Mar 4th Update

Hey BasedonBooks staffers,

Snow day and midterms aside, the first batch of reviews are now up and
our site is officially live! So go check it out and see what we've got
up so far. Also, our next big story is "The Watchmen" so everyone
should start hyping the site among their friends.

Now the big archive due date is this week. Here is what people have
signed up for and what I expect to see in my inbox by Saturday at NOON
[I'm giving you guys some extra time since I know a lot of midterms
are this week.] Keep in mind, we are a journalistic endeavor and
deadlines are paramount.

• Brie Britzius - Interview with a Vampire
• Sean Conway - A Clockwork Orange
• Tanya Ibarra - Choke
• Alex Gonzalez - Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
• Katie Halley - Atonement
• Courtney Holbrook - There Will Be Blood
• Gage Henry - Lady in the Water
• Stephanie Jackson - Sin City
• Amelia Kohli - Everything is Illuminated
• John McCurdy - V for Vendetta
• Lindsay Oberst — Twilight
• Chuck Palmer - Into The Wild
• Sarit Schneider - Pride & Prejudice
• Marie Uhler-Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide
• Kathleen Walsh - I Am Legend

As I said before, I prefer the reviews come as Word .docs and don't
forget to include the textbox info at the end of your reviews:

Author:
Book Release Date:
Director:
Notable Actors:
Movie Release Date:
Three-Four major differences (if any) between the book and movie,
written in short bullet points:

Reviews should hit around the 500-word mark with all text included


The next deadline for archive pieces is April 4th, sign up starts on Friday!

A couple of you have yet to sign up for a book assignment yet. If
you've signed up for an upcoming release that doesn't premiere until
much later, I still expect an archive piece or something from you in
April.

Again, check to make sure you are included in the Contacts list on the
staff site and on the basedonbooks.net "About Us" site.


Some style issues we noticed this time around that will benefit
everyone to know:

• Passive verbs are the quickest way to bog down your sentences and
bore the smack out of your readers. By passive verbs I mean, "The film
is, the actors are, This has been." Instead, replace them with active
verbs. It conveys more using less words and makes it more exciting:
"The director swings, the actors revive, the film serves/plays/acts"

• Writing an effective lede: The first sentence of your review is a
deal-breaker. If it doesn't catch the reader, they'll stop reading.
The key to a strong lede is to the come at them with an engaging
opinion and not a dry summary of what the bovie is about. This isn't
academic writing, so have fun with your writing. Read other reviews
and try to figure out why one review's beginning may be more engaging
than another. Learn from it.

• Formatting for web: Each one of your graphs should have no more than
2-4 sentences. Any more will more than likely make it blocky and hard
to read.

• Remember, our purpose isn't just to review the movie but to review
it from the perspective of a person who has read the novel. Every
point you make should eventually tie-in to how the movie compares to
the book.

Any further questions should be posted onto the forum and one of the
editors will answer it.


And….SCENE. I look forward to everyone's work on Saturday.

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