http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jun/17/1?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

why is reviewing dance a silent activity?

The social aspect of racing is a revelation. Reviewing dance is a mostly silent activity, but here I get to banter with the bookies, embrace fellow winners and chat with a jockey.

Visual Outcome Reflection: Squaring Up Again

This is my next storyboard. After sitting on the previous one for a while, reflecting on how to best convey my voice and slimming down the story even more, I wanted to revise. This time I started storyboarding based on audio. This was instantly an easier way for me to think about what would happen next, and how to match/contrast images with audio. I also realized how many gaps had been missing in my other storyboard. That one was dealing with more components and I hadn't planned how they would be shown. This new one is more focused, but I think there are twice as many squares. It feels more precise and clear to me.

I've been revisiting my footage and gathering the other films that I need. I've also decided that there are a couple of sections where my actual writing will need to be a part of the film. I didn't feel comfortable leaving just images, and I couldn't find the exact audio I needed, so to make sure things are super-clear, I'll be overlaying text in a couple of spots throughout the film. I think this will serve as signposting for points and pacing changes. I also felt that even as I explored more and more ways of visually telling the story, I wasn't completely comfortable leaving my text out of it. A few lines here and there to tighten the story will help, I think.

Visual Outcome Reflection: Squaring Up

I started doing a more conventional type of storyboarding. Well, I dont' know if it's more conventional. I just drew a bunch of squares and started filling them in a way that made sense.

And that was the problem.

A few steps before I realized how helpful it was to storyboard based on audio. Drawing out the boxes made me forget this. Instead I started making a script/story based on visuals. This was confusing. I kept going off track. And the story didn't feel clear. Even when I thought I had a developed a good image, I felt like it wasn't supported. For some reason I pressed on until I felt I had reached an ending for what I wanted to say.

Still, organizing my thoughts in this way was beneficial in terms of knowing what was available. Suddenly when I saw a square, I knew I needed to be able to fill it with something. This fear/excitement made me feel a little more creative with how I told my story. I was scouring YouTube for science/laboratory footage and the dialogue from Field of Dreams (If you build it they will come!). This was also the point where I realized how daunting this project was getting. I was having a hard enough time figuring out a way to tell my story.

The organization also helped me realize that I needed to trim my review down even more. I kept hanging onto this bit about a new, young generation needing to feel special and how technology should be customizable. Essentially, we like to feel special; not one of the crowd. We use custom technology to help us feel this way. The giant screens were 'technology' but provided a window into something impersonal: We masses were watching dance on-screen when we had paid and gotten dress up (there were a lot of dressed up audience members!) to watch dance on-stage. Ultimately, I felt this idea was really difficult to convey, and my other reasons for why this performance didn't work kind of get at this idea: I still address the problem of technology, but instead I stick to the idea of seeing a performance through filters. I felt this was a stronger point, and also much more compelling to convey visually.

Once I kind of committed to storyline, I knew that I would run into more challenges with the physical technology. That's something I hadn't experienced in years (not since learning the photoshop pen tool!).

Visual Outcome Reflection: Voice

How do I convey my 'voice' through film?

This has been an incredibly daunting personal task. And throughout storyboarding I've been really aware when my voice isn't quite clear. The problem is I'm never quite sure how to clarify it. It usually takes a lot of internet/youtube/google searches because, normally, what I'll need is a short clip or a slice of audio to allow Sarah say what Sarah needs to say (sorry for the third person).

I've been referring to David Shields' Reality Hunger throughout this process. Somehow, Shields was able to maintain his voice when his voice wasn't even present. I think what it comes down to is canons. What is your personal canon? How do you use it? I've been pulling from own canon for some of the review. Little bits I remember seeing and ways of saying things that I can hear myself saying. This, of course, means I've been scouring my brain for memorable lines from romcoms and chickflicks (my faves), and many tap into the sarcastic/irreverent voice I use, especially when I'm talking about something serious...and need a moment to zoom out.

I also think going back to my original text has been incredibly useful in maintaining my voice. I am much more comfortable expressing a range of emotions and ideas through writing. I'm not as impressionable. In contrast, with film, I've been getting ideas from everywhere, and it's difficult to flesh out what works with my voice versus what I think is cool or might be fun to try. I keep going back to my original notes to remember how I said things (because a lot of the time I liked how I said those things!).

And I keep reflecting on what dance critic Sarah Kaufman told me at the end of our interview. I asked her whether about being the rare voice out of many that didn't like a performance. She said it happens, and to go with your gut. But to always have reasons to back up your gut. I think paying attention to instinct is a really accurate way of knowing when my voice is or isn't present. When my voice is present, I know I'm telling the story I want to tell. For example, I originally started the film storyboards by setting the scene within the O2 arena. I never felt confident about this choice. And admittedly, it was an easy, lazy choice. It was essentially copying what the other written reviews had been doing, and that meant I wasn't adding anything new to the conversation. Describing what the O2 arena looked like wasn't how I'd tell the beginning of this story. It wasn't until I started looking back at all of my weird footage and found a film I had made of a couple of the ballet dancers who did an interview on This Morning. I heard the talkshow host introduce them, and I knew this was how the film needed to begin. Immediately, these dancers, on this show, hosted by this guy was the right way to begin, and it felt like that's how I'd tell the story to someone. That's what was interesting to me. And like Kaufman says, review writing is about being conscious of what interests you.

Visual Outcome Reflection: Storyboarding Kind-of

I know it doesn't look like it, but these are my first attempts at real story boarding. Come on, I've never done this before, guys. I thought sectioning off my review an making lists within those sections would at least allow me to start with a clear outline. While I felt pretty clear on my main points within the original written drafts, this method helped me clarify even more. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I started seeing how different sentences/phrases would work better in a different sequence for film than the order I would have thought to write them in.

In this second attempt at story boarding/outlining, I started color-coding my points. Main points were outlined in green, while supporting points might appear in blue. Outlining in color helped me to trim the fat of previous outlines. And seeing my main points so vividly made it easier for me to begin thinking about how to represent them visually.

For example, below is a poster I made to try to figure out how the 'filter' I kept referring to might look in a film. Mapping out how words and phrases might look made it easier for me to think about more options for visualizing the review. At first I was nervous about not having enough original footage to make my point. I realized that you really didn't need much original footage, especially since the goal of this kind of reviews is to address other issues.

