Magazine Front Cover - Research.

As well as producing a Film Trailer, part of the coursework involves also creating a Film magazine front cover. Firstly, I will do some research on film magazines such as Empire, which is very popular worldwide. I will look at the codes and conventions used in order to create a good front cover which is both eye-catching and looks proffesional.

Empire Magazine

Empire is a monthly film magazine published by Bauer Media. It's circulation was around 194,000 in 2009, and just like all magazines, it makes money mostly by advertising. As it's a film magazine, it advertises films, so it makes a lot of money that way. The magaine contains films reviews, interviews with the directors and stars and behind the scenes stories.

I will be making only a front cover of a film magazine, unlike my previous works where I created a double page spread and contents page as well as a front cover. Empire magazine's front covers are always unique in every issue, depending on the main feature film they are writing about. This front covr of Empire is about the hit film "Avatar". The main feature title in the magazine shows the name of the film, with the director's name above it.This catches the readers attention and makes them want to read more.

Total Film is a British Film magazine produced every month. It was established in 1997 and informs readers about upcoming films, reviews, interviews and much more. The magazine is published by Future Publishing (PLC). I like the front cover in this magazine as it shows a big photo of the two main characters in an upcoming film. This really attracts the readers eye. The colour scheme of the front cover works very well with the what the girl behind Daniel Craig. From this we can tell that this film has a gothic taste to it. In every front cover I see, there is always words like 'Amazing' or 'the best..'. These sort of words can always convince the reader that they are reading the bet magazine of it's kind. 

All magazines have forms and conventions. These are techniques used to attract the audience and make the magazine interesting to read. The most obvious form and convention is the Masthead. This is the main title of the magazine, obviously this is important so that the reader knows what the magazine is. 

Then the other forms and conventions come as follows;
The Main cover Line is the headline of the magazine, this is similar to a newspaper, the most important story or article is displayed partially on the front page to attract the audience's attention. 
The Main cover lines is backed up by a photo of the main article. This photo could be of a band or particular artist, or any other thing depending on the genre of the magazine. 
Puffs are used to boost the magazine's status, things like "the greatest magazine ever" are often said to make the reader want to buy the magazine. 
Plugs are used to hook the audience and catch their attention. This could be a Competition Notice on the front cover or a Special Offer. "FREE Music CD Inside!". This makes the reader or audience want to read on to find out what it is. 
Strapline is a secondary headline, usually under the main headline, to further explain what the main article or story is about. This Anchors the meaning of the headline.

Cover Price- This isn't really something that is used to catch the audiences attention, but to show the price of the magazine. However, it does have to be clear otherwise the audience may not see it and buy the magazine for a diffrent price. 

Bar Code- the bar code is also next to the Cover Price, which is also accompanied by theissue number. The issue number tells the audience what the magazines number it is. For example, monthly magazine running for 24 months would be Issue 24.