Magazine front Cover

As a part of my A2 Media Portfolio I was asked to produce a trailer as well as two other publications- a magazine front cover and a movie poster. There are many differences in the visuals of a poster and a magazine some of which are the layout, the extent to which they tend to advertise the media product, the colors, shot angels and text. Before producing the magazine I looked at some other film magazines and analyzed their conventions and typical layout. I have looked at magazines such as Empire, Total film and Sight and Sound. Empire and Total film use similar layout and shot types as the cover usually consists of a single central shot of the main character. In order to make their cover more visually stimulating and appealing to the audience they use lots of professional image manipulation and editing, as well as strong contrast and bright colors which make the image seem more unrealistic. 

This picture is an example of a good front cover by Empire magazine. A high angle close up of the main character is positioned in the centre of the cover. The slightly saturated colours are brilliant as they create high contrast which attracts attention. The image is a professional studio shot of the main character in role which is quite typical for film magazines like Empire and total sound because their main purpose is to advertise the film to its demographic. The text is in three contrasting colours- black, white and bright green which work as a direct link to the film as the main character has a white face, black make up and green hair. This creates an important connotation as the producer uses colour to direct viewers attention to the film featured in this issue. Furthermore the empire has used emotive language to attract its audiences. For example, statements such as 'makes our day' are used to convince viewers to buy the magazine. 

Sight and Sound is a very different magazine compared to commercial magazines such as Empire and Total Film. This magazine is directed to a different demographic of people who are more interested in films and want to learn about the technical aspects of filming and representation techniques. The magazine has more informative  purposes compared to commercial magazines which use the magazine front cover to advertise the film and convince viewers to watch it. The front cover is therefore very different as it looks far more realistic. The shot is very differents as well, as its not a studio shot but an imaje extracted from the actual film featured in the issue. The overall look of the image is not as professiona which connotes that the magazine dont not focus on visual aspects as much as on information provision about the movies.

For our Front Cover we decided to produce a magazine which is commercial and has advertising purposes. Compared to Sight and Sound our magazine will have a studio shot which is taken specifically for the magazine. We decided the shot to be of Kenny because he is the darkest character fo the film. We wanted to use one picture which is a close up of Alex in his role of Kenny in the Woods. The picture would have props from the film such as the make up and hoody he was wearing. The ideal image is a high contrasted, good quality and well exposed close up of Kenny. The figure on the right shows how we have planned our cover to look. The layout is pretty simple and typical for front covers as the close up is central and all text is positioned on the sides. The title will be in slightly different font compared to the writing and bigger text size so that its eye catching. The colours we will use are mainly going to be cold colours i.e. dark colours such as black, dark red, and blue. The magazine will be not as informative as Sight and Sound but as entartaining as Empire so we want our icture to be eye catching and visually attractive.

While filming the trailer we decided to go to the photography studo and take some pictures of Kenny and eventually incooperate them into the trailer. As i am studying Advanced photography, I could use my photography knowledge and equipments for the production o our media publications. I have a professional camera which enabled us to get pictures of excallent ISO exposure and quality. When we went to the studo we decided to take many pictures of Alex as we knew we would need them at some point . I took various of shots from different perspective and angles. We wanted to take as many close ups of his face as possible so that we could use one for a central shot for the magazine and poster. You can see some of the pictures we have taken below.