Natasha Reynolds Media Studies Post Production Evaluation

I have constructed a film magazine cover based upon elements from the following leading film magazines. Research and Planning

The Image  I believe this image is perfect for a magazine front cover as it is not too intimate yet it still suggests a love interest between the two characters. It is important to include an effective image in a magazine poster as 75% of consumers base their purchasing decision on a magazine's image.  The image is representative of the films narrative as I believe it shows the female character, Alex to be the more dominant character, controlling the conversation. Furthermore it could be suggested that her holding on to his necklace is symbolic- suggesting that she has their relationship in the palm of her hand.  Although the majority of magazine front covers have the star looking out to the audience- when promoting a romantic/ rom-com they often have the two characters looking at each other.

Colour Scheme  The film magazine covers I have looked at all follow a simple, similar colour scheme of red and black. Therefore to comply with existing magazine covers such as Total Film and Empire, I decided to use this colour scheme when creating my own film magazine.  Although I have followed the style of other film magazine covers, I still believe mine stands out as I have effectively used red to create a running caption across the top and bottom of the page, which is eye catching.  Similarly I experimented with the colour of the film’s title in order to create the most effective title for my magazine front cover to entice customers. I chose a black traditional font.

The Title  My film magazine is called Premier Film, I decided to experiment with the title and chose to replace the ‘i’ with a ‘1’ to reinforce the idea that it is the first place film-lovers should go to hear about the latest films and read the reviews.  I experimented with a combination of upper and lowercase letters. However I felt the title was more effective and had more attack if it was in upper case. Therefore I incorporated a similar style to Total Film and chose to have different sized fonts.  I followed the style of existing film magazines such as sight and sight and kept my title on the left hand side of the page so that it can still be seen and read when stacked up against other magazines on the shelf.

The Layout  I followed conventions of film magazine covers to create a professional magazine cover. For example I aligned the text to the edges of the page. Similarly I superimposed the image and the title, which is common in all magazines  Furthermore I chose to include competitions and freebies to involve and entice customers.  I also included a bar code, cover lines, a running captions and a slogan- incorporating the possessive pronoun ‘your’ to make the magazine seem more personal and to involve its intended audience.

Digital Technology  Microsoft Word 2007  Crop  Set Transparent Colour  Grouping Images  Layering  Word Art  Formatting  Shapes  Paint  Freestyle Crop  Digital Camera  Image Capture

Creativity  I experimented with the position of the title in comparison with the image. As I applied the image as the back-ground the title was covering the actor's face therefore I used creative software, paint to freely crop around his face and then line it up with the original image so that it covered the title. Similar to that of Total Film and Empire Magazine.  I thought about using the same sepia image for my magazine poster. After carrying out research I noticed that no other film magazines used an effect to enhance an image.