Magazine Inspiration

When researching into current magazines, I found the ways in which they present their content to the audience greatly varied. Magazines such as Empire and Total Film cater for a mass audience, making content easily visible on the front cover so the potential consumer is aware of the best features. Magazines such as these, vastly advertise their content, selling the magazine on the content rather than the name. Despite this, it could be suggested that film fanatics are also interested in these mainstream magazines, as the advertisement content at the back includes fan paraphernalia.

In contrast, magazines such as Clash and Little White Lies aim at a niche audience, primarily featuring arthouse and indie films. As people buy these types of magazines for the name and reputation, minimal advertising is present on the front cover giving it a very professional and minimalist feel. Sight and Sound magazine strikes a contrast between mass audience and indie magazines, showing interest in both areas. For my own work, even though I prefer the design of magazines such as Clash, I want to create a cross between Sight and Sound and Empire. I believe that this will strike a balance between stylised design and practicality, testing my abilities to  produce a convincing magazine.

EJ 

Institutional Analysis - Empire

EJ

Institutional Analysis - Little White Lies

EL

Institutional Analysis - Empire

 
AF

Posters Construction

My first attempt at the film poster was relatively simple. Prior to making the poster I had never used Photoshop to the level required for constructing a poster. At the start I found this very challenging and it took me some time to get to grips with the wide variety of tools available to use. The challenge this raised was not being able to produce the varying ideas I was coming up with as it seemed too complicated to produce. However Ewan in our group was very skilled at Photoshop and so he was able to teach me key tools and edits, such as applying a clipping mask.  The use of a clipping mask, allowed me to achieve the title below, with the swirling red ink inside of the text.

At this point I was working solely on my imagination, which after a point, I felt I was unable to visualize how I could include all of the constructive elements in the poster. After revisiting my real media texts poster inspiration, I was interested in the poster of Eastern Promises.

My main inspiration for my final poster was that of "Eastern Promises". I chose this poster to base my own on due to its unusual strong central image of hands. The use of this image in particular evokes a feeling of danger due to the masculine hands and tattoos covering them. The saying 'a picture speaks a thousand words' applies to this poster as it is carried through the images. The use of the banner at in the lower third, allows it to attract audiences by the famous people starring in it as the title is not well known.

I begun my construction of the poster by taking a photo of our main character 'the girl's' hands. I took this photo against black clothing to accentuate the paleness of her skin, implying purity and youth. The use of red rope highlighted the female characters situation in our film and also created a bold contrast against her skin. I tried multiple variations of hand positions and found that it looked best where the hands took up a minimal condensed area.

As I wanted to experiment with the different presentations of the background, I took some images of the ink that we used for our trailer title. I chose to use the images of the red ink due to the connotations of blood and death. Furthermore the use of red ink would contrast the black background, making the image come to life rather than blend in. 

For my banner, I took multiple body and head shots of our four main characters from varying perspectives and angles. I was unsure whether I would use all of the photos, particularly as four characters may make the banner look too crowded which would un balance the poster.

I was pleased with the overall effect of my preliminary poster, it contained connotations of blood and kidnapping through the deep red tones and rope featured in the top two thirds of the poster. However I didn't not think that the banner was working effectively as the individual characters looked obviously lifted off another image. I decided early on not to include a head shot of 'the girl' in my poster as I felt that her presence contrasted the three male characters too greatly. Furthermore I felt that her presence was depicted through the tied hands as the central image. Presenting it in this way, I believe allows the audience to take an evaluation of the situation (kidnapping/capture) and visually contrast it with the characters featured in the banner suggesting possible conflict.

EJ