Inside Movies Magazine Cover - Final Version

This is the final version with a couple of superficial changes:

1. The font size has been increased across the board wherever possible and so it doesn't interfere with the design
2. The colours of the sub-headlines have been changed from red to white as it wasn't fully visible with the flames in the background
3. The word Blockbuster is in caps to emphasis that this is a big Summer film and will be a conventional blockbuster. This helps the audience decide what type of film this is.
4. The green has been slightly lowered and made lighter so it now blends in better with the background whilst not losing the visual of the face in the flames. The green is virtually invisible.
5. There is now a better use of the space outside of the facial image. The Daniel Radcliffe picture has been raised with the headline underneath increased.
6. The website is also bigger and has been raised from the bottom of the page. I felt that there needed to be a more obvious link to the website.
7. Small grammatical errors have been ammended.

Final Magazine Cover

The total changes that I have made are:
1. The title is fictional as opposed to Total Film
2. All of fonts are now Sans Serif
3. The title/tagline of the magazine are now in 3-colours
4. The "green" behind the picture of Jonathon is now more blended into the yellow of the explosion - this wasn't mentioned yesterday as there were complications regarding the Openzine software
5. The main headline now directly address the image of the star in the explosion i.e. "Who is behind..."

I also got feedback regarding not being able to see the main headline and also the price. The black and red fonts are now in locations that make the text more visible. Also, the price is a more realistic £3.00.

3rd Draft Magzine Cover

I have made the changes suggested by Mr. Wroe and I outlined in my last post.

One of these have been to the title - Blockbuster sounds like a magazine that would be similar in content to Empire and Total Film and would meet their conventions i.e. would celebrate film rather than criticise; look at big budget films not just arthouse cinema.

I have changed the grammatical errors and finally the colours so all of the text was move easily visible

2nd Draft Magazine Cover

I have made the following changes to the first draft of my magazine cover:

1. Image - I wanted an image that reflected the action-thriller genre. I chose an explosion as a bomb is at the heart of the film. Given the events of the past week, I had to carefully choose my image so that it would not be offensive. I also was not keen on the old image as it didn't reflect what is happening in the film.

2. Star - I needed an image of the "star" but as Jonny is not recognised as a celebrity, I thought it would be interesting to mix him into the explosion. This also mean't I had to change the headline to reflect the "mysterious" nature of a brand new star. It is a more Unique Selling Point than the original poster image.

3. Tagline(s) - I wanted to link this in into the image. As it is difficult to see who the star is, the tagline should reflect this. The other taglines are generic film magazine taglines that are more interested in promoting films rather than challenging or criticising them.

Changes:

1. Change the title to a fictional one.
2. Change the colour of the taglines so they are more easily visible
3. Grammatical errors.

magazine cover

This is a basic draft of the magazine cover for Total Film. I will edit this later on but at this point, it contains some of the key elements that I will keep for the new draft.

The magazine has to incorporate several key elements such as:
1. Masthead - Title of magazine so the audience is aware of what the magazine is called
2. Sub-heading - This is to give further detail on the magazine's content and elaborate on the theme. In this case it is a modern film magazine and the tagline "The Modern Guide to Movies" helps confirm this. This makes Total Film distinctive from magazines such as "Sight and Sound" which focus on older, classic films.
3. Main Headline
4. Barcode - Is a standard convention of all magazines
5. Price and Date - This needs to be included to inform the readers

The main headline is obviously about our film. The main image is taken from the early draft of the poster. However, in future, we may use images of the stars (Matty or Jonathon) as this is what magazines do to sell the magazine to their target audience. Stars are important of getting an audience outside the target audience and the bigger the star, the more likely that you will getting more sales.

The headline is designed to focus on the biggest film at that point in time. This again may change as we may add a more catchy tagline that perhaps is even a pun on the title.

The next major headline below this is the Summer preview which links into our film. The Oscars headline is trying to attract an audience who perhaps do not like blockbusters film. The remaining headlines are designed are focusing on big films (except for my headline!) to further attract and capture the film-loving audience.

As this is a commercial magazine, most of the headlines reflect films in a positive light.

We will perhaps change the colours although the red, black & white tie in nicely with the poster. However, the purple and yellow will probably be changed. Also, I think the font is rather dull and may need to be changed

Total Film Analysis/Research

I have chosen to focus on the film magazine "Total Film". I am looking at the production details, Audience, mode of address and representation.

PRODUCTION DETAILS
Total Film is produced by Future Publishing in Bath. Future produces over 150 magazines worldwide including magazines like Classic Rock, Xbox 360 Magazine and Total Guitar. Their magazines are produced in over 30 countries around the world.
Total Film is one of their biggest selling magazines with around 85-90,000 magazines sold each month. It costs £4.00 and will occasionally have free DVDs and books accompanying the magazine. It features reviews of new films and old films revisited.
It has a consistent format and layout with the following elements:
a). Cover article - the big feature of the month
b). Buzz - film gossip and news(films not yet released)
c). Reviews - reviews of cinema releases that month
d). Lounge - home entertainment news and features (near the back)
e). Reader's letters and competitions (to guarantee audience engagement)

AUDIENCE
The audience is primarily made up of young men who are film fans. Most of the letters are from men and the advertising is male-orientated. Most of the adverts support the film industry e.g. HMV, Play.com, DVDs due to be released. Men are also targeted for the classified adverts at the back for games, gadgets, technology, cars and phone sex lines. However, the magazine does claim that 25% of its readers are women.

MODE OF ADDRESS
The mode of address is playful, masculine and youthful e.g. looking at Harry Potter lego designs to see if it gives clues for the films. The magazine is not very laddish by including film references and jokes whilst not being too serious. It positions its audience as young, knowledgeable film lovers who are familiar with pop culture references and have a sense of humour

REPRESENTATION
There is a bias towards men which is the same as in Hollywood. Most of the stars and directors featured are male. The women who are featured are presented as sex objects who are all attractive and sexy. It does reject laddishness that is in magazines like Zoo and Nuts. Future conducted a survey several years ago that claimed that the average demographic is 75% male and the median age is 26. The psychometric profile describes Total Film readers as dedicated film goers who see films on the opening weekend and show off their film knowledge to their mates in the pub.

PM