So, in this case, I wanted to use some dancing footage of Romeo & Juliet. In this case, it really didn't matter if it was from the performance or not. Romeo & Juliet is an old ballet, and it's done the same way almost every time. Well, every time. I wanted to see how I could just manipulate the footage to say what happened within the O2. I was experimenting with the idea of rose-colored lenses to convey that you didn't really see what was there. What if you started out with dancing, and then a pink, transparent was placed over the dancing?

As I got into more storyboarding (which you'll see later), I realized that just rose-colored lensing wasn't enough. I had to think about how I'd want to magnify the dancing and zoom out of the dancing to convey what I saw and didn't see as an audience member. And THEN, I wanted to also use posterizing effects on the visuals and auto-tune effects on the audio to make it fully overproduced.

Visual Outcome Reflection: Outing the Doubt

This is the piece of poster paper where I totally freaked out. For some reason I thought I needed to do something more difficult to make this project 'worthwhile'...or something. Well, actually I know what happened. A conversation I had with Teal and Anna had given way to a lot of doubt. I had quickly mentioned that I was thinking about keeping my text review and film review separate (I keep wondering why I said this since until actually saying it, the thought never crossed my mind). Anyway, what came out of the conversation was that the idea I had quickly expressed was probably not the best use of my skills. I know that they meant this with good intentions. But instead of considering the comment and moving on, I let it stunt me for about two weeks. So for two weeks, I didn't do anything visual-outcome related. I just sat around and wondered (for no reason at all) whether I should make instead an app for iPad. Because, after our conversation, and after only hearing "this might not be the best use of your skills," I somehow began to thought that the film I was once excited about making was really just a crappy Youtube art film.

So it all came to a head in a day of brainstorming (after two weeks I finally forced myself to draw on some paper). There were lots of tears. Lots of wonderings about how to make more apps. Why did I want to do that? I didn't have a reason at all. I thought it would be cool, and because it would be super difficult, I thought it would be more impressive. Really, this was my reasoning for spending two weeks wondering about how to turn my review into an app (It's like the time I spent 250 dollars on a bicycle I couldn't ride in the hopes that my boyfriend would like me more. Guess what: it didn't matter. He liked me anyway). I guess I needed to start crying and have a whole bunch of doubts to realize why the film was the right idea and understand that Anna and Teal weren't really talking about the film (They were talking about my really bad idea of keeping a text review and film review separate...or...at least I think that's what they were talking about. Whatever).

THE POINT IS I needed to have a lot of doubts to purge all of the crap I was unsure about with this project. An app wouldn't work because first, I had no idea how to make one or even begin to visualize it. Second, I felt an app would have to allow users to form their own opinion, when what I really wanted them to experience was my opinion (this is, after all, a review). The next part I was unsure about was that making a film was an easy way out. Let me just say that this is in no way an easy project. Thinking visually (sound and moving images) to make a 2-3 minute video that conveys an opinion is really hard. A lot of this thinking is the most challenging thinking I've done in a while. I'm actually enjoying writing the report because it's easier. So when I finally allowed myself to visualize myself making the film, I got pretty excited. Despite having visualizer's block when it came to storyboarding, I had a pretty clear picture of how I wanted to tell my story. I was having fun exploring my archival footage options and manipulating content to make new content.

Here's what I included from another post about this day, and I think it sums the rest up:

And unlike when I thought I was going to barf (from anxiety) over making some stupid touch-screen app/iPad/whatever, I got that nervous feeling I always get when I write something I know is good: I always start shaking, and I get cold. And I know you can't do your thesis on instinct alone (well, actually I've been doing a lot of that), but I have to go with my gut on this one. Yesterday was a matter of getting the doubt out so I could get going.

In a way, maybe the film is an easy choice — because it should be an easy choice/option for critics. If ballet is really experiential — and for me, it's about way more than the performance on the stage — why haven't ballet reviews looked like this in the past? Maybe it seems easy because it seems like such an obvious thing to try. Something that could be interesting and work well. Like, duh.

Visual Outcome Reflection: Influences

I recently saw Terrence Mallick’s Tree of Life, and it struck a chord. Dialogue is sparse, but the film is incredibly rich with imagery. In fact, the very long sections of just montage are some of the most powerful. Although they seem quite abstract, they still seem to clearly convey Mallick’s positioning on faith and Christianity without the use of words. I found the images and pacing to be incredibly powerful. People were so angry when they left the theater — lots of talk about Christian propaganda. I was inspired by the amount of interpretation and and conversation that came out of watching a film with very little dialogue. Mallick used content he had filmed over the past 20 years to create the montages in this film. He was drawing from his personal archive to create new content from that content. I suppose [with this review] I’m drawing from my own canon, but not from my own archive (I haven’t made all of the footage that will appear in this film).

Tree of Life was absolutely beautiful, and while there was a story that unfolded, the feeling was always most striking. I’ve been wondering how I can include this idea in my film. How do you create a narrative but also create and convey emotion that?

Visual Outcome Reflection: On feasibility

I've been thinking a lot about how feasible this method is for reviewing. It's taken me so long to get this far with storyboards. I don't see how a critic with deadlines would have the time to put something like this together if he/she had to adhere to a news deadline of one or two days after. And no disrespect to anyone, but these critics are a bit older...and very clearly writers. Only writers. Even the content of their writing suggests they stick with exactly what they know: reviews, previews, ballet features or profiles on ballet dancers. They rarely write articles about how ballet intersects with other disciplines. But maybe that's what ballet criticism needs: a few people who are interested in taking the time to explore that. It's a grim thought, but Judith Mackrell of The Guardian won't be at it forever. Someone else will have to step in, hopefully with new ideas.

I recently spoke with Emilia and Linda, the founders of The Ballet Bag, a website devoted to being enthusiastic and informative (in a friendly, open way) about ballet. They don't call themselves critics, but they had a lot of great insight on how ballet criticism works right now. I told them about my idea of wanting more out of a review — how a review could look beyond a performance. And they said it's just a difficult thing to convey in the very limited space that review-writers have. The editorial side of the publications have expectations (even if they are dated) about what a review should look like, and these writers have to adhere to that. The comments sections of reviews (at least on the Guardian and Observer) are where The Ballet Bag ladies say reviews can really take shape, or re-shape. Many times, it will give critics the opportunity to dive deeper into issues they wanted to cover. Mostly, though, I've found that the commenters on Luke Jennings' and Judith Mackrell's reviews either very much agree with everything either reviewer says, or the commenters have absolutely no clue what criticism is anyway (this seems to be a problem with comments sections in general). You have very little opportunity for coherent development of thought. And in the case of these ballet reviews, commenters function as faithful defenders of the writers.

