Overview Analysis of Film Magazine Front Covers

 When discussing conventions of magazine front covers, they tend to overlap across many styles of magazine. The fundamental aspects of a cover, though, are included in all; masthead, dateline, main image of either a famous actor or the person featured in the main article and of course the price and bar-code so that the magazine can be purchased. The other elements can all be 'tinkered' and played with to make the cover more appealing. Whilst these are conventions, some can be overlooked in an effort to make the magazine more appealing to the readership. A strap-line featured above the masthead is often used as when magazines are laid on top of one another, or stacked in a supermarket shelf, the part of the product that is shown is generally only just past the bottom of the masthead meaning that it needs to catch the readers eye. The strap-line usually contains a deal in price, a competition or 'freebie' that comes with the magazine, or a feature article that is particularly alluring, such as "Greatest Movie Art Ever" on the Total Film front cover.


The mast head is the joint most important aspect of a magazine front cover along side the image as they both attract the audience to buy the product. In each of these products, and in most, a sans-serif font is used to make the magazine more attractive to a wider group of people. Magazines such as the "New Yorker" use serif typeface as it promotes an upper class image for it's demographic, however that makes it much less appealing to middle class and lower class. By using a sans-serif font, these magazines are appealing to all classes as they are sophisticated enough to not put anyone off. Generally, upper case is used for the title as it makes the magazine bold and eye catching, however "backstage"uses lower case in an attempt to look stylish and laid back, trying to appeal to the true cinema aficionados who would deem themselves to be too higher class to buy a magazine with bright bold colours across the cover. Each of these magazines use one, or both, of two techniques to name their magazine; either relating to the film industry, a buzzword, or both. "Empire" and "Total Film" magazines use a buzzword and a word that relates to the industry, or in "Empire"'s case, both in one word. "Total Film" is obvious, however "Empire" relates to not only an empire in the historical sense, of wealth and a mass of countries under one control, but is in reference to the famous Empire movie theatres across the UK. "Empire" has long been connotated with the British movie industry, and the magazine utilised that. "Backstage" is a clear link to theatre and acting and tells the audience that the magazine will show them the "inside scoop" of the acting world. "Fangoria" however is the exception. It is bold and eye catching as the other mastheads, however it is titled to attract a specific audience and to relate to a specific genre.

 On each of these covers, there is a main sell-line to attract the audience in a bold or large font and this almost always overlaps the main image. The table however specifies as to whether the sell-line goes across the image, and that aspect is split 50/50. Two covers have it just overlapping the model, and the other two are across them. On our cover, the choice between the two styles of this element will come down to which is more aesthetically pleasing in regards to the main image. However, whilst two magazines don't adhere to the convention of the left-hand-third, we shall as it is the first piece of text that the eye is drawn to on the cover and we wish the cover to seem alluring. Were we to not comply, then we would risk the chance of people skipping over the sell-lines and the cover seeming boring. This notion also applies to the use of a puff, buzzwords and punctuation and symbols. Whilst we want the cover to look professional, the magazine is aimed at a wide audience of age and the cover need to look fun as well as sophisticated. The sell-lines commonly used feature lists of films and actors that are featured within the issue as well as articles with buzz words in them to make it seem as if they are sharing a secret, e.g."Unseen posters" on "Empire", that makes the audience need to read so that they will know something that other don't. The magazines generally use an informal mode of address by using slang words and abbreviations that treat the reader as a friend rather than a consumer, and this makes them want to continue buying the product. 

  The images featured on the magazines each signal within which sub-genre of film they feature by differing in body language, camera angle, costume and colour scheme. Each of these factors combined in different ways can completely change the perceived sub-genre of an image. Taking the Natalie Portman covered issue of "Fangoria", were the body language to be less stern, such as a smile or her eyes lifted slightly in the corners to represent laughter, her red eyes to be taken away and her natural skin tone to replace the white, then the audience could interpret the film as a romantic comedy rather than a thriller.
The colour scheme and use of font have seemed to concur across all four publications. A masculine tone is often used with black, red, white, blue and even yellow. Each of these colours are used in a bold manner to stand out from the other magazines and attract the target audience. Likewise, the fonts used are generally bold and usually in upper case to make the text more prominent. These are two conventions that will definitely be used in our final product.