Conventions of a Magazine & Noir

Josh Clarke

Our Final MagazineConventions of a Magazine

Title/Masthead – This is typically placed in top center of the magazine, it should be clear, sophisticated and unobstructed. It’s primary purpose is to let audiences know what they are buying. Compared to magazines such as Empire or Total Film the title is fairly subtle.

These are the cover-lines, they are usually placed underneath the main masthead or the headline, in our case the latter. They give insight into what the magazine will cover and should entice the reader to buy it.

The headline is the main story of the magazine, it should be clear, larger than the rest of the text and should be something that either is of public interest/ will interest the minds of the reader

This is the caption, it should be associated with the main headline and give insight into what the main story of the magazine is about, its role is almost that of a failsafe incase the headline is not attractive enough for readers

Barcode

This is the puff, it is usually bright and is something that entices the reader to buy the magazine

This is the slogan/Strapline, it should provide something that makes the magazine stand out from the rest and can be distinguishable from other magazines. The slogan for our magazine boasts its credibility and so should attract film fans of all types, therefore increasing our target audience spread.

Issue number and Date

Our Final MagazineConventions of Noir

Smoke – This is a strong typical convention of noir, it connotes mystery and dishonesty, it symbolizes blocking the view of something which is often the case with Noir as the protagonist is usually mislead

Colour scheme: This colour scheme is a homage to that of classical noir, but more than that black and white connotes the binary opposition (Strauss) between good and bad. This is typically strong theme within noir.

Mise-En-Scene: The cigarette in the directors mouth carries with it many connotations that crop up in noir as strong themes, cigarettes are typically associated with stress, this could be interpreted as the stress from the protagonist from what he has done. Crime is also typically associated with cigarettes as it is usually bad people who smoke. Whilst the protagonist may not actually be a bad person, they are, after what they’ve done, a criminal.

The fact you cannot clearly see our directors eyes connotes the idea that he is hiding something from the audience, this translates well into noir as the protagonist is typically hiding something from the law after his encounters with the femme fatale.

Influential magazine front coversAs you can see, there is clear relation between this sight and sound poster and mine. The influence of this was mainly the smoke and how it masked part of Fassbenders face. It works to great effect in connoting mystery of the character, something we hoped to achieve in our poster also.

This, as you can see clearly influenced the colour palette of our magazine cover and the shot composition is very similar also, with the centered head. Another influential aspect of this piece is the fact you cannot see Eastwood’s eyes, this was really important for us to convey a message to our audience of deception, and also to express the genre.

This sight and sound cover gave us the correct style and structure of the new Sight and Sound magazine, this allowed us to include proper puffs, pugs, mastheads, cover lines, headlines, titles and slogans.