Going back to how writers must adhere to the needs of a publication got me thinking about the piece that I submitted to the Guardian a while back. Judith Mackrell really liked it, but she said it was too literary. I was caught off-guard because I thought my writing about ballet very clearly made good links between ballet and other disciplines, and fairly (in understandable language) explained where ballet stood in current popular culture. And I worked to spell out how ballet had appeared in many different arenas so that more readers might be included. Being told the piece was too literary (okay, maybe it was a different writing style than The Guardian usually prints) made me wonder about the content of the actual reviews. I mean, have you read them? Okay, you probably haven't. But some of the descriptions are just loaded with unreadable or nonsensical or 'flowery' phrases. Take this sentence from a Royal Ballet Triple Bill Review of Ballo della Regina by Luke Jennings:

Nuñez, ravishing in shell-pink chiffon, makes light of the often counterintuitive text, springing on to pointe from steely air-turns, drawing bowstring-taut arabesques out of en dedans pirouettes, and launching into flying, up-tucked pas de chat.

As someone who goes to the ballet, I can understand the want? need? to be specific about steps, but is this how you attract an audience? Is this how you gain readers? I really don't even know what 'en dedans pirouettes' are. And this is in the second paragraph. How about making me feel a little bit more included? If you really want to go there, this feels awfully 'literary' to me.

Anyway, besides the challenge of actually making the film, I wondered about the feasibility of a film-as-review appearing somewhere like The Guardian or Observer. I'm trying to bring in 'fun' or relevant aspects of popular culture — recognizable quotes or images that people can relate to. But that also raises a problem within print journalism: Is using content to create new content plagiarism? In this case, I don't think so because I'll be including a list of references at the end of the film, but the content will not be attributed as the film plays. And if it's on youtube, I say it's fair game. But even thought I'm trying to bring in aspects of popular culture (to the film), would a film be too avant-garde for a publication? How clear do you have to be to reach a section of the mainstream...but still be interesting?

Visual Outcome Reflection: Visualizing, Part 1

I've written the review, but now it's time to get beyond the words. In my tutorial, Teal and Anna were interested in the fact that the process towards a final visual outcome began with words. The review was text-based. And well, so is this. But it's definitely a step in a more uncomfortable direction for me. I mean, I rarely make webs...unless I'm being forced to make a web for class. But! I thought it would be helpful to start thinking beyond how Romeo & Juliet looks on paper and explore how I might convey the experience and my opinion on film. I'm pretty lost. I was hoping that I would have enough original footage, but I don't feel like I do. It seems like a good opportunity to use content to build new content. I've been reading that, with dance, everything generated comes from something that exists already. Expanding that content-from-content idea in the form of a review might lead to some interesting juxtapositions with other elements of popular culture. In my written review, I say something like...."It's as if the Royal Ballet is too embarrassed to bring their girlfriend (the audience) home to meet their mother (the Royal Opera House), so they bring them to the O2." I've been wondering about a moment from a RomCom that might work to convey that within the film, which is kind of fun.

I've also been reviewing some of the coverage that I filmed before the event. Two of the dancers were on This Morning, and there were a few gems I could use within that. The trailers released by the Royal Ballet before the performance weekend really stand out too: "World's Greatest Ballet Company. World's Greatest Love Story. World's Greatest Arena." I think this will be a repeated element that I'd like to manipulate to show convey this idea of: If you tell us, we'll come. Tell us you're awesome, and we'll come! *

In the first image (with 'Set Up The Scene' at the top), I was trying to think about what visuals I could use at the beginning of the film, but I think I can do only so much setting up the scene. Normally written reviews spend a good paragraph setting things up. I feel like I can convey the scene throughout the film, especially if I repeat a few certain images (the main trailer itself, the lone hotdog stand underneath the Romeo & Juliet trailer advert and this awesome footage of zillions of sheep being herded come to mind). Maybe it's better — and clearer — to just get straight to the point.

I've found that thinking about what the film might sound like is helping me craft a story arc. I've been listening to my footage, and thinking about music and sound effects. For some reason, that comes across strongly to me. It feels more natural to put together a story from sounds first. We'll see what happens.

* Which reminds me! An aside about Love Da Pop: They chose popcorn because it was cheap and they could afford to take a risk with that. And then to build up a client base, they told everyone (and by everyone I mean every adorable cinema and also BAFTA) that they had this fantastic popcorn in beautifully designed packaging. They didn't have any of that. By the time they had gotten their first popcorn-making gig, they hadn't developed a flavor and they didn't have packaging at all. Quickly, they popped like 3,000 servings of popcorn and salt-and-peppered it (their first "gourmet" flavor). They they bought a bunch of toothpicks, a stamp and some striped bags and sold the popcorn in those. They handed over the packages at the event. They knew it looked kinda shitty and not "beautifully designed," but they didn't apologize for it and they were as confident as can be about it. People ate it up. In a way, I guess you could see this as being a little sleazy, but I guess I see it as using the ingredients you have and know to make something you've never tried before. Just do it. And don't apologize for it. If you have confidence that this is an awesome thing people need to know, then they'll believe you. They just need to be told.

Visual Outcome Reflection: First Drafts

There was no real thought behind starting the visual outcome by actually writing a review. It didn't strike me as odd. It just seemed like the natural first step in my making process. I'm not a terribly visual person when it comes to the first stages of storytelling. I usually don't make webs or big brainstorm charts. I take a lot of notes, and I look at my notes. I take some more notes. And I type on my computer. That's about it, usually. I knew that writing about Romeo & Juliet first would help me clear my head. It was a way of purging a bunch of shitty ideas. I can handle shitty ideas in writing. I didn't know if I could kill bad ideas as easily once they were in an animatic or placed in the film. As Anne Lamott says, I saw my written reviews as my "shitty first drafts" of my film. They weren't separate. These writings, somehow, would become...unwritings? Or something?

Knowing that writers don't have tons of time to write a review after a performance, I thought it would be good to just practice the act of writing a review. And in retrospect, I suppose I wanted to test one half of my idea before going further: I wanted to use the review of Romeo & Juliet as a way in to write about another issue. In this case, I wanted to use the opportunity to address the technology of the performance and the marketing of the ballet as an event. A question I tried to answer throughout the written review was, why this advertising now? Why not use advertising for the performances at the Royal Opera House?

