EVALUATION QUESTION 1

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Magazine Cover

MASTHEAD, PRICE AND DATE

• Our magazine front cover mainly follows conventions from the research we did. For example, we studied the positioning of the masthead and the font used on real existing Empire magazine covers. Using Illustrator we traced the font to create the letters and then copied the colour used on the real magazine covers. Doing the makes the masthead look realistic and conventional for both a magazine cover and a magazine being produced by Empire. We decided to position the masthead at the top of the cover because this is where Empire puts it on all of their covers. Therefore, we are again following this convention for their masthead.

• We placed the price and release month in the space seen in the letter M. As you can see this is conventional for Empire magazines as this is where they placed this information. We thought this would be a good place to put it because it is out of the way and won’t distract attention from the central image. Following the convention means regular readers will know

exactly where to find this information.

• Looking back at out research we noticed that most magazine covers have a colour scheme of three colours. For example, on the Iron Man 2 cover mainly includes electric blue, red and black. The colour scheme is used throughout the cover to visually link different elements together. For example, the eyes are the same colour as the masthead, the glow on his body, the areas of the background and some of the anchorage text.

• The colour scheme for our cover is conventional as we used three colours for our colour scheme. It is also conventional for a thriller film on a cover because red represents blood and danger, black represents death and mystery and grey represents little hope. Much like the Iron Man 2 front cover we used these colours in different areas of the magazine to link these areas together. The colour of the antagonists eyes, film title, some of the anchorage text and the strip at the bottom of the magazine all include grey. Red also is a colour which we have used in different areas of the cover. It can be seen in the masthead, background colour boxes and to border the strip at the bottom.

COLOUR SCHEME

• All of the content we have put on our magazine is conventional for magazine front covers. Before considering what to put on our cover we researched a number of different magazine front covers to find out what was conventional and necessary. Out of all the magazines we researched we really liked the magazine cover of Iron Man 2 for a number of reasons. Therefore, we kept referring back to this cover when designing and creating our cover. Also, the layout is conventional as we studied where each element is usually placed and applied this to our cover.

• We have put a barcode on the cover as this is a necessary element which is needed to sell the product. Looking at all our covers we researched we noticed that the barcode is always placed somewhere towards the edge of the cover; normally in the bottom right hand corner as you can see in the Iron Man 2 cover below. Therefore, we placed ours in the same place. We put the barcode on its side so it doesn’t look like it’s part of the strip of pictures and text. Putting it here puts it out of the way and doesn’t make it distract attention away from all the other elements on the cover which would attract readers to buy it.

CONTENT AND LAYOUT- BARCODE

• We noticed that the it is conventional for the title of the film being advertised on the front cover to be placed just below the centre of the magazine and for the text to the centre aligned (you can see this for the Inception and Iron Man 2 magazine front covers below). We also saw that the text is normally placed over the central image to indicate that the central image relates to the film title. We thought this was an effective convention which makes the film title stand out. Therefore, we decided to follow this convention.

• The title for our film “Dead Mans Eyes” is placed just below the centre line of the cover and overlaps a plain section of the central image. Overlapping the text on a plain area of the central image allows it to not take away the effect from the central image. It also makes it clear that the character you can see is from the film title. Much like the Iron Man 2 front cover, we left a fairly wide border between the edge of the first and last letters on a line. We realised that the film titles are normally typed in a slightly smaller font than the magazine brand. This is because it is an important element which would catch readers eyes to help sell it. Also, it is always written in capital letters which connotes importance.

CONTENT AND LAYOUT- FILM TITLE

CONTENT AND LAYOUT- ADDITIONAL TEXT

• Looking at our research we noticed that magazine front covers tend to have skylines above the brand of the magazine at the top of the page. This is normally a couple of words which are used to help sell the magazine. We gained inspiration from the Pirates of The Caribbean front cover when thinking about applying a skyline. It contains four words “Movies’ Biggest Year Ever!”. It is written in capital letters and includes an exclamation mark drawing emphasise to the sentence.

• We placed our skyline in the same place as this is conventional for a magazine front cover. It draws in attention as it is situated above the magazine brand name. We also typed the text in capital letters and included an exclamation mark to draw emphasise to it.

• The idea of including red text boxes coming out from the side of the cover mainly came from studying the Thor magazine. It is conventional to do this an we spotted on the Iron Man 2 front cover a blue coloured text box coming out from the side of the cover. This highlights the words written on the background colour. The colour of the boxes relate to the main colour schemes.

