Movie Magazine Research

In this section I will do something similar to that of my poster research and I will get a few magazine covers and see what I believe would be best in order of approaching. I have decided that I would want to make a new issue on an existing magazine rather then make my own.

The first movie magazine I have found is from Empire, I looked through their covers and found two from theirs that are quite different from one another. The first one is with the LOTR cover, in terms of looks it is overall very simply laid out, it had 3 iconic characters from the movie in front of a white cloudy background with write writing and simple fonts and other pictures relating to LOTR. Looking at it, it is quite the busy cover and it could use less writing around it to give it some area to breathe.

The second Empire move magazine cover is quite a bit different in terms of looks and even in style, firstly the fonts are more suitable to its new look. The colour pallet has changed as well going to a more navy blue look and a neon like glow around the people/cast of Sin City, the fonts for the movie are in thick bold writing. To go along with it's theme at the bottom we get a sort of 30mm film strip going along the bottom and in between are some of the features in this issue which gives it a unique look.

This magazine is 'sci-fi now' and it is basically anything relating to sci-fi movies/tv (Also goes along with odd movies such as dark knight etc for examples) so I counted it as a magazine I could use in my research. It is far more bloated with content which drags it away from a visual spectacle, it has far to much writing and this isn't a good thing as you want the magazine to attract the viewers and get to the point on the features in this magazine. A clean white look to it with a picture of a lead lady is a nice front cover on it's own but this one puts a couple pictures in the bottom which kind of makes that area crowded. The fonts are very clear but the amount of writing again is a bit much for a front cover. I need to make sure I don't go along a similar path because as long as you have a attracting picture, the writing will be needed less.

Total film was my next place to find a magazine cover which had another look to it that made it unique.To start off with I found one of recent which involves Avatar, the front cover blends well with theme of the movie with a calm blue background which is a softer colour from the alien race from the movie which allows the image to step out more. The difference about this cover to that of others I have shown is that it has a lot less on (not as less as the Sin City one) but it makes it more welcoming to the human eye. The use of fonts are normal and neat and the colours are a pallet of grey and white allowing them to stand out of the blue. To me this is a great example of a clean and simply effective movie magazine.

The last one I found is from Total film again but this time I found it different due to it actually having very little writing similar to that of the Empire Sin City cover above. But in this case the image is what deals the justice as everyone who loves their movies would know that the image they are seeing means theirs new information regarding it. So just a title and a few words are need and it delivers an eye catching piece. Fonts have gone a little larger this time to cover up the space that more titles would have occupied. A difference here is the use of a poster advertisement in this one on the top above the masterhead which is overly large and this is to grab your attention and to entice you to pick up the magazine. I would want to achieve this but not on such a large scale, but getting a person to buy it is the main outcome and to do that big fonts and gripping pictures are required.

Poster Research

In this section I have done some research on existing horror movie posters to try and get a feel that would portray our horror teaser trailer well.

This poster comes from Friday the 13th (2009) and in this poster we can see many neat effects that I find appealing and what make it a good poster. First of all we have a pose with the iconic killer Jason from all the previous installments. He is carrying a weapon which in this case is a blade and goes a long with the mise en scene of a killer. The location can be seen as a dark low lit area and he holds a partial silhouette which is typical of the horror genre. But in the case of this poster and of previous installments we can tell that this is the sub genre known as a slasher. What I like about this poster is the fact of the pose showing power and with a mask on to make him a mysterious person.

This poster is from 'Mirrors' this poster shows different conventions from horror then that of the Friday the 13th Poster. This one shows a girl or what seems to be a girl with some demonic looking state. Not much can be seen of the bottom half of the face but I think this all goes in with the idea of her freakish nature if thats what we the audience are meant to see from this. The most noticeable thing I like about this poster is the use of fonts and the fact that one of the 'R's has been reflected to make it look as it if it were a mirror which I find a very clever idea to go with the movie poster. Besides that the poster is similar to that of others with small fonts and question slogans.

This poster comes from a recent horror known as 'My Bloody Valentine' which is also a sequel to the original. This poster surprised me more then most over horror trailers because there is a lack of blood to show that it is a horror movie. The posters only indication of being a horror/thriller is the fact of it saying 'bloody' and the fonts are all red. This can also be boosted by the fact we guess that the killers are the miners we see in the poster and they wield weapons in this case a pickaxe. It has some low key lighting But the idea I would like to portray in my poster is the idea of the killer being masked as it is in this one and in the Friday the 13th poster as well.

This poster is from Eden Lake a new british horror/thriller which has a different idea of a poster comparing it to the others I have researched. As we can the most common convention in the poster is the red writing which gives it that sense of violence or danger. In the background there are four silhouetted people which showers them a more wise and powerful group of people then that of the girl that can be seen behind a tree. They are a mystery to us and the female can gives us the idea of her being the final girl which is common in most horror movies and typical of the horror genre. Low key lighting around the female goes along with more common conventions of horror, the poster gives me a few ideas based around the layout as this is in a landscape orientation.


Using these as some of my research to seeing what is shown on the poster and what rules are applied to give it the overall look and feel of a horror movie. The main conventions I want to portray is the main character being identified, a mystery killer and that black eery surrounding which I believe would give it that horror touch. The slogan also has to be effective as well to entice the audience to go see it or view the teaser.