The Hunger Games Empire Front Cover Analysis

The Masthead

The masthead is the word EMPIRE very bold across the page. The use of colour here (the red) really grabs the audiences

attention as it stands out against the background and is a colour that is often used for movie magazines.

The size of the font is large and takes up a large proportion at the top of the magazine.

The font itself is very bold and angular making it more striking for an audience to look at.

Image and Caption The image here is both character lead but also relies a lot

on the background. The magazine uses the female lead in the film as this will attract both genders and also as the character and actress is well known for the film so can easily be identified. The mis-en-scene features, such as her costume, help the character to stand out on the page and shows her importance. The costume itself, hugs very tightly to her figure and shows off her silhouette and shows her as a strong figure. The use of combat wear shows us more about her role and the prop of the bow and arrow shows an audience that she has to fight. This then helps to create a code of enigma (to an audience that hasn’t read the book already) as to why she needs to fight and you want to know exactly what her role is.

The background image shows devastation and destruction. The use of fire and smoke shows to an audience that she can survive what’s going on around her and that she is a strong character. The mockingjay symbol also is very identifiable to the film and so helps to promote the film.

The caption isn't in the traditional place for a magazine and instead of looking like a splash it looks like a sub-heading, however the grid like layout draws your attention to the words ‘THE HUNGER GAMES’ as our eye automatically read from left to right. The strong bold text also helps and the white makes it stand out a lot more against the dark background.

Language/Fonts/Colours

The magazines cover lines are done in white, red and grey which comply with colours for the movie magazine genre. The fonts don’t change drastically but are bold and stand out well on the page.

The cover lines include pull quotes and mention other films and actors. This is done to grab the audiences attentions so they can read the front cover and quickly find something they will be interested in so they will ultimately buy the magazine.

The cover lines ‘George Clooney’ and ‘Angelina Jolie’ represent both genders so that both genders of the target audience will be interested.

Some of the language is informal like the phrase ‘At Last!’ this makes you feel a part of the magazine as it makes you feel like it is something that everyone has been waiting for, not just you, and makes you want to read more.

THIS TIME IT’S WAR- this is where generically a banner would be but instead the line seems to have connation's with the main image. This is in bold and in white so is hard to ignore and I feel represents what the film is about which creates more questions for an audience and makes you want to know more.

THE EPIC ISSUE- this suggest to an audience straight away that this is definitely the issue to buy as it is ‘epic’ and not one to miss. This draws the reader in. I like the way it’s been put in a separate banner box but I feel that the black and white makes it get lost of the page.

Language/Fonts/Colours

The subsidiary image is of another character this time not on a natural background so it doesn’t take attraction away from the main image. To me the pug that goes with it doesn’t make much sense to an audience that perhaps hasn’t seen the film or knows about it and this is something I hope to try and avoid on my front cover. However I do like the style of the pug as I feel the grey, black and white stands out enough to be noticed but doesn’t distract you from the main image.

• Another pug is used to promote the fact that the magazine has been running for 25 years which automatically makes the audience think that the magazine is a well known trusted brand and is very successful and that it must have been running for 25 years for a reason so must be worth reading. Again I like the style of the pug and the colours and fonts are stereotypical for a movie magazine.

• The banner that goes across the top right of the magazine is used to show what you can ‘WIN!’ in the magazine and having that in the white grabs peoples attention more. The show ‘BREAKING BAD’ is very well known and so will be recognised by a large variety with in their audience, which will also help to sell the magazine.