As I wrote notes and formed outlines, I tried to pay attention to a couple of ideas because I knew they would play out later in the visual outcome:

1. What you leave out is as important as what you leave in. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to say, especially because I was enraged that the Royal Opera House could charge me 50 pounds to come to North Greenwich and watch a screen. I wanted to talk about how brilliant Alina Cojocaru was when I could actually make out her tiny body on stage, and I wanted to write about how impossible it was to enjoy her dancing because the giant screens were so distracting. All we saw were faces and upper bodies. It was suddenly like silent theatre. I wanted to write that the Royal Ballet has the wrong idea of what their 'new, young audience' wants (we don't want a mass experience; we want to feel like insiders). I wanted to say that none of what I'm writing matters because once the tens of thousands showed up and planted themselves in their seats, the ballet would be dubbed a success. In this case, I felt it really was pointless to write about what happened on stage. However, I knew that most of what I was writing wouldn't show up in the visual outcome. At one point, I didn't think any of the actual words I had written would be a part of it.

2. Which brings me to the need to sum it up. Throughout the writing process, I became more and more conscious that my writing would need to be fairly simple — simple, clear ideas — so that I could make it even more clear for a visual outcome (that might not even use my ownwriting to direct it). And after getting through quite a number of drafts (I made new drafts to rearrange, to cut and to add. Each one was a development from the next; not a complete revision), I was able to sum up my review fairly concisely:

1. The self-proclaimed "world's greatest ballet company" was performing in the world's "greatest arena."

2. Did it work?

3a. No.

3b. We were drawn to the screens like flies to light

3c. We had come to a performance to experience it through filters.

3d. Whatever happened on-stage was the supplemental lip-synch of the real deal.

4. The success of the 'experiment' was in the marketing. Where was this marketing in other RB productions? Why isn't it being used to bring audiences to the Royal Opera House (When you got it, flaunt it)?

5a. If you're trying to reach a new young audience, you have to make them feel special; not one of the crowd.

So after zooming in to write about 800 words, I zoomed way out to whittle my argument down to a few points. This became the next working draft of the visual outcome.

Video interviews for music blogs and bird poop

Email to K. Maletsky:

"just watched your videos from midwest mayhem. bravo! it was almost uncomfortable to watch people try to find some words to talk, which makes me think that this is a really good method to explore. it's so funny because i was going to try something similar at the ballet on thursday evening. i hope you do more of this!"

These films of fans at a concert are kind of strange. Everyone looks surprised that a music critic would be asking for their opinion. Or maybe, everyone is just surprised to be asked for an opinion? Whatever the case, I thought the experimentation of video was interesting. It's something I've been wanting to try. I don't know where the critic's voice is (well, it's there...I hear Kiernan), but I like the idea of using something else to document the show. Could it be done critically? I love that film was used here, at a rock concert. Because these venues are so much more about the environment and everyone else...it's not just about the band. It's about everything. I think it's important that a critic try to capture that. I've been wondering about the point of a one-off ballet performance. But what about music shows, where a lot of bands play the same set list over and over again? And most of the live, played music gets compared to the mastered recordings. That seems backwards. Why not focus on something else?

Alt-weeklies are interesting places to look for strange bits of criticism. I actually thought the RiverFront Times' coverage of last years' Kings of Leon concert was a great example of looking outside of the performance.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2010/07/kings_of_leon_cancels_st_louis_show_pigeon_bird_shit_july_23_2010_jared_followill_missouri_heat.php

The band canceled because apparently a pigeon pooped on the lead singer's head after performing three songs. And the article that came out of the performance, I think qualifies as a review. It talks about what happened and really investigates the story too. Turns out, a year later, the pigeon episode was actually, well, a load of crap. The RFT revisited the performance and fiasco after more information surfaced this year. Even though the performance in St. Louis happened more than a year before, I'd still consider this piece of writing the review:

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2011/08/kings_of_leon_pigeon_gate_dallas.php

Dancing intertexts: The Rub

XV

In this respect dance is in a similar position to all the other arts, sharing their reliance upon verbal and written languages while establishing their own distinctive modes of communication, whether in sound, paint, light or words.

Why must the reliance be on the verbal and written? If these artforms are communicating and constructing meaning beyond the verbal, the reviews should be too.

Dancing Intertexts...more

19

“The reality of interpretation is that readers enter at different points, select points of interest and, most usually, enter from an interpretative or evaluative stance. The reader then selects (chooses) those ‘facts’ which support that perspective. In this sense, the reader constructs the dance. Eco refers to this as the ‘continuous coming and going’ of interpretation (1979:5)”

————

This choosing of facts works similarly to the comments section of the Guardian, or how people react to comments on Twitter. Maybe some of the commenters on the Guardian are looking for points that Luke Jennings makes that align with their own views/perceptions of the performance. An entry point could also be what is missing from the written piece. For me, my entry point was noticing that very little review space was given to Romeo & Juliet. I wanted to know why.

Every reader is coming into the piece from a different history or perspective:

Ballet is boring / Romeo & Juliet is my favorite / I’ve seen every ballet ever / I know all about ballet / I know nothing about ballet

Is it a critic’s job to think about all of those different points of entry? Is it a critic’s job to maximize the amount of perspectives that can enter a piece? By changing the form of how that piece is ‘written,’ how does the critic change the opportunity for new and old perspectives to interact with the piece?

In other words, how would a filmed review create more or different entry points than a written one?

I guess I could answer this question: A filmed review would allow for new points of entry because of how the information is being communicated. A written piece could explain what the dancers looked like on stage, down to the very last detail. With a filmed piece, you have to be more creative with how you address how dancers performed because simply filming the dancers doesn't give an idea of your opinion of their performance. You have to find ways to make visual comparisons, using other types of film — stock footage, vintage footage, footage you create yourself — and cutting techniques. While any dance critic/writer can write that the ballerina danced quickly and accurately, how in the world do you say that in an image? Suddenly, a world of visual metaphors has opened up to me. Maybe "quickly and accurately" looks like lightning striking a single post.

