In order to help with my own creation of a film magazine cover I decided to analyse and annotate three already existing genuine film magazine covers.
The first magazine cover I analysed was Empire magazine from August 2008.
The second magazine cover I analysed was Total Film magazine from March 2011.
The third and final magazine cover I analysed was Movie magazine from August 1997.
I also needed to analyse film posters in order to get an idea of how to construct my own movie poster. To help with the analysis I have decided to analyse the three posters for the film trailers I analysed previously.
The first poster I analysed was the one for Insidious (2010).
The second poster I analysed was the one for Paranormal Activity (2009).
The third and final poster I analysed was the one for Grave Encounters (2011).
I decided to analyse three horror film trailers from the paranormal sub-genre as this was the sub-genre I wanted to work in. The second trailer I looked at was Grave Encounters (2011).
Unlike the other two trailers I have analysed, this one did not start with a warning to the audience instead it started by displaying the film company logos involved in making this film. A lingering non-diagetic eerie sound also begins at this point, which continues throughout the trailer until the near end when everything becomes silent. This type of sound builds the tension and makes the audience feel as if anything scary could happen at any second.
The next two shots we see are establishing shots of what appears to be a hospital. There seems to be a wheelchair just sitting in the middle of the hospital corridor which leads the audience to believe the building is disused. This location conforms to the typical horror conventions because the building is isolated and derelict, meaning that no one else will be there to help you if anything should happen. Also disused hospitals will have horror connotations with the audience, as there are many stories of old hospitals being haunted. The timer in the right hand corner also shows the audience that all the footage from this film is filmed on a handheld camera by the main characters. Occasional diagetic sounds start to appear from here reminiscent of that which a technological device would make, such as a hand held camera. This will begin to interest the audience as not much information has been given away and it’s their natural instinct to want to know more.
A close-up shot of one of the main characters follows, again in night vision with a hand held camera. The close-up shot enables the audience to see the reaction of the character clearly, even though the lighting throughout the whole trailers is very low key and dark. From this type of lighting throughout, it’s obvious to the audience that the film has been shot at night, which is another typical horror convention, as all unexplainable events seen to occur at this time. The night vision effect will make the audience feel uneasy because the night time will connote unexplained events to them, which is scary.
After this shot a text caption appears on the screen and is the first on many. The text captions are an easy way to convey background information to the audience quickly. The captions have stuck to a dark lighting theme with a black background with a contrasting white text, with a green glow surrounding the text, like a green glow may surround a paranormal character. These captions help the audience to understand the trailer and plot more.
As the next few shots appear, it quickly becomes evident that the pace of editing is much faster on this trailer than the other two I have analysed. The faster editing from the beginning puts a constant amount of tension onto the audience and makes them eager to carry on watching the trailer to see what happens. A medium shot is used briefly to highlight the main characters to the audience. All of them are dressed in black which could be a subtle hint to the audience that these people are involved with evil spirits.
Captions become more frequent as the trailer progresses and often they are cut in between shots of the main characters looking scared. All of the previously mentioned non-diagetic eerie sounds are still present and are only interrupted for a tiny amount of diagetic dialogue from a couple of the characters.
Quotes from film reviews begin to fade in and out of the trailer as the tension increases greatly. We begin to hear the main characters screaming and whispering their diagetic dialogue, showing clear signs of fear with the intention of this emotion rubbing off onto the audience. The sounds become louder and louder at this point in the trailer and the pace of editing is at an all time high. Long shots of hallways increase the tension as the audience are not sure if anything is going to appear from the end of the hallway.
Shots of things like blood on the walls and unidentified figures standing in the corner of a room all put the audience on edge even more and increase the tension greatly. Things like this are often seen with the aid of a torch as the torchlight can also be seen in the shot, highlighting the fact that all this has been filmed at night. The non-diagetic sound is still building until there is one final crashing sound, when a hand rushes out from a wall, grabbing on of the female characters around her face, silence then falls upon the trailer.
The next thing you hear is one of the male characters diagetically utter “We’re not alone in here anymore” and a close-up shot of what appears to be a ghost is shown on screen very briefly, which is aimed to make the audience jump.
The technological noises reappear as details of where to watch the film appear, with a non-diagetic echoing, crashing noise reinforcing each text caption that appears on screen.
