Research: Film Magazines

Film Magazines

As one of the pieces I will be making for my promotional film it will be a magazine cover for my film. I have researched into film magazines.

Some film magazines:

• Empire
• Total Film
• Entertainment
• British Film
• Sight & Sound
• Neon

Empire: This popular and well-known film magazine is aimed at an audience of predominately male 18-45 year old's. This being said, the audience will also include females but the majority are likely to be male. It is published monthly.

http://www.bauer-media.com.au/brands/empire/

Total Film: One of the two most popular film magazines and is aimed at an audience of predominately male 15-34 year old's. This being said, the audience will also include females but the majority are likely to be male. It is published monthly.

http://www.mediauk.com/magazines/36267/total-film/readership-figures

I've then analysed three different magazine covers three different drama films. Two of these films are two films I've chosen for each of my research pieces: The Fault In Out Stars and Titanic, then like the others I have chosen a third film that is different but still a drama. For this, I chose King Kong.

The Fault In Our Stars:

This is a cover on a film magazine for the film The Fault In Our Stars. The page is mostly dedicated to the film. This is made obvious due to the main image on the magazine being of the two actors that star in the movie and also the anchorage text relating to the image and reading the name of the film itself.

The majority of magazine covers have one main image which dominates the page and acts as a background, this particular magazine cover does this through the use of a photo of the main actor and actress who star in the movie and play the two main characters Hazel and Augustus. The image is a mid shot which is typical for a magazine cover. This particular image has used the focus pull to make the background blurred as to highlight the two people and make them stand out. They are also looking directly at the camera which makes the reader feels they are looking at them which helps the reader connected to the magazine. The only other image on the front cover is of the book itself. This image is fairly small and has been slightly overlapped by the main image. This is then placed near the top of the Magazine underneath the masthead as at the first the audience will look at the masthead, which has been placed in the biggest and boldest fold, which is also typical for a magazine cover, and then this image will be one of the next things that will catch their eyes. However the image isn't too large as to not draw too much attention away from the main image.

The magazine cover uses a lot of light colours, especially for the main image. These light colours have have positive connotations of happiness, and especially the predominant colour of white having a connotation of purity. This is as to link the characters to being pure which then links with the film storyline to being a drama about two innocent young characters.

In contrast to the light colours used for the images, the text is mostly in black. This helps it stand out and be easier for the audience to read. All of the text is shown to be put at the sides as to give way from the main image. Also, no text overlaps the image of the characters faces, however it does overlap less important parts of the image. This magazine cover is shown not to have any other sell lines, and instead it has opted for plugs in a list on the side, underneath the puff 'PLUS'. This is to show the audience that this particular magazine is dedicated mostly to the film the fault in our stars. This could be a risk as it mean this magazine will having niche audience, targeted mostly at the audience of the film but this shows that the film already has a big enough audience to make up for the risk. Therefore the target audience for this magazine would be aligned with the target audience for the film, so teenagers, and also the regular subscribers and fans of the magazine itself. 

This magazine cover isn't aimed any particular gender. You can tell this through the use of both genders in the main image and also no particular colours or fonts with feminine or male connotations have been used widespread. This makes the target audience wider and more versatile. However, the magazine cover does include a plus sign above the puff 'PLUS' to link in with it, and the colours used for this is both pink and blue. Each colour has the connotation of a gender and the fact they have both been used together also proves that it has been aimed at both genders as it has used these colours equally.

Titanic:

This magazine cover is fairly old as it was published in 1997, as the film I have chosen as one of the two films I've chosen to look at in my three areas of research is Titanic and was released in 1997. The layout of this particular magazine cover is slightly complicated and there is a lot of components to it. 

It follows the typical convention of having the masthead in the biggest and boldest font at the top of the magazine, however this cover has included a sell line above the masthead at the uttermost top of the page, however the text is still in a smaller font than the masthead. This is as to not draw too much attention away from the masthead and confuse the audience.

Colour is a key part of this magazine cover.  It is used a mixture of black, white, red, and yellow. Red and yellow are bold, bright, attention-grabbing colours, and they have been used to draw attention to certain parts of the cover. Such as at the very bottom of the page there is a puff 'plus' followed by a plug in black font that have been placed on top of a yellow box that stretches the width of the page. This use of yellow makes the text stand out a lot more then if it were placed on a white background. The other use of yellow is for part of the sell line at the top of the magazine cover, which is also being used to emphasise the text and make it stand out.

 The colour red has been used mostly for the masthead. This is a typical thing that entertainment based magazines, such as for films and music, do. Another place it has been used is for the sell line that accompanies the anchorage text which is in white. Both if these pieces of text have been placed on top of a black box to make them easy to read. The reason behind having the sell line in red opposed to the anchorage title is that if the anchorage title were to be in red, then it could be seen as too much, and also as the anchorage text is only one word, this could confused the readers as they may link the masthead to this as they'd both be one large word in red text.

Last piece of text that uses the colour red is for another sell line that reads 'massive 1998 preview'. This piece of text is the most interesting as it is unique to all other pieces of text on the cover. It is the only piece of text that has been placed at an angle and also on top of the main image. It also has four red lines surrounding it so that it looks like is has been replaced in the box but the text doesn't overlap any box.