Also, a filmed review is a great opportunity to step away from description. And while it's been common for me to come across reviews with a lot of description and not much of an opinion, I think a filmed review of the ballet would be impossible to make if the opinion wasn't carried through straight from the beginning. Rather than describing what it looked liked, a film lets you skip the subtleties and say exactly why it did or didn't work.

Because I'm sourcing film from other contexts (movies, home videos, original footage I've made) it's a natural next step to review that ballet through different lenses than just what happened on-stage. Making a film allows me to think beyond the stage. I can't film the performance anyway, so I have to use the ballet as an opportunity to speak critically about something else within that performance.

Immediately after seeing Romeo & Juliet, I knew it didn't work, and I started thinking about how I could capture why it didn't work on film:

1. The dancers were so far away and tiny on the gigantic stage that the live nuances were impossible to catch — Perhaps I could blur the dancing?

2. The stage was so big that the half-jog/runs to catch up with the music were quite apparent — Maybe I could use footage of football players running up and down the field

3. The screens were giant and distracting, and they forced me to watch the ballet in high definition 2D. I couldn't look away — Could I use footage of bugs flying into light? A cat distracted by the television? A trainwreck you just have to watch?

And in this way I was actually describing. But I wasn't describing just what I saw, but how I saw it. And the how part of the description was what I saw as the opinion.

I was also thinking a lot about my conversation way back when with Jennifer Homans, who said I wouldn't have the opportunity to flip-flop on what worked and what didn't work. My film had to be one way or the other, or it would be confusing for the viewer. I agreed with her until I realized that there was one big part of the Romeo & Juliet performance that did work: the marketing. The marketing was the reason why critics called it a 'success.' You didn't have to have an opinion at all to see that the ballet had made big bucks: an arena was full of people, and in a way, it didn't matter whether or not the performance was a good one, because people had paid to be there and the seats were filled.

This was something I wanted to address in the film. And I thought that looking at what didn't work (the performance itself) and what did (what got people to the performance) was a perfect chance to use the review to do what I've been wanting: To use the performance as a way in to talk about something else. Yes, okay. I do talk about what happened on stage and why it didn't work, but then I give my big But! and say what did work. So for me, this filmed review is critical on a couple of different levels: I have an opinion about the on-stage performance and I also have an opinion on a different part of the performance: the marketing of it.

Dancing Intertexts

Page 18

John Frow…refers to the identification of an intertext as an act of interpretation in itself, and therefore as a discursive structure rather than a ‘source.’ He suggests that understanding the discursive structure is of greater significance than understanding the ‘facts,’ just as “detailed scholarly information is less important than the ability to reconstruct the cultural codes which are realized (and contested in texts).

This works with the function of review. The function of a review is really no longer meant to describe; it should be linking bigger, cultural ideas so the audience can interpret/infer the meaning of a performance. And not necessarily what that performance meant in an artistic sense, but what did that performance mean from a historical standpoint? Or from an economic one? Or from a technological standpoint? Or from an audience perspective?

A thought on Dancing Intertexts

On page 17:

“Interpreting dances using textual analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach, one which ‘risks putting together in a single framework elements belonging to very diverse universes of discourse and research fields’ (de Marinis 1993: 6-7)”

This notion should extend beyond academic and theoretical writing and be exercised in the everyday articles and reviews of dance critics and writers. Heavily descriptive reviews no longer serve the purpose of posterity or relay the experience to a new set of viewers: describing the event only singles it out more and excludes a readership that could potentially have an interest in ballet. Reviews must balance necessary description with critical interpretations of what the ballet means in a broader context. This can be done by looking at the ballet through many lenses: economics, history, gender issues, social media, film.

The use of ‘risk’ in the quote above interests me. It suggests that textual analyses should be taking these risks. Textual analyses owe it to ballets — whose choreographers have drawn from a range of disciplines to create — continue to bring more ideas and contexts into the context of the review. If reviewers were to think of the ballet not simply as a performance, but also as a text that is a creation of many parts, reviews could be more interpretive than descriptive. Instead of documenting how a ballet looked on-stage, they could critically document how a ballet looked in the context of its time and society.

The definition of ‘text’ can extend beyond the ballets themselves and the written analyses; the form of the text can be as multidisciplinary as the content addressed. By writing a review in the form of a film, critics can still “put together in a single framework elements belonging to very diverse universes of discourse and research fields,” and altering how that review is disseminated (film, rather than conventional 400-500 text words), also adds to the discourse. A film-review, rather than a written one, challenges the critic to draw from a completely different camp of ideas: the critic must convey an opinion and ideas using a different set of resources, such as already available footage, sound, and animation.

The written storyboard

When I spoke about my project with Jennifer Homans, she wanted to know how I'd go about making a film if I hadn't really ever made one before. This was a worry I'd had, but something I shook off when Tom agreed to offer two extra eyes throughout the process.

Jennifer had said that with film, and with the length of film I'd be making (short!), I needed to make sure I was clear. I needed to have an opinion and communicate it without an subtleties. She said that it probably wouldn't work to say something like:

This worked because of blah blah blah. And this didn't work because of blah blah blah.

I couldn't go back and forth. She said it might be best to be one or the other about the performance. Did it or did it not work? And nothing in-between.

She asked what I thought the drafting process would look like. And I told her that I aimed to first write the review. I wanted to do this because writing helps me think and narrow down my ideas. I knew that writing a 500-700 word review would allow me to draft my ideas in a narrative that made sense to me. After writing those 500-700 words, I'd be able to get the jist of my opinion in just a few key sentences. Many times, it's only in the process of writing something big that I figure out how to articulate my points. I explained to Jennifer that this piece of writing would be a draft of my storyboarding process. I decided to call the written review my written storyboard.

There were many drafts leading up to the final draft of the written storyboard. When I was happy with the written draft, I showed it to Teal and Anna. They were surprised that, on my way to a visual outcome, that I would begin by writing. I didn't and still don't understand their surprise. I've always seen that 'text' as a step in the translation. I saw the ballet. I needed to verbally respond to what I saw. You could say that it's a very detailed script. Not all of what is written will show up visually in the film.

It allowed me to do what we talk a lot about in class: Zooming in and zooming out during the research process. Writing the review enabled me to zoom in on my opinion and give reasons for it. After the review was written, I started to view the draft not as a text, but as an image to be read. I zoomed out — way out — and looked for my main points.

I extracted those main points onto a sheet of paper.

