Planning/Creation: Film Magazine

Film Magazine

This page will show my journey in making the film magazine for my promotional film package. I have chosen my film idea and actors to play the characters prior to making this piece. I know that I want to the two main characters on the cover of my magazine and because the genre of my film is a drama, I will relate the cover and editing to fit to drama conventions. 

Target Audience

The target audience for my magazine is connected with the target audience for the film trailer. As the trailer is aimed mostly at teenagers going through education, then so will the magazine. It will appeal to the younger generation and be modern. On top of this, it will be a film magazine as it is showcasing a brand new film coming out (which will be the one I am making a trailer for) so therefore the audience will also be film enthusiasts which includes a variety of ages, although predominately male and 18-45 years old. 

Draft Layouts

To create a magazine, it's easier to have a layout in mind so when it comes to adding to it, you already know where to put the components. I made a layout for the three magazines I have analysed in my previous film magazine research.

This layout seems to have been filled at the edges of the magazine with text which could go either way and fill up the page and make the cover look interesting with lots of different aspects of text to look at or make the magazine look overcrowded. On the actual cover that this layout ifs from, it works well to make the cover look appealing, however, with the risk of it looking too much, I don't think I'll take inspiration of that particular aspect. I like the use of the main image to almost fill the page and act as the background. I also have noticed how sell lines are included above the masthead so I will consider this when making my magazine cover.

I like this layout the most of the three. I think the main image does well to take up space and the cover isn't overcrowded with text. This layout is the most simple yet it doesn't look like it's lacking any text or has too much free space. However, this layout doesn't include a barcode. This may be because the actual magazine is American. When it comes to making my own magazine, I will include a barcode regardless to whether this layout has inspired me as most other magazines do include one and I want mine to look realistic and believable.

This layout is used for the Empire magazine with Titanic on the cover. I find this layout to be too crowded and too much unnecessary content on the page. However I do like the placement of the sell line on top of the main made on this particular layout but when it comes to making my own magazine, I don't think I will get much inspiration from this one.

Images

I had a photo shoot to get the right photo for my magazine cover and experimented with different positions and overcame things such as distractions. The PDF file below shows some photographs that helped me chose the right photo for my magazine cover that I have analysed.

I have included the link to my PDF file below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwt1DjQL2J6-UkltUXNWODhEMlU/view?usp=sharing

Editing

Once I had my chosen photograph for my magazine cover, I edited it in Photoshop in order to optimize it. I removed such flaws as the reflections on the glasses and also to make the actors skin's flawless in order to make the picture more realistic to be used for a magazine front cover.

Work in Progress

Once my chosen photograph was edited, I inserted the masthead at the top in the biggest and boldest font in order to keep to typical magazine conventions. I used a basic font in order to fit in with the genre of the my trailer being a drama. I chose the colour black as it contrasts the light grey background and stands out. This also opens up the magazine to fitting with a range of genres. I then cropped and edited the main image to center fit the cover and slightly overlap the masthead as most other magazines do this. I also followed conventions and added in the date, issue number and price near the masthead, in a font small enough not to draw too much attention but big enough to be read clearly.

When inserting the masthead, I left room above it to fit in a sell line at the very top as I have seen this layout used on many other magazines. I also decided to insert a coloured box underneath the sell line text as to separate the text from the masthead and also to stand out, however I kept the font size significantly smaller than the masthead as to not draw too much attention away. I used a gold-yellow colour for the box as I have seen the colour yellow used a lot on magazine covers and needed an extra colour as the background and main image are all monotone and don't consist of any stand out colours.

I used the same yellow-gold colour for the anchorage title to link in and keep to a colour scheme. I used white for the sell lines on the anchorage title as to not go over the top with the bright colour. However I had to add a black stroke to both the white texts so that they were more visible over the background. I kept the anchorage title font the second biggest and boldest on the page and the surrounding sell lines a slightly smaller size but big enough to know that it accompanies the anchorage title.

The final touches to my magazine cover weer to add in another sell line to fill up some more of the page and also to add in a bar-code as this is a very common convention of a magazine. I also put the sell line in the same white font with black stroke around it as to stand out over the background. I placed these on the right hand side as the anchorage title was placed on the left. I placed the bar-code at the bottom right hand corner so it wouldn't draw too much attention.

This is the outcome of the above screenshots of making the magazine. However, after asking for peer feedback, I was advised to change the layout of the sell lines and anchorage title and also change the font for the sell line at the top to be the same as the other sell lines.


I experimented around with moving the layout and came out with the following version:

However I still wasn't happy so adjusted the layout once more. I moved the sell line that was originally on the left hand side to the bottom in a row that fit alongside the bar-code as I thought this looked neat. Also I have seen other magazines place a sell line along the bottom so it fits in with magazine conventions.

Then for the finishing touch, once I had decided my font for my film poster, I went back and changed the font of the film title on my magazine cover to the same font so that it visually links in with the poster. I also adjusted the placement of this text. I also removed the piece of text that read 'sometimes all you need is a' as it didn't quite fit in with a typical magazine cover and wasn't the tag line for my film either.

Finished Magazine Cover

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