Magazine Cover Photo Selection

Like the film poster, I have also had to select which photos I will use for my film magazine cover. Here are some of the photos that I shot and considered using, why I either chose to use them or not and the positives and negatives of each image.

Kidnapping Photos

These photos are long shots or mid-shots of the main antagonist of the film pointing a gun at the protagonist's wife's head. Since a major part of the story line of our film involves the antagonist kidnapping the protagonist's wife.The use of the gun is to connote the elements of danger and violence of the film. Also, the protagonist's wife's clothing was chosen to try and convey a sense of innocence. I thought it would be a good idea to show this in either the poster or the magazine cover, however, I am unsure whether these images will fit on the film poster, what images I would need to pair them up with and whether there are any other ideas I have for my film poster.

Protagonist Gun Photos

These mid-shots of the antagonist were taken as I thought I could pair them up with an image of another character, perhaps the antagonist or the protagonist's wife. The top image connotes more action as it makes it seem as if the protagonist is aiming the gun and is preparing to shoot, however, the bottom image may fit better on a magazine cover as I will be able to centralise the photo better.

Protagonist and Antagonist Photos

Finally, this last picture is again, a mid-shot, but is also a two shot including the protagonist (right) and the antagonist (left) of the film. I decided not to use this image as this pose/image is usually seen when two characters are partners, and that isn't the purpose I was going for. Having to characters back-to-back could suggest that the characters are covering each other from an attack to protect each other. 

Why I Choose Empire Magazine

When deciding on what film magazine to base my magazine cover around, I needed to choose a magazine that has a similar readership to my target audience.


I decided to use Empire Magazine as they include reviews and articles of large budget, block-buster films as well as exclusive interviews with A-list actors and directors. In every issue of Empire magazine, there will be:

- The month's cinema and home releases reviewed
- Reports from the newest, most-anticipated films in production
- Celebrity actors get quizzed about their own films
- Reviews of the month's horror and sci-fi films by renowned critic Kim Newman
- Analysis of a classic film

Also, the magazines they produce appeal to a younger audience due to the layout, design and style of the magazines. Their readership age is between 15-25 years old, which suits our film's target audience. Continuing, the majority of Empire magazine's readers are predominantly male as last year it reached 523,000 male readers and only 213,000 female readers, which also matches with our films target audience.

Monthly reach of Empire magazine in Great Britain from October 2016 to September 2017, by demographic group (in 1,000s)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382240/empire-monthly-reach-by-demographic-uk/

I also looked at other magazines like Entertainment Weekly, and while they still include articles related to these block-buster films, the readership age is much higher than Total Film's and is between the ages of 18-54 and has a 57% female audience, which doesn't match our film's target audience as well as Total Film's readership.

Magazine Cover Mood-board

Similar to that of my magazine poster, I decided to create a mood-board of film magazine covers that I thought looked appealing and included both features and films I enjoyed.

Empire Magazine Cover Analysis

Continuing on from the Total Film magazine covers I researched and analysed, I will also analyse some Empire magazine covers to get a range of ideas from different magazine covers.

General Conclusion

From my magazine cover analysis, I now know there certain features and techniques that I will need to include on my magazine cover, but I learnt most of this in my AS coursework last year. One thing I've learnt through this research, however, is that in the posters I have researched and analysed, only 3 colours are used. I also developed a few ideas for how I will structure my magazine poster, the types of images I will use and the colour scheme of the magazine cover. However, these ideas could change and need to be adjusted/edited in accordance to showing the unique selling points of our film.

Total Film Magazine Cover Analysis

Another part of the A2 coursework that we need to do is produce either a magazine cover or a website homepage for our film. We made magazine covers in last year's coursework, so that's what our group decided to do. Here I will research existing film magazine covers, specifically, Total Film covers.

Total Film

Final Film Poster Audience Feedback

After constructing a final film poster, I decided to get one last set of audience feedback to see how well my final film poster appeals to our film's target audience. I can also ask whether the audience feel as if I match and follow the conventions of a thriller poster and a film poster. This is the Survey Monkey that I got the audience to answer.

Create your own user feedback survey

These are the main improvements suggested by the above questionnaire:

Pros

+ Page well laid out

+ Nothing competing for space or attention

+ Good balance of colours

+ There is a clear theme to the poster

+ Important information can be clearly seen

+ Billing block is smaller, yet still readable

+ Release date is more noticeable

+ Endorsement is appropriate and fits well

+ Everything fits well

+ Images stand out from background

+ Background image suggest violence

+ Good tagline, not as objective

+ Good use of different fonts

Cons

- Lack of props used in images

- Left image character's hood could be edited better

- Character actor's names could stand out more

Final Film Poster

This is the final version of my film poster. I have taken into consideration all of the audience feedback I had received from both my first draft and my second draft and have incorporated it into this final version.

I changed the tagline of the poster from "They took his wife. Will he get her back?" to "They took his wife. Can he get her back?". I did this because the first tagline sounded to subjective. 

The images have also been slightly edited/tweaked, as before the protagonist (right) appeared much smaller than the antagonist (left). I made them a similar size and also changed the intensity of the black and white on the image of the antagonist. Before, the antagonist looked too dark and didn't stand out enough.

Another change I made to the poster was that I removed the actors names as some of them weren't needed. I decided to keep the names of the actors who were actually featured on the film poster and anchored them to the images by placing them closer to the images. By doing this, it created more space for other features to go on the poster.

In the space that was created, I added an endorsement. Endorsements are used to further attract an audience. They praise the film and are usually from respected sources. In the endorsement, the stars used matched the overall theme of the poster.

Finally, I drastically changed/edited the billing block. After re-looking at other film posters, including the ones I researched and analysed, the billing blocks were extremely small to the point where they were hardly readable. So I changed the font and decreased the size of the billing block.

Film Poster Second Draft Audience Feedback

Similarly to the first draft of the film poster, I have asked people in my year that match our target audience what they thought I could do to improve the poster. This is the Survey Monkey I got my audience to fill in and answer.

Create your own user feedback survey

These are the main responses from the above survey.

Pros

+ Nice idea with the background image

+ Good image ideas

+ Good colour scheme

Cons

- Characters don't stand out enough

- Fonts are all the same

- Release date doesn't stand out enough

- Billing block doesn't need to be as large

- Change the tagline, too subjective. Will he choose to get her back?

- Don't include all actors names

- Antagonist looks larger than the Protagonist

- Resize images to make them same size

- Billing block shouldn't be block capitals

- Add an endorsement

- Change the type of release date, not so specific

- Edit the photos better

Film Poster Second Draft

This is the second draft of my film poster, however, it is a near finished version as there are only a few minor tweaks I may need to make. There are many differences between the first draft of the poster and this version. I took into consideration the audience feedback from the first draft of the poster and edited the poster accordingly to implement the feedback.

The first thing I decided to change was the colour scheme of the poster. I chose to make the background black and the text on the poster both, red and white, as it makes it stand out more. For example, the main names in the billing block were made white when next to the red text and the black background to make the key names stand out.

Also, I added a filter to the images used on the poster that made them black and white. I did this as I felt it would make the photos fit in better with the poster. Another thing that I changed with the photos was the editing. I edited the photos down more to make them look smoother and to remove any white edges.

Continuing, I also added a splatter of blood to the background. I did this as the other film posters I researched all included a background pattern and since our film is about kidnapping and robberies/heists, it seemed appropriate to include blood on the poster as our film would involve violence.

Finally, I also created a tagline to go with the film in "They took his Wife. Will he take her back?". I feel this tagline is quite effective, short and punchy. All films have a tagline, so I needed to create one too.