Analysis of film magazine cover

Below is an in depth analysis of a film magazine cover in preperation of my film magazine. (click to view)

Key learning points.

This task has reminded me of the key conventions of a film magazine front cover and has given me a clear indication of what I need to include on my magazine cover to make it as realistic and high quality as possible and also how I am going to effectively target my audience.

Draft Trailer

Below is a draft version of my film trailer.

After getting the shots for my film trailer, I have put together a drafted version of my film trailer, there are some things that work well in the trailer, although, there is also some things that need to be improved.

The first issue I have is the sound. I found that background noise on some of the dialogue scenes made it seem slightly messy, this is an issue that can be resolved by filming these scenes in different locations.

I also think that the trailer could have a better structure, it is difficult to work out what the trailer is about, this can sometimes be a good thing, but I think I need to re-think the scripting and structure to ensure that it follows a good narrative structure, referring back to Todorov on his analysis of the narrative structure of trailers may be useful with this.


Key learning points.
I now am aware of what I need to do to improve my film trailer, so this has been useful in regards gaining some feedback on how exactly I can do this. I can now take this information and refer back to it when I am in the second phase of my filming process. This post has also reminded me of some of the key conventions that a trailer should include that I should be careful not to stray away from too much. I will go through how I have learned from my audience feedback in my evaluation.

Construction update

After capturing the footage I need for my draft trailer, I have started to edit my film trailer

Film Magazine Planning

I intend to make a magazine that specialises solely on British films of all genres, making it slightly niche but gives exclusivity to the UK giving it a unique selling point. I have decided to do this because my film trailer is inspired by british social realism films that aren't very well known in other countries, so it is likely to receive more attention in a magazine that specialises in British film reviews, behind the scenes information and information about the actors etc.

So I am going to take some of my inspiration from magazines such 'British Film Magazine' in terms of content, which was a film magazine that produced content about British Films until the departure of the editor, Terence Doyle, this way I will be able to properly and effectively target my audience through content headings and 'Total Film' in terms of the design of my film front cover, because they use a bold and strong design which I think is very eye catching and appealing as a reader.

My target market is going to be a mass target market of people interested in British films, the magazine itself would be target at people aged 16-50 because anyone can be interested in a British Film, though interest in film magazines may not be very high for the older generations and for young people with low spending power, this demographic may not be filled as much. Although for the copy that I'm doing in particular, the target market will be 16-30, because from my research I found that social realism films are generally more popular with teenagers and young adults, so the copy will appeal more to this target market. Although subheadings will still be based on the magazine's target market.

I have come up with some different names, designs and fonts for my magazine name heading;

1.

For this name idea, I was aware that it could be seen as 'copying' the British Film Magazine name, despite the abbreviation. This is my favourite magazine name that I came up with, but I am slightly put off by this factor.

2.

 

This film name idea has the same principle of being clearly a British film magazine, however the drawback of this name is that, it doesn't have the same number of letters in each word, which I find slightly displeasing because it doesn't look as 'clean' on the page as the previous name idea. Most magazines are usually one word, an abbreviation or the words are equal in length. This magazine name is both an abbreviation and a word that doesn't equal the length. I think the heading has to be very clean, clear, prestine and eye catching, so I am taking this factor in to account.

3.

 The idea of this name is to abbreviate the words 'New British Film Magazine', although the principles are in place, it is quite a long abbreviation and isn't necessarily going to be very memorable despite the clear purpose behind the magazine: to be essentially a sequel to the previous Britsh film magazine. I am not keen on the idea of an abbreviated heading like this one because it looks like there is something missing on the page and isn't a very memorable name.

 I have considered four different fonts to use as my heading, after looking at other fonts that wouldn't be appropriate, these are the four fonts that I have narrowed my final decision down to. 

The first font has an eroded theme to it, which makes it original and it also suits the grit that we would  associate many British films with and indeed some aspects of British culture. It is a very bold font, making it very eye catching and clean on the page. However this font is very fitted to the British drama/action/social realism genre and strays away from historical, comedy, fantasy and romance genres. Although, I have noticed that magazines such as Empire don't really have a heading that fits the genres of some of the films they feature, so this factor may not be too important.

The second font is very bold and clear, but it doesn't have the same eye-catching and original themes that the first font has.