Without the extra text around those main points, they told a more succinct story. It was a story that made my visual (more conventional) storyboarding process much easier. I cannot think of another way I would have reached the messages I wanted to convey other than doing the writing first. Although I had been thinking about the footage I wanted to include while working on the written storyboard, I realized that the images I included in the written storyboard might not work on film. This wasn't something I stressed out about. I thought about my conversation with dance critic Sarah Kaufman. She said that when she writes about a performance, she'll take pages of notes, but normally she doesn't use any of them in the final piece. The final piece is a summation of her main point and what stuck with her afterwards. Maybe a few of those scribbled notes find their way in, but most of the time, they are the sum of a larger part. I see the written storyboard in this way. It was part of my note-taking and scripting process. It allowed me to see the larger picture and to articulate what exactly it was I wanted to say. Whether or not the actual images I describe or exact words I use make it into the film doesn't matter. The written storyboard was a necessary step to zoom in and out, and for me, it was a crucial step in thinking visually.

Who is my reader?

Although the visual outcome is meant to be seen as entertainment by one kind of target audience, I'm also interested in reaching the practitioners. This is something that needs to actually implemented. In other words, Hire me!

A profile of A Practitioner-type

Kiernan and Elke live in different mid-size, Midwest, metropolitan cities. They are both in their 20s. They both have cars — old ones they’ve pushed beyond the 150,000-mile mark. They both buy their vegetables at their local farmers markets. They both eat Kashi cereal with organic skim milk for breakfast. And they both have cool names.

They are also both music editors at alt-weekly publications. Neither thought they would reach their dream of editing a music section before 30. Until six months ago, they had mastered living on 1000 dollars a month. Now, though, they have a freelance budget, and the health benefits seem to satisfy their parents.

They don’t make a big deal out of it, but Kiernan and Elke work their asses off. They stay at their offices past 10, and by 3 a.m. on Monday morning, they have their 50 blog posts written, edited and scheduled for publishing throughout the upcoming week. They try to plan and control what content they can, so they can plan and write and assign some more.

They gave up their Nokias for iPhones when they moved into their big-kid jobs and their very own, unshared, one-bedroom big-kid apartments. When they aren’t doing work things, they are doing work things. After syncing his e-mail and phone, Kiernan figured out that he works 10 extra hours each week. Elke files late-night texts from drunk musicians for future story ideas. They both dream about pitch meetings.

Sometimes they work through the night — at coffee tables (the desks aren’t big enough and kitchen tables are something to which they aspire)— only interrupting their routine of assigning memos and pitches for periodic sips of Boulevard or Schlafly wheat beer and to make a late-night breakfast sandwich. The sun will rise and they’ll realize it’s too late to go to bed, so they’ll cycle into work because they think better on their bikes, and when they arrive at their window-facing cubicles, it won’t matter that they didn’t get much sleep. They’ll have their Americanos and the pride of knowing that the days of being an intern are behind them. Now they have their own, unpaid fledglings to gently boss around.

Although they are in different cities, and their respective, respectable alt-weeklies, they are both searching for a new way to write about music. They were hired over the dudes with ten or fifteen years experience because so many of the other editors already love print. And although the bossman says he likes blogging, well, everyone knows what he’s daydreaming about when they see the hordes of past issues, stacked up high on top of the filing cabinet in his office. He wants a paper-paper, but he’s not getting one. Kiernan and Elke love print too. It’s how they came to love music. But the magazines they used to read and the record stores they once visited have turned into Pitchfork and iTunes.

Kiernan and Elke know they could get more readers if they changed a few things online, and they’ve begged the art-director for a print-edition redesign. Their colleagues acknowledge the rampant problems — fluffy Q&As and the cockroach-like resilience of the current show preview. But it’s as risky to maintain the same format as it is to make a change. Kiernan and Elke have good ideas. They have big ideas, but follow-through is daunting when the company they work for won’t even shovel out the cash for an office copy of Microsoft Word.

Neither of them smoke, but they hang out with friends on the back decks of gigs because that’s where the brain-picking happens. They all suffer from mild internet addictions. They’re all gradually landing on their feet. Sheppa’s a graphic designer for VML, but he also just made a fucking beautiful music video for Margo for free. Next August Sheresa’s going to teach high school orchestra, but this summer, she’s photographing weddings.

When Elke asks her friends why they’ve come to these shows, they say they’re not just there to see who’s playing. They’re there to see who’s listening. No one does just one thing. No one wants it just one way. They want an experience. That’s what Kiernan and Elke want too. Instead of paying for freelancers, Kiernan spent his weekly budget on a camera with video. Elke’s been recording with her iPhone.

Kiernan and Elke both know about music. They, like, really know it. But they also know that knowing isn’t enough.

Yeah, because they write for city papers, they have to think local. But they want to cover music in a way that connects someone in New York and someone else in their mid-size, Midwest, metropolitan cities. They have a lot of big ideas. They have a lot of work to do. Mostly, they want to make something their friends will read, not out of friendship obligations, but because it’s good and get-able.

Reflections on doing stuff

Doing stuff is hard.

Well, getting started doing stuff is what's hard.

For the past week and a half, my thesis work — which has been mostly steady albeit a bit slow — has completely plateaued. I've felt like the real making-of this visual outcome is an impossible task. And before thinking about the outcome too much, I've been writing off all of my ideas as failures. It's a little premature, since I've now only just worked out my storyboards.

And I should be clear: It's not the failure of the project that I'm worried about. That's nbd. I can happily critically self-reflect till the dogs come home.

I'm worried I'll fail at creating something that (tries to) says something new. And I'm worried I'll fail at developing an outcome that puts the stuff I do best to their best use.

For a long time, before I really knew what I was doing, I had figured that my thesis outcome would take the shape of a book. I'm comfortable with books. I like them. I like making them. I make all kinds of those things from start-to-finish. But ballet in a book doesn't work. Especially, considering where I'm at now. Not only is a book the wrong form for this project, it's just too easy (or at least that's what I've told myself). And by easy, I mean, the easy choice. My fall-back option.

And plus, I'm pushing the review to see how much more of the experience can be shown through images rather than words. What could this review look like outside of letters? Ballet, like I've said before, is experiential. It's multi-sensory. I'm arguing that the review needs to be that way also. Or, at least, it should have a toolkit to allow itself to be that way if it feels like it.

