PB1A
Whether we like to admit it or not, Americans love movies.
From romance, comedy, and horror, to sci-fi, action, and drama, we love a good
story that takes us away from our own lives for a few hours. Of course, there
is a process in seeing a film that involves multiple steps. Before even buying
the tickets, the majority of people watch the trailer or read a short review of
what the movie is about to determine if they actually want to go spend their
hard earned dollars on the film.
The synopsis generally consists of
a short blurb about the plot line, while highlighting the most exciting points
and reasons of why to go see it. It does it’s best to spark the interest of the
reader to go see the film without giving too much away. There are a number of
ways to spark the interest of the readers through certain words that pertain to
each genre. For example in the new ‘Furious 7’ movie that was just released,
the synopsis starts off with words such as “unstoppable” and “international
action.” The words are spot on with giving the correct impression to the reader
as the film takes place on multiple continents and covers many large action car
chase and combat scenes. The review also touches on certain personal aspects of
the film such as the actors in it, and how one of them passed away during the
filming of the movie. This especially tugs on the heartstrings of the reader
and employs a pathos persuasion method. If you look at a different genre of
movie however, you’re going to read a very different review. The newly released
animated children’s movie titled ‘Home’ is about aliens conquering earth. Since
the targeted audience for the film is young people and their families, the
synopsis uses words like “Friendship” and “Fun.” This method takes a serious
and presumably dramatic topic, alien invasion, and makes it seem lighthearted
and like something the whole family would enjoy going to see. Another example
is the synopsis for the movie ‘It Follows’ which is a dark suspense thriller.
The synopsis itself is similar to the movie as it provides little detail for
what is actually going to take place and uses words such as “inescapable,”
“strange,” and “disturbing.” For those that like suspense and adrenaline
rushing plot lines, this review surely caters perfectly.
The art of
a good movie synopsis is greatly unrecognized. One must pull the reader in with
a splashy hook while not revealing too much. They must encompass the entire
tone of the movie into a few single sentences. Through carefully chosen words
and phrases, the writers pick the readers up on a roller coaster and climb up
and up and drop them off at the top of the climb where the only way down is to
go see the movie and find out what actually happens. It is a literary art
combined with intelligent advertising techniques that get all of us going to
the movies year after year.
First of all, I just really enjoy your background. It makes me feel like I’m living in a studio apartment above New York, sitting on the couch and reading the newspaper. But more importantly, I really enjoyed your post! I think the tone was light and casual enough to welcome in the reader and at the same time provided enough facts and examples to be informative. Actually, reading your post, I see exactly where I went wrong with my own post! Which was really helpful for me to see. I also really love the diction throughout, your word choice definitely caught and held my attention and kept me focused on the purpose of the writing. Overall, I really wouldn't change anything other than maybe make it a bit more clear in the intro that you’re focusing on synapses, but that’s a minute detail. Great piece!
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting read! I like how you put emphasis on the flexibility of this genre, in the sense that a synopsis is tailored a little differently for each genre of movie. I also liked how you mentioned that the writer must be careful with word choice to make a successful synopsis. It seems pretty tough to be able to grab the reader’s attention, while also taking care not to spoil any big plot elements. The roller coaster analogy at the end sums it up perfectly; it feels like the synopsis sets you up for the full movie experience, while the climb to the top of a roller coaster prepares you for the complete ride. It’s interesting how just one genre can be written in so many different ways in order to connect with audiences of ranging demographics. Thanks for a great read, all of your points were spot on!
ReplyDeleteI really, really enjoyed your topic! I’d never thought about movie synopses as a genre before, so it was really awesome to watch you deconstruct the language and components of a movie synopsis and give them meaning. Speaking of which, I really like how you focused on the careful wording of the synopses. Again, I never really thought about it before, but the evidence you provided for how the writers choose certain phrases and words to include and how the writing style changes from movie to movie and genre to genre. I also really enjoyed and appreciated that you provided evidence for all of your claims. Having examples of the conventions at work in the actual body of the text was really helpful and made your writing very clear and understandable. This was a very cool and unique topic to choose and I think you really nailed it! Awesome job.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was super interesting because I'm a big movie fan but also because you did a really great job writing this! Not to copy what Stephanie said above but I never even thought about how movie synopsis have their own genre. I know Zack said today in class that some people didn't write about textual genres but I think you could argue that movie synopsis use both visual and textual aspects to attract an audience. I've never really thought about it before but I totally had a light-bulb moment when you pointed out that movies always use particular words that they want to stick in your mind, words like thrilling and adventure and all those quotes from reviews that movie trailers always use. I think that every time I see a movie trailer from now on I'll probably analyze it differently! Anyways, I thought you did an awesome job with the assignment and really broke down movie synopsis as a genre and showed how there are very clear characteristics for how the synopsis are, but that there is still wiggle room for each one to be unique. Great job!
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