The third font is very similar to the second font, though it is slightly

more bold, I think this font would work well on my magazine cover because it looks high quality and premium, but lacks the identifiable nature of the first font.

The fourth font is interesting because it is a lot less bold, but still looks good on the cover of a magazine, although, I'm not sure it really that suitable for my magazine aims, because I want to have a bold title, though this font could work as the heading on a magazine.

I have decided that I will use the first font for the heading of my film magazine because I think it best reflects the themes of the magazine and I believe that it is the most eye-catching font that I have looked at out of the four.

I have also decided that I will use 'Brit Film' as the name of the magazine because it is the most simple, self explanatory name and looks clean and clear on the page.

Having thought about the name and the font, I now need to think about other aspects of the magazine, such as the image, colour scheme and subtitles.

The colour scheme is going to follow a black, white, red and blue theme to represent the Union Jack, this runs the risk of the magazine looking 'tacky' or cheap, so I am going to use darker, secondary colours because they look more premium. This colour scheme will help emphasise the British themes that my magazine aims to communicate.

Subtitles will follow the colour scheme and be aimed at my target audience to ensure that the magazine still reaches out to a broad target market.

And for the image I am going to have the key protagonist in a bleak looking location looking at the character to help fit the themes of the film that is being featured in the magazine. I have decided to have the main character as the key subject in the image because the key protagonist will be the character that people associate the film with the most, therefor is more likely to catch the readers attention.

Key learning points

This task has enabled me to thoroughly think about and plan my magazine cover so that it is as effective and as high quality it can be. It's meant thinking more about font choices, colour schemes and their impact on the target market that the magazine aims to reflect.

Film poster draft feedback

Below is a draft of my film poster.

As a part of this process, I was required to create a draft version of my film trailer. I chose a colour scheme of black, white and red because they connote dramatic themes of danger, violence and grit. These are three themes that I want to be able to convey because they fit in to my genre quite specifically, social realism is a difficult genre to recognize on film poster, because they usually use an image that is quite simplistic and hard to pin down a genre on. However, after studying other film posters of the social realism genre such as 'Spike Island' and 'This Is England', I think this film poster effectively conveys the genre through the use of colour scheme, fonts and the image. The main font I've chosen is a sans serif font with a shredded effect to it, I wanted to be able to make the main title look as if it had been damaged or eroded because this connotes further themes of destruction and grit. This type of font is often seen on social realism film posters because they are very bold and easy to read and stand out as a dramatic font. The image itself was taken in an alleyway because I wanted to be able to use a bleak style of lighting, which is something that this location offers and also wanted to have an imperfect background because It connotes the themes of grit that I am going for. The subjects in the poster are positioned to promote the idea of two antagonists and the key protagonist, they are positioned behind the subject with glaring expressions to connote themes of peer pressure, aggression, back stabbing, manipulation, isolation etc.

Overall, I was relatively satisfied with my film poster draft, but I am aware that there is need for improvement in areas. I received useful feedback and constructive criticisms to help me improve my film poster.

What works well...
The main aspects of the poster that people thought work well are the font choices, colour scheme, positioning of actors and the image. People seemed to like the simplicity of the image and the editing because there isn't much going on, but it is still able to communicate with the potential audience what some of the themes in the film might be.

Even better if...
The main criticism I received was that I should add a tagline, this is something that isn't necessarily always on film posters, so I decided not to have one. Though from my feedback, It is clear that I should consider using a tagline for my final poster, however, I should ensure that it isn't 'cheesy' or over the top, because this may stray away from the themes of social realism.
Other criticisms were that I need to be able to think of names for production companies and awards/reviews, this is something that I was aware of and need to think of some appropriate distribution/production company names and also some appropriate award titles. Also received feedback that the credit block needs to be smaller.

Key learning points
This task has been pivotal in developing my understanding of film posters and how to create an effective film poster that portrays its genre clearly. This required research by looking at film posters from other social realism film genres to effectively portray my genre which meant that I was able to recognize what themes should be incorporated in to my poster and what I should avoid.

Construction update

Over the past few weeks, I have been filming footage for my film trailer, I have just over a week left of filming and have captured about 50% of my footage, It has been difficult because the footage that I have got has been lots of short shots in different locations, however the remainder of my shots are in locations that are close to each other and so easier to quickly get this footage and have it edited.