious that with the prevalence of mailing lists few exist for film reviews.
• The fourth most popular answer also tells us about our shifting world. 15% of respondents said they would read more reviews if Television Episodic content were reviewed. This is interesting because most Episode television shows ARE reviewed. Perhaps this is a sign that some entertainment journalism is not being marketed well to an audience that is interested.   

55% of our respondents read reviews on Review Aggregator sites like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic. Shockingly, only 3% have a favorite publication or movie critic to whom they regularly return! Clearly, individual critics and publications could do better retaining a loyal audience.

Review aggregator sites have been a good way for critics to gain credibility, yet our survey shows that a critic’s status as RT or Metacritic certified might not help traffic to their websites:

• 25% of readers only look at the overall score without looking at the reviews.
• 29% scan a few of the review highlights without reading any in full.
• Only 23% go to the trouble to click on and read even one of the reviews in depth.
• The rest were outliers who either never read reviews or read more than 1.

What about the types of films respondents were watching?

• Not many are going to theaters very often: 49% of our respondents said they watch 0-1 movies in theaters per month.
• Only 10% of respondents say they go to the movies weekly.
• Film viewing at home is way up: Over 70% of respondents said they watch at least one Streaming VOD movie a week at home with (a surprisingly high) 33% saying they watch 2 or more movies at home per week.
• NOTE: Despite a stubborn resistance by many publications to cover Streaming VOD films, these numbers might get them to reconsider.

A lesson to be learned from Roger Ebert

One of the most popular and recognized figures within film journalism is Roger Ebert. In his reviews, he gave his opinions in a personal and unfiltered tone yet he considered the many possible tastes of his readers. As a model, his career is worthy of study and, possibly, emulation. It cannot be denied that Ebert was an innovator, an aggressive adopter of new technologies and a relentless (self)marketer. Ebert pioneered the idea of putting film reviews on television with his show “Sneak Previews” and then “At the Movies.”

Ebert was a larger than life personality. He and Siskel went to the Oscars, walked the red carpet and were interviewed, as any other celebrity, along with the stars of the movies he reviewed. He and Siskel would go on the Tonight Show and yuck it up with Johnny Carson. Ebert was a forward thinker who knew that to be “Influential,” you had to be famous. Admirably, he never pandered to the lowest common denominator or stooped to wild antics to get attention. But, you see very few Rogert Ebert’s in film journalism in 2019. Today’s movie critic is primarily a writer and journalist, first. Celebrity is not desirable to most writers. Writing often means a solitary working style that shuns the spotlight and spurns self-promotion.

However, the lesson to be learned from Roger Ebert, (we think) is that using technology, embracing innovation and self-marketing are essential to reach a large audience and widen your “Influence.” Perhaps we will see in the coming years more film writers building a loyal following and using innovative technologies. It seems that even something as simple as maintaining a mailing list most writers neglect.

New circumstances, new media?

The possibility to reach a wider audience with video platforms such as Vimeo or YouTube has proven successful for many film journalists. By incorporating the style of the vlogging format, channels such as YourMovieSucks.org, RedLetterMedia, ralphthemoviemaker, and Chris Stuckman have managed to get the attention of hundreds of thousands of viewers. Others video journalists take a more academic approach to film reviews presented via streaming video. Some vloggers like KOGONADA, Nerdwriter, Every Frame a Painting, Lindsay Ellis, Lessons from the Screenplay create video essays with careful editing and deep reflections to demonstrate the educational possibilities of these platforms.

Another area of interest is podcasting. According to data from consulting firm Convince and Convert, approximately 48 million people in the US listen to podcasts; and about one-third of Americans between ages 25 and 54 listen to them monthly. (6) The plethora of podcasts available for listening to film reviews, interviews, and discussions could be getting wider in the coming years.  Without having to compete for limited radio frequencies, podcasting is an accessible medium for many film journalists.