CONTENT AND LAYOUT- ADDITIONAL TEXT

• Therefore, we decided to include a couple of red strips on our cover to highlight particular text. We decided to colour it red to link it to the masthead and the strips of red found at the bottom of the magazine. The text written on the red strips say “Must See Films” and “World Exclusive”. This is anchorage text which will encourage readers to pick up the magazine to find out more. Much like the Thor magazine cover, below the strips of red is additional brief information about the anchorage text to further encourage readers to want to find out more.

• All the text on the cover is in capital letters as we found that this is conventional for magazine front covers. It emphasises text and therefore catches readers eyes.

• Font sizes and colour are then used to emphasise important words even more. For example, the word “Free” is in a bigger font as readers like to think they’re gaining something additional from purchasing the magazine. Therefore, finding out the magazine is offering something free will help it to stand out amongst other competitive film magazines.

CONTENT AND LAYOUT- ADDITIONAL TEXT

• Looking at our research we noticed that magazine front covers tend to have skylines above the brand of the magazine at the top of the page. This is normally a couple of words which are used to help sell the magazine. We gained inspiration from the Pirates of The Caribbean front cover when thinking about applying a skyline. It contains four words “Movies’ Biggest Year Ever!”. It is written in capital letters and includes an exclamation mark drawing emphasise to the sentence.

• We placed our skyline in the same place as this is conventional for a magazine front cover. It draws in attention as it is situated above the magazine brand name. We also typed the text in capital letters and included an exclamation mark to draw emphasise to it.

• The idea of including red text boxes coming out from the side of the cover mainly came from studying the Thor magazine. It is conventional to do this an we spotted it on the Iron Man 2 front cover a blue coloured text box coming out from the side of the cover. This highlights the words written on the background colour. The colour of the boxes relate to the main colour schemes.

CONTENT AND LAYOUT- ADDITIONAL TEXT• The layout of the bottom of our magazine cover was heavily influenced by the Iron Man 2

magazine cover. We liked the way it looked like a film strip with a combination of images and text. We thought this visually looks attractive as is a good way to advertise other content inside the magazine. Although this isn’t a general convention for all magazine front covers we decided to use this layout for our magazine because we thought it looks eye catching. Studying the Iron Man 2 cover we saw the pattern of having an image then text then another image etc. The text links to the image that can be seen and is a plug which provides information about an article in the magazine.

• We came up with three different articles which would feature inside our magazine and then took photographs which related to the stories. The articles mentioned are completely different to the film “Dead Mans Eyes”. This is to make sure that people who aren’t thriller fans are not put off reading the magazine. The cover advertises something which everyone should like. Just above and below the line of text and images is a thin red line to border it. This is a convention which is used on the Iron Man 2 cover. It defines this section of he magazine as it is completely different to the film which is being advertised by the central image. Adding additional images helps to brighten up the cover slightly as the central image is quite dark. We coloured the background boxes of the text in a light colour so it stands out well on the black area of the central image. Much like the Iron Man 2 cover, the strip doesn’t fall to the very bottom of the cover, there is a small section at the bottom of the cover where you can see the central image. This is because we noticed that there is normally a small border found at the bottom of the magazine.

• Looking at other film magazines we saw that it is conventional to include either the antagonist or hero on the cover; a character which features a lot in the film. The photographs also seem to be taken with a medium or close- up to position them close to the reader. The photographs tend to be taken straight on to gain eye contact with the public to entice them to pick up the magazine. We followed these conventions as we thought they were successful techniques used to draw attention to the magazine. Therefore, we took a medium shot of our antagonist straight on to the camera. Much like the Joker, we made his eyes odd and stand out to further help to create the eye contact with readers.

• Much like the Star Trek central image, we used lighting to create shadows. This creates a sense of mystery and for our character it represents his dark personality.

• His face is centred on the cover much like the Jokers and the character from Star Trek. This makes them appear the main feature on the cover. Central images need to be strong as it’s one of the first thing readers will notice because the images are so big. The central image usually takes up all of the cover and acts as a background for text and any other images which feature on the cover. This is what we did.

• Our central image is conventional for the film genre thriller. We included the antagonists to almost scary readers implying the film is a thriller. Shadows connote mystery and a dark storyline. Antagonists normally have a feature about them which makes them different to the other characters (for example, the Jokers facial make- up). Our antagonist is wearing white eye contact lenses to whiten out the colour in his eyes. This is a unique feature to him to make it easy for people notice him where every they see him (for example, his eyes feature on our poster).

CENTRAL IMAGE