A ballet review can't be static. It's got to move. And words can move too. I believe that. They can move a reader. They can move the story along. But so can film. And sound. And I think that all of these — text, sound, film — can be joined (not only slideshow + article) to do a few things:

1. Report on the event.

2. Convey an opinion.

3. Preserve the performance for posterity.

I'm arguing that my visual outcome will do all of these things, which reviewers say reviews should do anyway. But I also think that this type of visceral review will:

1. Extend the life of the performance by using the performance itself as a prompt for a performative review.

2. Use the performance as a way in to address the big questions the performance raises. You can't film in ballet. But there are other ways to convey what you saw (animations, archival footage), and by using what's outside of that performance to explain the performance, you are able to put it into a larger context — one that might matter to more people.

I've just rushed through that explanation because I've only allowed myself 45 minutes to reflect (If I spend much longer on the reflections, I tend to get way too waffly). Hopefully it makes sense when I read through it later.

Anyway, back to getting started. I had to write all of this out for you because yesterday I had a meltdown. I had forgotten why I wanted to try to review through film and sound. Without even starting the project, I had done what I had done to my book thoughts: I had cast this film off as easy. I needed to find something more difficult to do. A tablet device? Something completely interactive? Something with lots of dynamic choices that moved for the readers. Something that showed them what happened and showed off my awesomeness.

But I couldn't begin to know how to think about making something for a tablet. And unlike my film idea, which had seemed so straightforward and right to me, I couldn't think of a reason to make the review touch-screen ready.

Mostly, though, my conversation with Anna and Teal had inked through all of my thoughts. Do something that puts your skills to their best use — that's what I heard in our conversation. Probably the only thing I could remember. And I assumed that making a film was what Teal and Anna thought was not the best use of my skills. I started thinking that if I made a film, it would just be a crappy YouTube art film.

So yesterday, with that thought in my head, I went the whole cycle of ideas.

I cut down my original text to only basic ideas.

I did a list storyboard to think about possible images.

I storyboarded a sound review.

I drew some tablet things.

I drew crazy animation ideas.

But I never knew how to get from one idea to the next. I had formed an opinion on the ballet, and I had ways of backing it up. But none of the things I explored were pushing along my opinion. They were working as reportage, but not a review.

But when I allowed myself the option of making a film, I got excited. I knew — and saw — exactly how I wanted that story to be told. What sounds to include. What images to bring in. What text to lay over the images. What archival footage to introduce. It was all there. And I got excited. I could see it.

And unlike when I thought I was going to barf (from anxiety) over making some stupid touch-screen, I got that nervous feeling I always get when I write something I know is good: I always start shaking, and I get cold. And I know you can't only do your thesis on instinct alone, but I have to go with my gut on this one. Yesterday was a matter of getting the doubt out so I could get going.

In a way, maybe the film is an easy choice. Or, it should be an easy choice for critics. If ballet is really experiential — and for me, it's about way more than the performance on the stage — why haven't ballet reviews looked like this in the past? Maybe it seems easy because it seems like such an obvious thing to try. Something that could be interesting and work well. Like, duh.

Analysis

Sometimes, I get excited. Well, mostly I'm excited all of the time about the research I'm doing. And a lot of times, my head kind of explodes with ideas that I just spit out. It's a constant brainstorm, when sometimes I need to be more careful about what I say.

Like my tutorial with Anna and Teal last week. In a flurry of wondering about the impact technology will have on my visual outcome, I said I wanted to see how one version works in print and one version works on-screen. I don't know why I said that. I've never really been interested in separating things — this goes here; that goes there. I've just been interested in finding the story I want to tell and the best way to tell it.

And I think we spent a bit more time than I would have liked talking about something I shouldn't have actually said? Maybe not. It was productive, though. Because it made me question whether making a film was the best way of putting my interests and ideas out there.

I've been thinking a lot about the function of a review. From my conversations with The Ballet Bag ladies, Jennifer Homans and Sarah Kaufman, I keep hearing a few similar ideas:

1. Reviews are records. One purpose of a review is that it should record what happened so that 100 years from now, we can go back and read about a ballet performance.

2. When they are at a performance and know they will be writing a review, the reviewers are paying attention to what they are paying attention to.

3. Although notes play a role, what ends up in the review might have nothing to do with the pages and pages of notes one makes at a performance.

4. Reviews give one person's account, and (surprsingly? not surprsingly?), the idea of how the content of a review works is quite comparable to sports writing or broadcasting: Reviews set the scene; they give a play-by-play of a couple of key moments; they provide an analysis.

For me, that analysis can sometimes be missing. What does an analysis of a ballet performance look like?

Here's a quick web definition:

The definition that really strikes me is:

An investigation of the component parts of a whole and their relations in making up the whole.

A review is an investigation. But it's not just about reporting on what you find. It's about reporting towards finding or forming an opinion.

Operating under this definition, I think I can make the argument that a performance isn't just what's on stage. And that there is a "before, during and after-ness" with ballet performances that must be addressed. But it doesn't have to happen in an linear way.

Tweets and stuff.

The Royal Opera House pulled out some seriously epic marketing for Romeo & Juliet. And to me, it proved — more than anything else — that if you tell someone to be somewhere, they'll come. The trailers, and coverage and pre-performance press caused real buzz, which is something missing from any other performance run. Since the Royal Ballet kept calling this an 'experiment,' I wondered whether they thought their experiment was successful. And if they'd try some of the same marketing techniques for other events. Well, the other day, the Opera House hosted dancing and dance lessons at lunchtime. As someone who's paid to sweat it out on the packed dance floor of London's famous Rivoli Ballroom, I figured about a zillion people around my age would genuinely want to show up to foxtrot in the breezy, light-filled jewel box aka Paul Hamlyn Hall. I guess I was wrong. The ROH did send out a tweet, but as far as PR, the only other sighting of the event was what was on the website. Boring.

The tweet was this:

Oh boy. Looks like people are having a blast. How about telling people my age about this thing? Zillions of us are unemployed and don't have anything better to do on a sunny afternoon. We'd love to be dancing. Reach out! So I called them out on it, over twitter.

Of course I didn't hear anything back. The opera house is an amazing venue. Anyone I've taken to the opera house — Kate, Tom and Sam (who had never been to a ballet before) has ooh'd and ahh'd at the inside. It's exciting! It's a treat. And when you walk into that bar, you realize it's not a scary, intimidating hall. It's gorgeous and lovely. And in the light of day with dancing? It sounds like the perfect way to kill an hour.

