Research
Empire
In order to create a successful magazine we looked at magazines on the market which are currently established and are well respected in their given industry. This helped us understand the conventions of a magazine and a style we should replicate for our own magazine cover. We looked at the followng, Empire, Entertainment and Total Film these are all well known magazines in the Hollywood industry.
Firstly, we looked into an accomplished magazine brand "Empire". We looked at this magazine as they are well established and are always covering successful blockbuster films. We looked at posters to get an initial inspiration for our own. We did this by analysing and deconstructing the conventions of Empire magazine.
Entertainment
We also looked at Entertainment magazine, similarly to Empire they also feature the main character in the center, however they focus on mid shots or long shots showing off the full length of the character in or without costume. They also utilise advertising by putting films and or adverts of similar genre around the magazine cover this provides secondary advertsing.
Total Film
This Total Film Edition has been clearly customised to promote the film Avatar. This is obvious with the use of the colour blue; this dominant colour represents the characters in the film therefore readers who see this will automatically associate this film magazine with Avatar. The text around the magazine are white and grey, these both compliment the Avatar and the colour blue. The Avatar is the focal point in the magazine, the shot is a face on mid-shot and he is looking directly at the camera this is effective as it catches audiences attention. You are also able to see some costumes and props therefore learn more about the Avatar character.
|
Planning
After our research we had an idea of what we wanted to include in our magazine. We started my sketching up a draft to give ourselves a visual plan of what to include on our magazine. We had learnt the conventions of different types of magazines, therefore combined all these ideas to create a realistic cover of our own. We thought it was vital to make the pig our focal point as this is a reoccurring theme for most magazines- to have one character as the focal point. This was useful as it gave us an idea when we came to creating it of where to place the titles, texts, photographs and captions.
Photo shoot
We used the same location as we used in our trailer to take photographs for our magazine cover- Waterloo Leake Street. This was intentionally to make sure our magazine and film complimented each other. We wanted to establish an image for the pig and we thought the graffiti walls would represent the pig and is also a theme in our trailer. We practiced a range of long shots, mid-shots and close ups as we wanted the capture the unusual mask. The pig mask looked effective in contrast to the colourful graffiti walls.
Photoshop Experimentation: Title/Font
We based our magazine around Empire; we started to create some Titles for our magazine. We experimented with the 'Stencil' font as this was also used in our trailer and poster, however this idea did not work as Empire as a iconic font by changing it did not make the magazine look like a traditional Empite magazine. Therefore we found a similar font that is used on real Empire magazines.
We also experimented by placing a Big Ben icon on the letter 'E' we thought this would customise our magazine to suit our film- as our film is based in London and features a scene of Big Ben in the opening of the trailer. This would make our magazine compliment our trailer and audiences would understand how they are linked. We used an outline of Big Ben as it looked as if it had been graffitied on the 'E' this also follows the grafftiti theme in our trailer.
We chose the font to be white as the background is very colourful and busy therefore any other colour was not clear enough. Followung the style of Empire the font is bold and stands out instantly drawing in audiences attention. We also experimented with a caption selling this edition; this was to make our magazine more interesting to our readers. This follows conventions of other magazines as they typically make them special editons.
We also experimented by placing a Big Ben icon on the letter 'E' we thought this would customise our magazine to suit our film- as our film is based in London and features a scene of Big Ben in the opening of the trailer. This would make our magazine compliment our trailer and audiences would understand how they are linked. We used an outline of Big Ben as it looked as if it had been graffitied on the 'E' this also follows the grafftiti theme in our trailer.
We chose the font to be white as the background is very colourful and busy therefore any other colour was not clear enough. Followung the style of Empire the font is bold and stands out instantly drawing in audiences attention. We also experimented with a caption selling this edition; this was to make our magazine more interesting to our readers. This follows conventions of other magazines as they typically make them special editons.
We changed the title of our film to 'Preview' we thought this was an effective name as this magazine gives you first insight into all new films. We wanted this title to fit in with 024, we did this by using the font 'Urban Jungle' this font suited the rest of our magazine and our film as it looked distressed and rundown- as if it had been graffitied. It also had a cut out cityscape at the bottom, this complimeted our film as it is set in London, it is based in the big city and features a lot of iconic buildings in the trailer.
The colour of the font was white, as we experimented before white is the only colour that stands out against the graffiti background. We made this an occuring theme for the rest of the magazine and continued to use the colour white for the other texts. We also enlarged the size making it the largest text on the cover, this was typical in magazines as the title is always eye-catching.
The colour of the font was white, as we experimented before white is the only colour that stands out against the graffiti background. We made this an occuring theme for the rest of the magazine and continued to use the colour white for the other texts. We also enlarged the size making it the largest text on the cover, this was typical in magazines as the title is always eye-catching.
As our background was busy, we had to make sure our text stood out. We did this by adding an 'Outer Glow' as we were following a white theme, we used a black outer glow in contrast to make the text even more bold. We did this for all the text on the cover, to make it blend in well with the background we altered the spread. This blurred the outer glow creating an effect which looked as if it had been graffitied on. This complimented the graffiti background and made the text and background blend well together. This follows conventions of magazine as they customise their covers in order to promote a film.
The two fonts we used were 'Impact' and 'Stencil STD'. Impact suited our magazine as most magazines use a bold but simplistic font, the texts stood out with this font and were clear for the audiences to read. We then used Stencil Std on our cover as this was the same font we used in our trailer and the poster. Therefore audiences can identify we are promoting the film 024.