2. MAIN IMAGE
This magazine cover is by Empire. It is very conventional as the
actor is in character presenting the movie. It is also a close up
shot of him showing that he is the main character and there is
something very strange about him as the audience can tell he has
an abnormal eye colour and is very pale. This suggest that he is
not human and will create enigmas for the audience.
He is placed in front of a black background which contrasts
with his pale skin. This could symbolise how there is evil and
death surrounding him (giving clues to the audience) but purity
and innocence comes above the evil and darkness. He is also
wearing a brown suit, this connotes with dirt, another link to
death by the idea of being buried in the ground.
The main image conventionally dominates the frame. It
compliments the main sell line well by successfully combining
mise- en- scene elements such as makeup and costume.
Profile lighting is used to darken one side of the characters
face adding a mysterious twist to this film. He looks straight in
the camera lens to create direct address with the audience.
3. LAYOUT
The layout of this film front cover is quite typical and seems to be what
is expected from a film magazine. The masthead is always the biggest
and is at the top of the magazine as it most likely what is first spotted
by the audience, ‘Empire’ is the name of the magazine and suggests
that it is the best film magazine in the world.
The layout for this magazine shows two main pieces of text (the
masthead and the featured article) at the top and bottom of the page,
in bright eye-catching colours. There are sell lines surrounding the
image on both sides making the page appear full and rich with
information reading for the audience to divulge on.
The sell lines on this magazine cover like many others are
advertising other films and actors. They attract the readers attention
by displaying the film titles in bold, along with the fact that they use
bright, eye-catching colours such as yellow, green and white which
contrasts with the black background . Therefore the font stands out
more.
Incentives are offered with the magazine and are featured at the
top, in this case, ‘free posters’. Offering a free gift will urge the
audience to make a payment in order to buy the magazine, the two film
posters are from two very popular movies that the audience is likely to
have seen, and so they will know that this magazine is up to date with
famous film reviews- again making them want to buy the magazine.