I decided to analyse three horror film trailers from the paranormal sub-genre as this was the sub-genre I wanted to work in. The second trailer I looked at was Paranormal Activity (2009).
“After a young, middle class couple moves into a suburban ‘starter’ tract house, they become increasingly disturbed by a presence that may or may not be somehow demonic but is certainly most active in the middle of the night. Especially when they sleep. Or try to.”
Again the film starts with the warning to the audience about the footage they are about to see. As with Insidious the warning is displayed on a bright green background with a white font, making it hard for the audience to miss. Like before, there is no sound playing when this warning message is shown, which can sometimes be more effective if there is no accompanying sound.
The first shot we see in the trailer is a long shot of people standing outside of a cinema waiting to watch ‘Paranormal Activity’. An establishing shot is used to convey this along with edited captions to let the audience know things like where and when the screening was held. The non-diagetic sound accompanying this shot is reminiscent of an echoing drum, each time the drum is hit the shot cuts to another whilst the sound echoes for a while, creating a slow editing pace for the beginning of the trailer. Although this pace of editing is slow to begin with, these non-diagetic sound and editing correspondence creates tension in the audience and makes them wonder what is going to happen next. In terms of lighting, whilst outside the cinema the scene is shot in daylight, with an array of different people queuing for the film, this gives away no clues as it what to happen next, which creates an air of mystery from the beginning.
The next shot we see is of inside the cinema. A long shot is used to show the audience finding their seats and getting ready for the movie. The non-diagetic echoing drum sound is still apparent with the shot changing each time the drum is hit, this maintains the tension amongst the audience viewing the trailer. The lighting is still fairly bright as the film has not started, you can still see the audience clearly, keeping the mysterious element to the trailer. This is effecting the audience by giving them a growing interest in what is about to happen.
As the lights go down, the lighting switches from high key lighting to night vision lighting so that you can still see the audience and their expressions. Medium shots are used to show the cinema audience from the front but this quickly cuts to an over the should shot so that you can see both the audience watching the film and the film itself. From here on in the lighting stays fairly dark, this makes it harder for the audience to recognise what is going on and can this can build tension and suspense when watching the trailer. As soon as the film starts a non-diagetic deep, lingering noise begins, this continues throughout most of the trailer and heightens the tension within the audience even more. In terms of mise-en-scene the couple show the cameras they use to film the rest of the footage on at the beginning of the film, this lets the audience know it is meant to come across as more of an amateur film as opposed to a high budget film. This also increases the fear for the audiences watching, because it makes the film more realistic.
As the trailer progresses it becomes clear the film is set in a house, this goes against typical horror film conventions of an isolated location and makes the film appear more realistic and therefore scarier as this situation is more likely to happen to the viewer. The shots of the film within the trailer all appear to be filmed with either a handheld camera or by CCTV footage, this increases the realistic features of the film, making more scary to the audience. At this point the over the shoulder shot is becoming the most frequently used shot, and this shot helps create a juxtaposition of the audience and the actual film. This effect makes the audience watching the trailer feel as if they are in the cinema with that audience watching the film with them. Once the trailer audience become encaptured by the film and feel as if they are in the cinema, the trailer will appear even more scary to them.
Close-up shots of the audience are used towards the middle of the trailer as the unexplainable starts to happen. These shots convey the emotion and reaction of the audience perfectly.The non-diagetic lingering noise is still present, but isn’t as noticeable underneath the whispering diagetic dialogue of the characters. Almost immediately after the whispering dialogue there is a diagetic loud crash making the audience jump, more close-up shots are used to gather the reactions and scared expressions. Also from here cuts between full audience shots and over the should shots begin to pick up pace and make the editing a lot faster. This is building the tension with the audience at home because more things are happening more quickly and they need to try and get their heads around it all.
Non-diagetic fuzzy and creaking noises accompany the next sequence of shots to increase the anticipation in the audience. A long shot is used to show something sneaking under the couple’s duvet and a door flinging itself wide open which makes a loud crashing noise, scaring the audience again. These unexplained events that keep occurring make the trailer audience want to keep watching to see what is going to happen next.
