Amy Geoghegan's Advanced Portfolio Trailers

Friday, 2 April 2010

Colour Scheme For Magazine Cover

For our magazine cover it is important that we choose the right colours to reflect our magazines content and its brand identity. It also needs to fit in with the main cover line, which is about our horror film 'White Lies'.

We initially thought about using colours that are conventionally associated with the genre of horror, such as black and red to represent darkness and blood. However we felt that this was extremely depressing and didn't reflect the content we wanted to explore. This is because we wanted to explore the actress of our character so we have used contrasting images, which is also shown in our colour scheme. We decided to use the colours of white and peach. This is because they both have associations with innocence, which are important to reflect the girlie side to our actress and create a contrast with her role and portrayal of her character. We have also decided to use a background to make it seem more professional as oppose to a colour, which we thought would have made it look amateur. We decided to use a brick wall, which has a tough approach as it is on the street and has a rough surface, which supports the character that Talia plays.

Action Plan For The Magazine Cover

2nd April:

We are going to design the title, logo and colour scheme of our Magazine cover in order to then create drafts of the entire cover. We will brain storm different title names for our magazine to see which name fits in with our target audience and portrays what the magazine is about. We will then find different font types to see which one is most suitable for our audience, as we want it to be unique but legible. The colour scheme is also very important in order to reflect our main themes in semiotics.

4th April:

We are going to design three mock up magazine covers and then gain feedback. This is important in establishing our initial ideas and finding what works with our target audience and what they don't like. We can then build on our ideas and create a draft from this.

6th April:

After deciding what our magazine cover will be, we will then do a photo shoot and capture the main image for our cover. This is important as this is the main aspect of the cover that grabs attention and needs to be very effective.

10th April:

We will then choose our image from our photo shoot to see which one has been the most successful and can then begin to edit this photo and manipulate it to fit our ideas.

11th April:

We will create our magazine cover, offering two alternate drafts and then gain feedback to see which one is most successful.

12th April:

We will then have a completed Magazine Cover that is appropriate for our audience and concept.

Notes On The Conventions Of Magazine Front Covers

Through researching magazine front covers we have discovered many conventions that we should include in our own front cover.

Each magazine cover had a masthead, which is the title of the magazine, which is usually placed at the top of the page. This is usually the largest font size on the page to show the audience the magazines individual identity against its competition. The font style, colouring and appearance becomes almost like a brand, which is important to get right as this is what will make your magazine recognisable to the audience.

There is a selling line/tagline, which is usually a couple of words long that gives a brief description of the magazine. This is important to give a unique selling point and show why the consumers should buy your magazine. This is usually in a small font placed near the title to show its about the magazine and not a story.

There is also a main cover line, which is the main story that the magazine is covering. This is shown in a big font that is different to the masthead. It is often linked with the main image and is noticeably different from the rest of the text.

The main image is the biggest image on the magazine cover, which is often a star such as Megan Fox. This is often linked with the main cove line, which helps to instantly tell the audience what the magazine is about.

The cover lines are text on the front cover that aren't the main story but still describes what is in the rest of the magazine.

There is also a barcode on the cover along with a price and a date. There is also often a website to the magazine.

Thursday, 1 April 2010

Analysing Magazine Covers

This is two covers from Empire magazine covering the two main characters of the film, the antagonist and the protagonist. They have made these two covers collectors edition, this makes a general hype of the film. The information on the cover is minimal and identical for the two magazines, the only difference is colour theme and the image. This is different to the other covers i have looked at as there is no other imagery on this cover and the text is so small that there is nothing detracting the audiences eyes from the image. Both images are of the character looking directly into the camera lens, with the Batman cover he has white spots in his eyes, and in the one of the Joker- he doesn't. This makes the Joker appear more sinister and alien in behaviour. Both facial expressions are intimidating and serious, leaving the audience to speculate is either the 'goody'. As the image is almost exactly the same for each character it leads the audience to believe that their is possibly no difference in character between the two roles. By looking directly down the camera lens it engages the audience with the magazine, although this is often difficult to create as the tendency is for the audience to gaze back at the cover with out actually engaging with them. The difference in colour leads the audience to believe that there are striking differences between the two characters. The blue used for Batman makes him appear to be calm and collective, this is contrasted well with the black. The use of the green makes the Joker appear alien like and different, his make up reinforces this idea, and his red lips make you think that it possibly could be red with blood, this is also the colour that he wears throughout the film, and can connote jealousy.

