Research film magazine covers

Research Film Magazine Covers

How are they laid out?

From my research of what film magazine covers look like I can say that all of them are very similar to each other. All of them are landscape, with a medium sized title right at the top of the page, which is followed by the company name of the magazine. All of which are put into the fore ground of the magazine because a picture of a recognisable character of the film being advertised is brought to the front of the magazine and edited to stand out over anything else on the magazine cover.

The magazine cover also has lots of smaller text that advertises the release dates of other films for example this magazine cover example has a still shot of one of the Avatar characters, with a small quote to entice an audience to read the magazine. All film magazine covers have their barcode and price on the bottom right hand corner; this is put at the bottom corner of the magazine because it should be the last thing that catches the reader’s eye.

What is the target audience?

For this part of my research I used the magazine film company ‘Total Film’. This film company is popular in the UK and publishes 13 times a year. For this company to know their main target audience they create an audience profile every year. In 2016 this recorded that 75% of film magazine buyers are men and the average age of people buying Total Film magazines is 26 years old. This tells big film magazine companies such as Total Film what they can and should advertise on the front of their magazine covers. For example the example magazine covers which advertises the hit film Shutter Island has the main character holding a gun and has a very serious facial expression. This connotes that this is a film for an audience who is 18 years or above. This is because this character shows a persona of a violent nature.

Film magazine research

Shutter Island

 

 

 This film magazine is created by the well known magazine film company called 'Total Film'. This company is advertised on the front of this magazine just under the masthead, the word 'Total Film' is in big bold white lettering and stands out.

 

The masthead is positioned at the top of the magazine, in bright red lettering that has a smudged effect to it to which creates a mysterious look. The masthead says ' Greatest movie art ever' This will attract a wider audience because the word 'Greatest' is used to promote all the films that are promoted in this magazine. Underneath the masthead there is a tag line that says ' Top filmmakers show us their sketchbooks!' an audience could see this as another selling point of the magazine because not only will they see films being advertised but they will also see the filmmakers sketchbooks of their all time favourite films. Followed by the tag line is the Total Film website for anyone who wants to find out more information about the film magazines Total Film.

Beside the masthead in the top left hand corner of the front cover is a puff, this is a small still picture of a character in a film. This is used to also advert the film but catches the attention of the audience straight away as it positioned next to the masthead which is what the audience would read first.

The main attraction of this front cover is the main character of the film 'Shutter Island', He is wearing a long suited coat, suit trousers, a tie and is holding a small shot gun by the side of him. He also has a police badge on his belt and has his other hand scrunched into a fist. To add to this dominate figure his face has lots of shadows on it and this shows him to be looking very angry and determined. Along side of this to the left of the front cover there is some text that is titled ' Dicaprio Exclusive' and then begins to advertise the film by naming the film title and talking about the main character 'Leo' taking over the asylum. This is a clever way of the magazine cover to advertise who is in the film without just saying the actors name about the film credits.

To the right of the main character on the front cover is a still picture of the main character from the Avatar film. This has a smudged red boarder around it just like the smudged masthead lettering. This red themed front cover connotes lots of danger in the films advertised. And finally the front cover finishes with a short snappy sentence of what else is advertised within the magazine and the barcode of this magazine.

 

Ex _ Machina

 

 

 

 The masthead of this magazine cover is 'The terminator 30th anniversary special', the terminator part of this masthead is in a black bold font and the rest of the masthead is in a pale purple bold colour. This is to separate it from the company logo of the magazine 'Total Film'. This is displayed on the magazine because this company takes responsibility of what is in the magazine. Along side this there is a small action figure from an action film in the top right hand corner, this is called a puff and is used also to advertise the film it is from.
 

The main characters in the film are in the middle section of the front cover, the two male characters are in the background either side of the girl who is placed in front of the two other characters. She is half human half machine and this will tell the audience why the film is called Ex_Machina.