Research into Existing Magazines

I have researched a range of magazine covers.I have identified numerous techniques that have been used and are popular throughout magazine covers. The magazine layouts appear to be quite similar in the way that they present their images and information on the cover. Such layouts consist of techniques such a mast head, strap lines, a tag line, images on a left side third, puffs, most importantly a central image and other extras such as barcode and price.

Film Magazine: Twilight

I have researched into the magazine cover Film In of the film 'new moon' this is a popular film that is mainly aimed towards girls because it is a love story. This cover will target a range of audience particualarly teenagers and fans of the film and novel. Socialisation is important for this novel because everyone will be talking about the novel as it is popular so people will want to read it so they can be involved.Young people look up to these characters played, they are well known characters and people think these characters are good looking and dress well. So they are good models towards them.

The banner line shows that the font of the writing on this film cover is suited to the genre, the writing is bright and white almost trying to represent a moon. There is a strap line on the magazine front cover 'exclusive sneak peek!' making the readers want to read more inside the magazine, this strap line encourages the readers to buy the magazine as they want to know more.

The dinations of the front cover show the three main characters in the film, as shown in the writing underneath the banner line giving the film characters names of 'Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson' infront of a Twilight background. The connotation of the framed positon of the characters shows her hand on his shoulder, represented that she is in love with him and it also shows him looking over his should to show he in in love with her. There is a love triangle shown between the three antagonist. On the left hand third usually promoting other articles in the magazine.


Film Magazine: The Dark Knight

This Empire magazine cover has extremely catchy bright colours. So at a first glance of looking at this magazine on a shelf it would stand out and catch the eyes of the persons attention.

The character featured on the front of the magazine is the 'Joker' from 'The Dark Knight', the joker has very dull colours on but the surroundings fonts and colours make him stand out the most. This is in complete contrast to the film poster for 'The Dark Knight'. Also as the 'Joker' is played by the huge actor Heath Ledger, the magazine has a huge selling point. Also when filming 'the Dark Knight', Heath passed away so this may also sell the magazine.

The cover of the magazine seems to be comical with a sense of horror, if the 'Joker' wasn't smiling then the sense of horror would disappear. There is also a lot of text on the front of the magazine, telling us what articles are inside. 'World Exclusive'. These words attract attention when looking at this magazine because it keeps the audience thinking as to what this world exclusive may actually be. The words 'Joker' are shown to be in illuminous green, the colour of which the 'Joker' wears throughout the film.

Research into Existing Film Posters

Conventions of a film poster are:

• The image of the character- Ensuring that the audience have an idea on what the film could be about or the type of genre it is, this can be done by the positioning of the characters and the costume, hair and make-up.


• The title of the film - The title of the film could be very attracting towards the audience and it should be shown so the audience are aware of what the film is called as they may be interested in going to watch the film.


• Name of the characters in the film - including the characters names could add popularity to the film as if the audience are a fan of an actor and they are in the film they are more likely to go and watch the film.


• The date of release - This should be included so the audience know when exactly the film is coming out.

As part of our Media Coursework i have beeen asked to look at the conventions of different film posters. I have decided to analyse two film posters these are : Mean girls and Halloween. The main conventions of a film poster i am going to be looking at is related font, related picture, logo, date of release and Stars names.

The first film poster i have research into is 'Mean Girls'.
The target audience for this film is aimes at teenagers as the characters in the film are young adults/teenagers at high school. The denotation of the poster is the main girl on her own who is the new girl to the school and is an outsider and then the three popular school girls in the background who are represented as being a cool gang who are dressed in fashionable clothes. The connotation of the film poster represents mean girls, the main girl is looking back at the three girls and almost shows that she wants to fit in with them.
The audience for this film poster have been targeted by the use of bright girly colours such as purple pink and grey. The title of the film 'mean girls' also attracts the audience and it shows what the film is going to be based on and the title on the front cover is in big bold writing making it stand out, they title is slanded and splits between the main girl (Linsey Lohan)and the three other girls. They have also used big capital letter writing on the quote on the front cover 'watch your back' this is a bitchy comment and teenagers will be attracted to this. This film is know for girly quotes but they have used this one on the front cover so the audience can make a brief detail on the film.
The unique selling point for this film is the quotes that are used and the characters in the film. The main character is Lindsay Lohan and she who is shown on the front cover. She is a role model for many teenagers.


My second film poster i decided to evaluate is 'HALLOWEEN'. There are many conventions to consider in this film poster. It is a horror genre and they use specific things to show this. The denotation to this film is the collarge of the face in the background, and the showdow of the back of a man holding a weapon in his hand. The audience is able to connotate what this film is based on just by the images and the title 'Halloween' that is writed in bold text. Halloween is aimed at the audience of 18 and over, it is mainly aimed at younger adults as they tend to be more interested in watching horror films. The audience have been targeted by the use of a scary image trying to reflect violence by the use of weapons. They have restricted to the use of two colours in this film poster, orange and black. This gives of different emotions such as hell, evil, fire ect. There is a subtitle used at the top of this film poster saying 'Evil has a destiny' this is also a denotation of the film poster because it is a quote that is used. This helps show that it is a horror film. Also the title of the film 'Halloween' gives away what type of film it is and it also shows the time of year that film is based on, Halloween is an event that we celebrate in society, where people dress up in scary costumes. The use of bold titles and weapons in the image shows the conventions that are used in the horror genre.