This film poster focuses on the main character from the film, Johnny Depp is clearly the USP of the film, as his name is referenced on the the cover. The end of the gun meets at Johnny Depp's face, this centres the focus of the shot and draws the eyes to his face, this is done intentionally as he is the USP for the film and therefore the designers are. The shot looks like it could possible be a still that has been taken from the film. This helps to portray the action genre as it looks as if he is in mid battle with someone and gives the image movement rather than it being static or posed. They haven't used any other large or striking props or characters again reflecting that he is the key focus of the film. They have also mentioned the co-writer and director of the film- reflecting that this is another selling point for the film. The image of Johnny Depp makes him to appear sinister and shady as he is looking away from the camera. It is a very clean cut image, his whole appearance is sharp and striking making it an impacting image. It reflects this aspect of Johnny Depp's character. The image fades to smoke at the bottom reflects mysterious aspect of his character and the genre action. Through mise en scene- costume and props it sets the era in which the film was set (1930's), this automatically will draw in fans of this genre instantly. The use of red connotes danger or blood, areas of importance are highlighted in red to make them stand out from the grey, white and black. This is also reinforced by the gun as it reflects danger, death and violence. relying on the audience recognising who he is. The company 'Empire' are clearly confident in the audience recognising the title of the magazine, as the have put the image over the top of the title. They have used captions such as 'First Look', 'Exclusive' and 'Inside' to reflect the exclusivity of this magazine and to compete with other magazines for the best stories. They have included a website URL, linking the other forms of media relating to Empire together and so that they sell each other. Within in the web page the audience can become interactively involved with the selling of films and participate in quizzes and view blogs, reviews, videos and track the latest news. This shows the the mass media institutes are becoming aware that audiences are becoming more technologically aware, and that slowly everything is moving to the Internet. They have chosen images from other action films, this relates all images chosen back together and as they will have captured the attention of a specific audience who likes action through the largest image of Johnny Depp, and continue to sell films that may appeal to them as they fit into that genre. Initially I felt that it was unusual for the title of the film to not be in red seeing as this is the emphasising colour of the cover, but I then realised that this would have detracted from the magazines own title. This is a clear difference between creating a film poster and then creating a film magazine cover- that you have to share the attention of the audience with another media institution.

This image of Megan Fox focuses on the sexuality of the actress. This is the key selling point for this male orientated film. The audience for this film know the storyline and therefore are relying on the actors or some other aspect to draw the audience in. The film follows a male gaze and often focus's on her body. The fact she is topless makes the image raunchy and will instantly draw the attention of men with a male gaze. She is making eye contact with the camera lens and is therefore drawing in the attention of the audience and making the look back at her. Again there is minimal other information on the front, and therefore they are relying on the image of Megan to draw their audiences in. Women will be attracted as they want to aspire to be her, and males will be attracted due to her sexuality. The name of the film is highlighted but the name of the actress is larger than the name of the film, clearly showing that Megan Fox is the unique selling point of them film. They have used words such as 'hot' and 'sizzeling' which reinforce the images sexual nature. The other films that have featured on the cover are ones that are of a similar genre, or have a similar audience, for example Star Trek and Wolverine. Both these films are generally teen movies, based upon action but with an alien like aspect to them. The colour palette for the writing that goes around Megan is really simplistic, this leaves the focus on the image. The text that stands out the most is 'Empire', so therefore the two standing out features are the title and the image of Megan. The text goes around her as she is the focus of the magazine cover.

Conclusion of Our Results

From our questionnaire we can create the following specification for the front cover of our magazine:

-Our magazine should be issued once a month, and therefore include a wide range of information covering this span of time, rather than short weekly information

-Our front cover should be attractive and eye catching to attract the most amount buyers, it should also cover interesting topics.

-Our magazine should be priced at £2-£3

-Our magazine should be aimed at a target audience aged between 16-20 years old and therefore should cover films that this audience are allowed to view

-Our target audience has an existing knowledge of the creation or technical processes of film as the majority work with in the film industry and therefore we can cover more technical information. The technical process of creating films also appeals to them, so this is a topic we should cover.Visiting the cinema is a hobby of the majority of our target audience and therefore they have a wider knowledge of films and have higher expectations. Our magazine cover should feature up and coming film releases and up and coming artists.

-Our audience doesn't become attracted to freebies or offers with in magazines, therefore they are more interested in the content of the magazine.

-The majority of our target audience prefer the genre of horror, followed by action, this means that films of this genre should be the features of our magazine cover.

-Our magazine should focus on independent film productions rather than blockbusters as this is what our audience is attracted to. This may be due to the fact that the majority of film magazines cover blockbuster films and our audience would like to see something different.

-Our magazine should feature a person rather than props as this is what the audience is attracted by.

-The typography on our cover should be creative, unusual but legible.