Final Result - Magazine

Our magazine front cover to market our film Lost Soul was based on the March 2001 edition of the Empire magazine which centered around the Hannibal film. Our main reason why we liked this cover was because of the striking pose on the front. With only half the face seen, it appeared very creepy and unknowing as we couldn't see the whole picture. We did a similar thing in our trailer, in which an over the shoulder shot only revealed part of our antagonist. By doing this on our front cover, it gave a continuous feel to it and the audience may be able to link the two together. Charlotte took a similar image and then imported it into Adobe Photoshop and went from there.
We chose the magazine Empire because it is a popular magazine with a large readership. However, the films which Empire usually advertise and market are sci-fi, fantasy, superhero or action. By using this magazine to advertise a horror film to a mainstream audience made it more different than normal. We did play it safe, though, by adding in a popular director of superhero film's Chris Nolan at the bottom in a special fetures section. 
As opposed to our film poster, in which our main focus was the location, we made our primary focus the ghost on our magazine front cover.

Magazine Cover Analysis - Hannibal (Research & Planning)

One way to draw in people's attention is through the use of a very dark colour scheme. This is done with the March 2001 Empire edition. It has an image covering half of the page, and then a black background with simplistic text on the other. Because you cannot see all the image, it gives a suspenseful feel to the image, which makes it very effective.

The colour scheme is fitting with the character's eye, which, once again, interlinks all of it without any text or colours overpowering the image. The large scale image and text help the reader see that these two are linked and automatically think about how they fit together and in what context.

The cover is effective because it is not advertising mainstream movies like superhero ones and focuses on unconventional psychos instead of love stories, for example.

Text size is also a relevant factor because it shows the main focus of the magazine. Other features and actors in the magazine are listed to the bottom right in smaller font size, which makes it less important and is not the first thing a reader is drawn into, which doesn't take away the effectiveness of the central image.

Words like 'exclusive' are also good ways to draw attention to the cover because it makes the reader feel like they are going to know the information first. However, the cover must be careful not to be too revealing so it ruins the film for moviegoers.

Magazine Cover Analysis - Scream (Research & Planning)

Despite the popularity of horror, it is not the type of film that is heavily promoted in to the masses in a populat magazine like Empire. There are a few covers, all representing and promoting horror in a different way.

The first cover is of the cast of Scream 2. There is no ghostface on the cover, simply the main female characters posing together. They are in the centre of the cover together, surrounded by other movie titles and influential actors, but it is obvious that the main focus of the issue is horror films. This is evident because of 'Horror Special' written at the bottom of the cover in red writing; the colour red being associated with blood and danger. The text is simple and bold, with no evident font style to link it to a genre, so this block text is simply standing out and attracting people's attention to read. With both the picture and writing inviting people to read, it immediately shows that they are the main feature of the magazine.






Because of the popularity of horror, they have tied in this issue promoting Scream to feature a '50 Scariest Movies' feature, which could be something we use when creating our front cover, because it makes it more relevent. The continuing theme will be more professional instead of mixing horror with science fiction, for example.

Throughout the cover, the same colours are used: white, red and black. This makes it look very professional and all interlinked. The yellow background of the '50 Scariest Movies' is striking and grabs the readers attention, this is a continual idea of all features used within an Empire issue.

Overall, this cover focuses on the actresses in the film rather than the characters within the film. I feel we will use an image or character from our film on our front cover because we are promoting the film and not the genre.

Magazine Cover Analysis - The Shining (Research & Planning)

A way to promote our film on a magazine cover could be by linking it to previously released horror films. By doing this, the readers will be attracted into the magazine by noticing the name of an influential horror film. For example, our front cover could include The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one of the highest grossing horror films ever. This way, our film will be noticed because of another films iconic status.

The use of an iconic actor will also draw attention to the magazine cover, as seen with Empire's cover revolving around The Shining. The use of the recognisable image means that people will be interested because they know about it. The same applies to a memorable quote.
The text styling on this cover is very retro and goes back to the beginning of cinema. However, our cover will just focus on our film so we will use more modern text and relate it to the horror genre not just cinema in general. Our text could be less rigid and resemble dripping blood because these are generic conventions of a horror film and we have used this styling of text in our trailer and poster.
Despite the collectors issue, there is still a bar code, pricing and issue number on the front, as there is with every other cover; making this a vital part of what we need to include in our own cover design.
The colouring throughout the cover is kept the same (Pink and Black) which makes it look professional, so we too will try to keep colours minimalistic to increase its professionalism.

Editing (21st March)

Following our audience feedback session last week, we did some more editing to make our teaser trailer better using the constructive criticism we recieved.
Our main issue with the trailer was the length, as when we showed it to the class it was about 2.10 minutes. It was longer than we planned because we were worried that we would not have enough footage, but watching it back on the big screen we realised that some of the shots were very repetative and too long. Today, Hannah took out two of the panning shots and refined the other shots which were on the screen for too long with nothing happening, which took away the effectiveness of the montage. After cutting these shots down, we took the time down to around 1:40. Another way we took the time down, was deleting one of the film distribution indents, which took off another 20 seconds.
Another piece of constructive criticism was to include a more diverse range of shots. We feel that we could add in some high and low angle shots and, if we can, we could film them over the weekend (24th and 25th March) but only if we are all avaliable.

Editing and Revised Lost Soul Teaser trailer

Following our auidence feedback, we did some more editing to our teaser trailer to cut it down to less that two minutes. We ended up cutting the shots that we realised were too long and repetitive. Today, Hannah took out two of the panning shots and refined the other shots which were on the screen for too long with nothing happening, which took away the effectiveness of the montage. After cutting these shots down, we took the time down to around 1:40. Another way we took the time down, was deleting one of the film distribution indents, which took off another 20 seconds.

This is the second draft of our teaser trailer for our A2 Advanced Portfolio. We feel  that it is an improvement compared to our last due to being refined and using constructive criticism we recieved following our auidence feedback.

Magazine Analysis

The front of Empire magazine is mostly of the main character from the particular film. In this case it's Captain Jack Sparrow as it's advertising Pirates of the Caribbean. This makes it the main focus of the magazine. This immediatly draws you in not only because you know who the character is, but the fact the image is taking up most of the front cover. All of the magazine front covers that i have looked at have one main image of the main character that has a significant role. We will use this idea for our magazine.

The text on this magazine stands out because of the use of colours. Using yellow contrasts with the background and really stands out and is easy to read from a distance. 

When we design and work out what extra things we are going to have on the front of our magazine, we will use a colour font that will stand out from what ever background image we use. Although because our moive genre is horror, we will probably keep the background a plain colour, it would either be black or white. This is because for a horror we want to use a limited amount of colour so the text will wither be red, black or white- depending on the background. It also has information of what will also be featured inside the magazine but not too much information has been given so you buy the magazine to know what the full story is about.

At the top of this magazine cover it say's 'movies' biggest year ever!'. The use of colour is what makes this stand out. The 'biggest yesr' in yellow which is a bold colour really catches your eye. What i have learnt from analysing this magazine front cover is the use of the image and how the font and colours used on the font makes the magazine come acorss.  The main points that I we will be using in our magazine are;

• one image - main character (face or body shot)
• minimum of three font colours
• circle offer
• what wil be included in the magazine (not too much info)
• possible background ( probably not as it's horror)