Film Magazine Research

Empire Magazine is published by Bauer Consumer Media and is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain consistently outselling its rivals such as Total Film (Future Publishing) and Sight & Sound (British Film Institute). It covers both mainstream films and the more arty productions but as it is produced by an independent company the former is generally the focus whereas a magazine such as Sight & Sound tends to look at the maybe less prosperous but more innovative films.

I am basing this research on three example issue covers Iron Man 2 (January, 2010, Issue #247), The Joker (January, 2008, Issue #223) and Spider Man 3 (January, 2007, Issue #211). There are some common trends in these magazine covers such as having the magazine name across the top of the page. This is due to the rule of thirds as the power structure on the page is at its strongest top left and gets weaker as it moves to bottom right. The production company’s first job is to sell their magazine and as such they must make sure the consumer can easily see that the magazine is Empire. The date and issue are always placed in the same place in the dip of the top of the M of Empire and this consistency makes it easier for the consumer to check which issue it is.

After this the actual content of magazine cover varies but the structure is always fairly similar. There is always a particular theme for the front cover which is usually based around the film that is elliciting the most media and public attention at that time. In the Spider Man 3 and Iron Man 2 issues the main protagonist from the film is used on the front cover which is more often than not how Empire sets up the theme. However the Dark Knight Issue differs as it has the main antagonist on the front cover but there is a reason for this as Heath Ledger who was originally playing this character but died part way through filming so their was more public interest in this character at the time. Each of the main characters on the front cover are set in costume and in front of a background which whether by actual objects or merely colour scheme relates to the theme of the film and it’s genre. For example, the Iron Man 2 cover’s background is predominantly blue and black around the character itself. This is because the character is built on power and enormous amounts of energy so the theme of lightning has been used to portray this theme.

One of the more differentiated ideas that Empire employ in all their magazines is also matching the style of the text on the page to the theme. This again is most noticeable on the Iron Man 2 cover with the electric blue and lightning style used for the magazine name itself. But it is also noticeable on the other two covers as well however with clear colour themes running throughout the text that match the characters on the cover, for example green writing on the Joker cover and black and white on the Spider Man 3 cover.

The main character is always set in the middle of the page in varying poses but always looking straight at the camera to give the effect of the character looking at the consumer like an extra-diegetic gaze. This works on Louis Althusser’s (1971) main theory of interpellation in which the magazine calls out to the audience in this case through the direct connection of the gaze between cover model and viewer. Once the audience’s attention has been grabbed they are more likely to take an interest in the magazine and subsequently buy it.

Around the character the subtitles and other text is placed some of which relates to the film advertised on the issue cover itself and some of which relates to other features and articles within the magazine. In the examples above there seems to be generally a few lines of text either side of the characters’ heads or upper torsos which shows a clear relationship between the text and the picture. Then adjacent to or covering the lower torso and below are around two or three captions advertising the other articles and films featured in the magazine.

There are a couple of points about the Empire magazine cover format that have made me decide to make it the basis of the magazine cover for my film. To begin with the idea of using the main character(s) as the main focus is one that resonates with me as being logical and it is also something that will be fairly easy for me to shoot. Secondly the Empire covers allow for a good amount of creativity when it comes to choosing colour schemes, font and text variations and backgrounds. Being able to personalise the cover in this way and set up the theme I’m trying to portray provides the right balance of simplicity and creativity that means I will be able to create a professional looking magazine cover in the short time frame and with the limited skills I have in this area.

Progress Report - Pre-production

The media coursework was officially set last week and in this time myself and my two partners have been working hard on the pre-production planning and paperwork. We all created an idea for the campaign to focus on and conducted an analysis of each using a SWOT in order to ascertain which production we should proceed with. Due to factors such as how capable of filming the production we were with our limited skills and resources and which would work best as a trailer we decided to use my idea.

Once the basic idea was decided on we had to then carry out research so we could develop it into a full product. I researched three professionally produced trailers for current media products namely Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008), Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) and Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009). This research provided a great deal of insight into the different narrative structures that could be used in a trailer. For example Cloverfield uses a continuous timeline from a fairly small section of the film, Inception uses a discontinuous timeline in which significant parts of the film are put together like a montage and finally Inglourious Basterds uses a mixture of the two with a continuous speech from Brad Pitt running throughout but also with clips from throughout the film added in with the speech running over them.

From this research we decided to use a narrative structure similar to that of Inglourious Basterds with some continuity but also with other clips from throughout the film put in. The continuity within our film stems from a section of dialogue which our female protaganist says. The extra clips are going to be used in order to enhance the meaning behind the speech and hopefully the combination of these will build lots of tension within the audience.

Further parts of our production were also guided by the research, for example whether to use diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound or both. Cloverfield used purely diegetic sound which did add to the verisimilitude of the production, Inception used purely non-diegetic sound in the way of music which greatly added to the tension and Inglourious Basterds which again is the one we decided to follow used a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. This is a fairly conventional format for a trailer and hopefully this will lead to the audience being able to identify with and understand the messages we’re trying to portray through the trailer such as that of high tension.

Research into the advertising codes of practice and UK legal frameworks which might affect our production. The main thing we picked up from this was concerning the BBFC classification which would suit our film most appropriately. We had originally decided the film would be an 18 and the trailer a 15 because films that fall within the genre of thrillers are often in this higher age category. However, after looking at such variables as the tone and impact of the production, discrimination rules and rules regarding sex and violence amonst others we decided to classify our film as a 15 and the trailer as a 12A. This is because the content within the film idea and the content actually in the trailer seemed to lie within the rules governing the 15 and 12A age restrictions respectively.

After the initial planning and research was done we had to begin to actually develop the idea and put it down on paper. Up unitl this point the production idea was nothing more than a collection of vague shots that we could possibly use which made this part of the pre-production process probably the most difficult. The main contentions we faced were whether we were capable of filming the ideas, whether they created enough tension and whether they were actually layed out in the style of a trailer. The first idea for example ended up looking too much like an opening sequence and while this could be used as a trailer it did not meet the plan we devised from the research.