After really paying attention to everything surrounding #RomeO2, I think dance critics had an opportunity to talk about the success of the production in many different ways. I think what was happening beyond the stage was as important to preserve as the performance itself, especially if Luke Jennings says he's written about R&J many times before.

With social media and viral-ness, marketing is part of the performance. If you hype it, they will come. If you tell us it will be awesome, we will come. It seems like the Royal's a bit too polite with their advertising. Romeo and Juliet was in-your-face, I suppose. Good marketing fills seats. Who cares about what happens on stage. As long as people show up, that's a success...in a very basic and frank sort of way. And Luke Jennings acknowledged that. It seems like it's worth it to further unpick the idea of a successful performance, though.

The 'performance' above (the tea room dance) looks like a successful performance. People are there, filling the hall. Dancing. But was it successful in reaching a different demographic? Is that important to ROH? I think it should be. And I think treating this like a performance is another way dance writers should be critically covering and engaging with dance.

The people dancing and the people reading the tweets make up different camps. As a twitter follower, seeing those photos, I don't really think that looks fun. But it could be!

Okay I'm worn out.

Oh but real fast, I thought of something else. If the Royal is using Twitter to disseminate information to their followers, and they want us to take part in their events, they need to be 'available' to the dialogue that gets tweeted back at them. Why didn't they respond to me? I did ask a question. Maybe I was a bit cheeky, but I'm sure they actually do have an opinion on it. I'd like to know!

Guardian Comments Section

Recently I spoke to Emilia and Linda, the two minds behind The Ballet Bag, a website about ballet for dance maniacs and newbies too. The site was started as a 2-part experiment. First E&L (as they call themselves) wanted to know how the ballet conversation could be expanded. They love popular culture, and wanted to show where ballet fits in. By talking about ballet in a conversational tone and bringing in stories from a range of disciplines, they hoped they might attract a different or wider audience than the ones who read reviews in newspapers. The Ballet Bag is also an experiment in social media networking. E&L are as obsessed with social media as they are with ballet. They wanted to see how the Ballet Bag could A. Start cross-border conversations (there are ballet-lovers everywhere) and B. See if they could get more ballet-writing and coverage opportunities if they showed how well they could do this social-networking thing.

I asked them what other dance writers and critics thought about the work they do. E&L said that by making the Ballet Bag a multi-sided conversation (they are writers writing, but also writers trying to engage conversations using lots of different tools — conferences, Twitter, blogs, Facebook), critics like Judith Mackrell and Luke Jennings were inspired to join Twitter, and use it as a way to talk with their readers and ballet dancers they write about. Both Luke and Judith also have a cult-like following of commenters on their dance reviews. Known as Judith's 'salon' or Luke's 'salon,' these salonistas end up extending the 400-word dance review to dozens of comments. Following the Guardian blog/online guidelines, both dance critics participate in the conversation and continue to ask/answer questions. They have an opportunity to say more, and they do. E&L say this is an example of how writers are using the technology they have to see the review in a different way. So perhaps the 400-word review is really a prompt, a way of getting the conversation started.

Obviously a writer must have more to say. I thought so when I read Luke Jennings' recent review. Jennings wrote about three performances that happened in one week, which included Romeo & Juliet at the O2. However, in his six-paragraph review, 800-word review, Jennings devoted just one paragraph and 100 words to the performance that 40,000 people attended.

On my initial reading, for me the review failed in a few ways:

1. Jennings failed to actually give his opinion on Romeo & Juliet. He said the performance was a 'success,' but he didn't say why he thought so.

2. He didn't consider his audience. Surely there were more Guardian-reader stakeholders at the O2 than in the 200-person audience at Oh So Totally Rad, the performance to which Jennings devoted most of his word count.

3. Jennings was using many different definitions of 'success' throughout his piece. I never got a clear picture of what makes success to him.

The comments section was in full-swing by the time I had gathered my thoughts. Most of the time, these commenters are quite silly. There's little engagement in wanting to know more. It's mostly about right-or-wrong. Good taste versus bad taste. But! This conversation was getting interesting.

In response to one commenter, Jennings wrote about his intention as a reviewer:

Personally, I go to every performance with the same intention: to engage with the piece on its own terms and to report as I see, hear and feel. This, with new or experimental work, excites two very specific kinds of negative comment.

He wanted to report how he sees, hears and feels. Where was the audience in this? Where was the critical opinion? I couldn't resist:

First, I wanted to know why R&J didn't get more space. Secondly, I wanted to know what success means to him in the case of R&J, especially his critical opinion. I waited, with bated breath, to see!

Okay, fine. You think Oh So Totally Rad was more thought-provoking. But what really struck me was his last paragraph:

"The issue on this occasion seemed to be the nature of the experience rather than the details of the performance."

I would argue that the performance and experience were linked. And only part of the performance was happening on-stage. So I wrote back:

I don't think I was explicit enough. And in retrospect, I don't think I knew exactly what I wanted to ask enough. But what I wanted to find out was why he thought the only performance worth writing about was the one on-stage.

Here, Luke suggests that a performance does have an afterlife and that reviews serve to preserve what happened. In a way they are records (something that both dance writers Jennifer Homans and Sarah Kaufman have told me too). But if we are recording ballet, why are we only recording the staged events? If this, in a way, is supposed to like taking minutes, shouldn't we be writing about things leading up and things following? If reviews are for posterity (besides being for readers), what will readers-of-the-future be interested in reading? And what about the performers? And the ballet companies themselves? Can they be impacted by a review?

I got sick of commenting. I was impressed at how quickly Luke responded, and the thought he put into his answers, but I also have more questions. So I sent him an e-mail.

I heard back, and I'm hoping to talk more about this idea of the performance — where it begins, goes and ends. I'm also interested to see what he thinks of my project ideas.

To wrap-up: In terms of extending a reviewer's toolkit, the comments section can be an interesting way of extending the life of a ballet and the review of the ballet. But it can also be counterproductive. Many commenters will simply write how great Luke is. Or one might say "I don't understand why you get paid for this shit." Both might actually make good essay topics — Reviewer as author (or textual choreographer?) and What's a Reviewer's Job, Really?

But I also think there are other ways of adding to the review-writing toolkit. And that begins with thinking of the performance as something that exists beyond the stage. It also begins with using description in a way that conveys the mood and the reviewer's opinion. Otherwise, you are just reporting. And anyone can do that.