This magazine cover includes four images. There is a main image which is of the ship Titanic which relates to the film Titanic in which is the main attraction of this particular magazine and reason why I chose it. This is the main image because it is the biggest image of them all and takes up at least a third of the page. However it doesn't dominate the entire page as it doesn't act as a background, instead lots of block colours have been used as the background for the text. The image has been placed underneath the masthead so that once the readers have looked at the masthead, they get drawn to look down to the image. It has been edited so that parts of the image overlap the masthead. This piece of editing gives the magazine cover what would've felt like a modern feel at the time of its release, however since technology has evolved since it doesn't still look modern to today's audience. 

The other three images relate to the sell line at the bottom of the page. The sell line consists of three film names and there is a picture to accompany each film. The images have been placed in a white box, all aligned in a singular line across the page. This makes it look neat and therefore visually appealing to the audience. Also included in this line is the barcode. This has also been placed in a white box as barcode typically are, and aligned with the rest of the images so that it fits in. This also helps add to make the cover look neat.

King Kong:

This magazine cover was published in 2005, which makes it's not modern but not necessarily old. However like all other magazine covers it follows certain conventions. Such as the masthead is in the biggest and boldest font at the top of the cover. However this magazine cover like a few others but not the most, include a cell line at the top of the cover above the masthead, and like all other magazines that do this, the font is smaller than the masthead. 

This cover is interesting because it has a lot going on text wise. There is the anchorage title on the left in a big bold font which reads the title of the film King Kong. There is no sell line to go along with it, the only thing that companies the anchorage title is the main image.

However there is lots of other text on the page to make up for that. Such as there was a sell line underneath the anchorage title which is almost as big in size but doesn't specifically relate to the anchorage title. This is then followed by a puff 'STARRING' and then plug consisting of a list of other film names. 

On the other side of the cover, there are three sell lines. Each sell line has been put in capital letters and a bold font and they all match fonts with the anchorage title, yet are considerably smaller. Also each one of the three has a piece of text underneath that that accompanies it but is not in capital letters nor bold. This range of text shows that there is a lot of interesting stuff going on inside of the magazine and encourages the readers to read further. Although there is a lot of text, by having the layout of each sell line being spaced apart from each other means it doesn't look crowded and also because there is nothing else on the cover such as other images. 

The magazine has kept to the colour scheme of yellow and white for all of the text. The white used for the text is used because it is on top of a dark background so is needed to be a light colour as to be seen to the readers.  Yellow on the other hand has been used to make the cover look more interesting and visually attractive as yellow is a bold colour and will draw the readers to look at specific parts.

Another colour has been used very sparingly is the colour red. This is been used for only one piece of text and also a logo above the barcode. The piece of text it has been used for is for part of the masthead which reads 'total'. This text is considerably smaller than the rest of the masthead but still part of it no doubt, as the word itself had placed inside one of the letters of the masthead. The small use of this colour gives the cover a bit of versatility so that it isn't stuck to just two colours and makes it look more visually appealing.

There is only one image used for this magazine cover and that is of the two main characters in the film King Kong, in which is the main attraction for this particular magazine. Behind the two characters, although hard for the viewer to properly see, is the main aspect of the film King King, which is the actual gorilla called King Kong in which the film is about. The image is used for the background as it is almost like a normal background as it mostly looks just black. Whereas the image of the two main characters has been foregrounded as it overlaps the masthead as it is clear to see. However the sell lines on the right hand side of the page do you overlap part of this image. The characters themselves have also kept stuck to the colour scheme as they're both wearing monotone clothes. The shot type for this image is a long shot and shows almost their full bodies. This is different from the usual mid shot, typically used for magazine covers. This shot has been used to show the position in which both characters are standing, which is of them clinging to each other looking scared. This relates to the storyline of the film as in the film, these two characters do get scared by the massive gorilla called King Kong.

The barcode on this magazine cover has been placed neatly in a long thin gap next to the main image. The barcode subtly fits perfectly into the space and doesn't attract any attention away from anything else. The date, issue number and price have also been placed wisely. They have been placed in the triangular gap, on top of the M in the masthead. This placement makes it easy to find and also looks good as it has been cleverly placed.

Conclusions - Conventions

After looking at three different film magazines with a drama film on the front cover, I have made some conclusions about magazine cover conventions. Some conventions I have observed are:

• The title of the magazine is the masthead and is in the biggest and boldest font at the top of the magazine cover
• The barcode can be placed both horizontal and vertical but is usually placed at the edge of the cover
• The anchorage text is in the second biggest and boldest font and is the name of the film that (the people in) the main image is from and is promoting.
• Each magazine have the date, issue number and price grouped together and usually located around the masthead
• The cover is usually taken up by the main image which provides a background for the cover. When the main image takes up the whole cover, other images aren't needed.

Two-shot

As my trailer has two main characters, I will want to use a two-shot for my front cover. This is less used for a magazine cover than a one person shot. I have looked into some front covers with specifically two people on their front cover to look at the shot types and layout used in order to comply with the extra person on the front cover. When choosing the magazine covers to analyse, I found ones with two-shots so that they would be more relevant to my own magazine - except the titanic cover as I chose that one purely for the layout, opposed to the main image. I have included a couple more magazines with two-shots but they have been positioned differently than the two I have analysed.

Both of these magazines have one character standing in front of the other in order to show the audience that one of the two is has a more dominant role in the film. Also, both use mid-shots which fits in with magazines with only one person on the front cover like the one below.