Kine Weekly was a UK film magazine from 1889-1971 that included film advertisements and box office records. It merged with Today's Cinema in 1975 to form Screen International, which remains influential today. Picturegoer (1940s) focused on celebrity and television glamour but lost relevance as TV grew. Empire (1989) stayed focused on reviewing both independent and blockbuster films. The Monthly Film Bulletin (1934-1991) shifted from listings to critical analysis. Sight & Sound promotes UK film and merged with Bulletin in 1991. Specialized magazines like Fangoria and Supernatural cover horror/sci-fi genres and their behind-the-scenes worlds.

1. UNIT01-A01
How Genres Have Developed?
Film Magazines
Firstly I will be looking at ʻTradeʼ magazines, these are magazines which are sold and
targeted towards people what are working within a particular industry whether its film or
mechanics.
Kine Weekly is a UK based film magazine that run from
1889 until 1971. It was originally called ʻOptical Magic
Lantern Photographic Enlargerʼ and was changed to Kine
Weekly in 1907. The magazine was own by Odhams. Inside
it has new adverts for films, exhibitions that were specially
for trade organizations. One other thing that Kine Weekly
included was it had a index of all box office records, this
made the magazine very popular.
Todays Cinema was created in 1957 (called Daily Cinema
then), was is the US rival to Kine Weekly. It was designed
not for consumer and was 100% a trade magazine only.
In 1975, Kine Weekly and
Todays Cinema came
together to create Screen
International. It started out just focusing on the UK film
market but soon expanded to cover global films. Today it
is owned by EMAP and comes out weekly, it also has a
popular website called www.screendaily.com.
Its biggest rivals are Variety and Hollywood Reporter.
Lucy Taylor

2. Next I am going to look at ʻfan and consumer magazinesʼ, these are magazines which
are targeted at film viewers, they tend to have more consumer
and entertainment content rather than informational content.
Motion Picture Story Magazine, was created in 1913 and ran
throughout the ʻsilent eraʼ of films. This magazine included
news and reviews but most importantly it used to run the entire
plots of films, as it felt it was helping the audience not miss out
on the content of the films that they unable to go watch. During
its run, it became more of a star magazine, by focusing on the
stars life and the glamor of films rather than the films
themselves.
Next we have Picturegoer, this was created in the 1940ʼs, it
started a serious film magazine however soon started focusing
on the glamour of both the television and film industry. It was
aimed hugely at women who would want that lifestyle. In
the 1950ʼs television
became a huge part of
everyones life and
because of this
Picturegoer became
more Television based
content. Later on it
merged with the pop
magazine ʻDisc Dateʼ,
in order to draw in a
larger readership. In
1960 the magazine
closed.
Empire magazine started in 1989, and set out to stay
focused on the films themselves. It has stayed this way, and is very review driven, with
both independent and multiplex films. Today it stands as one of, if not the most popular film
magazine along with Total Film, it has a ABC of 194,00 and a strong and respected online
presence.
Lucy Taylor

3. Thirdly I am looking at intellectual film magazines, these view film as a art from and feel
it should be respected like a portrait or sculpture.
The Monthly Film Bulletin ran from 1934 until 1991 and was
aimed at cinema owners so they could see what films to
book. At first it was primarily used as a listings magazine as it
showed the films, dates, times and places of showing. In the
50ʼs it changed when David Robertson became the editor, it
started to take a critical stance on the film industry. In the 70ʼs
it started to get a very artsy
reputation because of its Marxist
views on films and the industry.
Sight & Sound magazine was
published by the British Film
Institute (BFI), It was created to
promote and document the UK
film industry. In 1991 it merged
with The Monthly Film bulletin.
Today it is a very serious, critical and dry magazine with
mostly made up of synopsis's and full credits.
Little White Lies is a independent British film magazine which
is bi-monthly. The magazine includes 6 different sections to
it, a lead review, an editorial introduction, a series of articles
inspired my the feature film, theatrical reviews. the back section and future releases. The
way Little White Liars reviews films is very unique because they use a tripartite ranking
system. They use 3 categories, these are marked out of 5 and explained. The categories
are anticipation, enjoyment and in retrospect)
The magazine is published by a Creative Agency called Church Of London. It was first
issue was published in 2005, however the first
edition which is called Edition Zero was created
my co-founder Danny Miller for his final project
at university in 2001. The magazine is very well
recognized within the UK and is sold is various
leading stores such as WHSmith and Urban
outfitters. It has won Best Designed Consumer
Magazine of the Year at the Magazine Design &
Journalism Awards and is know being sold also
is many of Britons leading independent cinemas
such as picture house. The covers of the all
editions are created around the feature film
which is selected for that certain issue. However
they don't just put the films promotional poster
and the cover, they create new images using
ideas from the posters, stars or the film itself.
This gives and creative and stylish effect to the
cover because it makes it stand out and look
bold. “film is art but far more design led”.
Lucy Taylor

4. Sub-genres - Culture
Fangoria is a US magazine that was started in 1978, and
created to focus on science fiction films. However after Dawn Of
The dead. In the 80ʼs because of the huge home video and video
nasties, the magazine became a huge success. Since then its
continued to grow and develop, it has now expanded to have
themed festivals, film productions and even a radio brand.
Supernatural is a independent
magazine created in Devon, England
and was created to tap into the success
of hammer horror genre. The coverage is
mostly of monsters, supernatural and with
creative practitioners. Today is hugely
based on the behind the scenes of science
fiction and really looking at how the films
are made.
SFX started in 1995 by future publishing
and became by just covering science
fiction films, however today it also looks
into cult, TV, novels, comics and web
culture. It is a popular magazine and has a
huge ʻnerd cultureʼ following.
TV Media
The Film Programme was created
by the BBC in 1972 and is still
running today. It has had a variety of
presenters and they have really
altered the style of the show with
their personal tastes and opinions on
the TV industry. It includes reviews
and interviews and is mostly studio
based.
Lucy Taylor

5. Key Trends
Industry magazines have developed either to be exclusively about the industry and so are
B2B and not available on newsstands, OR have evolved into high brow critical evaluations
of film.
Consumer magazines have grown from being aimed primarily at a female audience to
being more fan-boy male orientated. Looking at Empire and Total Film these are both
consumer magazines with a focus on Blockbuster, multi-plex titles rather than art house
indy.
The written word is still the most popular medium to express critical views, however, the
popularity of the Kermode and Mayo podcast shows that verbal responses on radio (or
podcast) are being to grow in popularity.
The niche magazines that focus on one sub-genre tend to be focused on horror and Sci-fi
- both genres that are flexible enough to allow for new and interesting content, but also are
aimed at a hardcore fan-base.
Lucy Taylor