A scale for rating documentaries

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

30 October

Following publication of a scale, with six variables rated out of 17 (so giving a maximum total rating of 102), for feature films, I have now developed one with more suitable criteria for documentaries, which I exhibit below.


The following example is a rating for The Lebanese Rocket Society (2012) :

54 = N : 10 / M : 8 / C1 : 11 / C2 : 7 / E : 11 / F : 7

N = narration / script

M = material / use of material

C1 = cinematography

C2 = cohesiveness

E = effects / music

F = feel


Mid-point of scale (all scores out of 17) = 9



For comparison, here is the scale for rating feature films in use :

97 = S : 16 / A : 17 / C : 15 / M : 17 / P : 16 / F : 16

A rating and review of Blue Jasmine (2013)

S = script
A = acting
C = cinematography
M = music
P = pacing
F = feel

Mid-point of scale (all out of 17) = 9


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

A new scale of interest ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

17 October

When saying to Chris last night that I couldn't give Le Week-End a 6, but I couldn't give it an 8, a thought-process began that went beyond a 15-point scale (where one could, at least, have a genuine mid-point) :

I unleash, as Paul Bowles might do, the 102-point scale, inspired by whisky's Jim Murray and his Whisky Bible...


For said Week-End, it would be thus (each rated out of 17, 17 x 3 = 51, x 2 = 102)

76 = S : 13 / A : 15 / C : 11 / M : 12 / P : 13 / F : 12


S = script
A = acting
C = cinematography
M = music
P = pacing
F = feel

Mid-point of scale (all scores out of 17) = 9


The rating is based on a studio version, or the director's cut...


Thoughts, comments, insults welcome - with this result, almost a percentage, the film wasn't a 6, but less close to a 7 than it would otherwise have had to be


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)