The takeaway

Film journalism is not going to die until cinema itself goes away but we should reconsider some of the industry’s practices if we want to retain or reach bigger audience. In a world with so much content produced daily, quality and being different is a must. Also critical in today’s writing is putting content in a format that is easily digestible for social media consumers, mobile device users and readers deluged with many times more content than they could possibly read.  

First, we have mixed emotions about our results that 74% of our readers would prefer to cut through all the rich detail and get a Roger Ebert-style “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Down.” This is not an educated way to look at cinema and yet such a sizable preference across multiple continents of English speakers gives us pause before we can dismiss it. We cannot cheat the film readers who look for good details but perhaps we can structure our reviews in a way that cater to the needs of the busy mom needing to find something family-friendly to put on with her kids or the busy professional looking for something to watch in their evening. There is a way to satisfy the needs of the audience and also stick to our best instincts, as writers.

Second, since Ebert pioneered video film reviews some 40+ years ago, we are on safe ground to say there is a market for this format of content today. Podcasts, video blogs, web series… there are many formats that film criticism can take that would set a critic apart from the pack. Self-promotion, although against the natural inclination of most writers, would serve the need for audience-building.

Third, readers appear open to receiving reviews sent to them, presumably viewable through their mobile device. The need to search for film reviews was mentioned as an inconvenience whereas being “pushed” the content did not appear to be an insurmountable annoyance. It will be interesting to see if “Films that could interest you” becomes a common Subject Line in email lists of our soon-to-be favored critic.

Fourth, the shunting of Streaming VOD films in favor of the Theatrical blockbusters coming to town appears to be a mistake as the number of films people are watching seems to favor VOD films in the range of 8 or 10 – to 1. With many consumers having eliminated the trip to the neighborhood movie theater all together. Since many publications continue to spurn Streaming films (often out of necessity – just not being able to cover that many films), it will be interesting to see how that market of readers can be captured. The mindshare of viewers will continue to migrate towards Streaming VOD films and someone will need to fill the void left by major publications.

In a short attention span world, film reviews will be as relevant as journalists make them. The demand for an educated opinion will always be there. Interest in film journalism remains very high. Journalists will simply have to make it easier for their content to be found. Good luck and happy writing. Please keep in touch with Bunker 15 Films if you are interested in reviewing Indie film, reach out to us at films@bunker15films.com ! Thanks so much for reading!

ABOUT BUNKER 15 FILMS

This study was funded by Bunker 15 Films as part of their ongoing research efforts to understand how the indie film market intersects with film journalism. Bunker 15 is a Los Angeles and New York company focused on helping independent films and researching best practices to reach audiences. Using the latest technology and social media learning algorithms, the online marketing and public relations company helps independent films find their audience.

References:

1.     Manjoo, F. (2013, June 06). You Won't Finish This Article. Retrieved December  10, 2018, from https://slate.com/technology/2013/06/how-people-read-online-why-you-wont- finish-this-article.html

2.   50 Important Online Reviews Stats You Need to Know [infographic] (2018, February 06)...Retrieved  December   10,  2018,  from  https://www.vendasta.com/blog/50-stats-you- need-to-know-about-online-reviews

3. Ewens, H.  (2017, August 15). Film Journalism Is Broken. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/d389jx/film-journalism-is-broken

4.   McMahon, J.  (2013,  April  08).  Why Roger Ebert Was the Greatest Movie Reviewer. Retrieved December  12, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2013/04/08/why-roger-ebert-was-the- greatest-movie-reviewer/

5.   Wilson, P. W., Pamela, Kemp, R., McCance, R., Renee, Baum, W., . . . Varun. (2018, December 21).  8  Incredibly Simple Ways  to Get More People  to Read Your Content.  Retrieved December 12, 2018, from https://www.copyblogger.com/scannable-content/

6.   Baer, J. (2016, April 07). The 5 Most  Significant 2016 Podcast Statistics – Convince & Convert – Medium. Retrieved December 10 2018, from https://medium.com/convince- and-convert/the-5-most-significant-2016-podcast-statistics