Here captions start appearing on screen in between more shots of the couple and their haunted house. These captions and new events which happen at this point in the trailer are accompanied by a non-diagetic pounding sound which reinforces the tension in the audience each time something happens. The captions at this point display quotes from reviews to try to encourage the audience even more to watch the film. This editing keeps in with the dark lighting as the white text is shown on a black background.
Towards the end of the trailer is becomes more notceable that the victim of these paranormal attacks is frequently dressed in dark clothes, this could be a sign that evil has targetted her. Close-up shots are used to convey her injuries from this entity in her house and show the audience how serious the problem is. This point is backed up by her diagetic dialogue in the film saying “it’s not the house, it’s me” By now the audience will be feeling a mixture of emotions which have all been evoked from watching this trailer.
The pace increases even more towards the end of the trailer with a mixture of cuts and shots between the audience and film, until all that is left is the detail of which cinemas are showing the film and then a blank screen. This speed of editing can disorientate the audience slightly, but also leave them wanting more.
I decided to analyse three horror film trailers from the paranormal sub-genre as this was the sub-genre I wanted to work in. The first trailer I looked at was Insidious (2010). I decided to make sure that all three of the trailers were fairly recent as this would be the best way to find out what is appealing to the present day horror audience.
“A gripping story of a family in search of help for their son, Dalton, who fell into a coma after a mysterious incident in attic. Little do they know that there is much more to this endless sleep than meets the eye as they explore the paranormal, and rediscover the past; the key to getting their son back once and for all.”
The film trailer starts with the normal regulatory warning message that all film trailers start with. Depending on the genre of the film trailer, this message will warn the audience against some of the content which is about to appear, giving them the chance not to watch it if they wish. The message is has a bright green background and is written in a white font, therefore making it very eye-catching to the audience, making sure they do not avoid or miss the important message. There is no sound whilst this message is being displayed, giving the audience a chance to read it. Straight after the message is displayed, the logo of the film production company that made this film is displayed, this makes the audience aware of who made the film.
The next part of the trailer is cryptic to the audience as it uses the film’s title “Insidious” and mixing up the letters and rearranges them to spell out “Insidious is insidious is”. While the words are being rearranged a crackling non-diagetic noise appears over the top of the shot, the noise in itself is fairly mysterious and just adds to the mystery and cryptic nature of the scene. The background it black with hints of dark red at times and the font colour is white, creating a contrast, like the contrast between good and evil further along in the trailer.
After this the trailer cuts to a medium shot of a male character in the film, diagetic dialogue from another character that we cannot see on screen asks this male character “Are you ready?” and he replies “Yes”. This shot then cuts to a close-up shot of a pendulum and presumably the character asking the question previously starts the pendulum ticking. The diagetic sound of the pendulum ticking can then e heard for a significant amount of time throughout the trailer with exaggerated echos added on to each tick of the pendulum to create a sinister atmosphere. As the trailer goes on it becomes clear that the pendulum may have been used as a signifier of time running out for this family and their child. This type of shot and sound makes the audience question the nature of the film straight away.
The ticking pendulum is then used as a sound bridge for the following scenes, including the next one which is more writing on the screen informing the audience that the same film company made the other popular horror films “Paranormal Activity” and “Saw”. As well as the ticking pendulum the non-diagetic crackling noise from the title sequence scene has returned. Like before the writing is a white font placed on a black background with hints of dark red, the colour red being linked to danger and blood. The audience will recognise this and then will be able to recognise this is a horror genre film.
With the pendulum still ticking, the sound begins to match up with the pace of the editing, which is currently fairly slow paced. The next scene cuts back to the previous medium shot of male character in the same chair, we then get an establishing shot panning across the front of the house the family live in, looking like it’s located in America. A few mysterious non-diagetic noises are added in to join the ticking pendulum to help to build the tension of the audience and make them feel uneasy, like they do not know what is going to happen next.
More medium shots of the family are shown to convey to the audience who the film is about, with the shots cutting to match the ticking pendulum. Only high key lighting is used when showing the family until the scene switches to a shot of the attic. The family are also wearing either neutral or bright coloured clothing, no dark colours, this shows the audience that these are the victims within the film and they are the ones who are going to be targeted by evil.
However once one of the children named Dalton goes up into the attic and has an accident, things change. When Dalton is in the attic the lighting is very dark. The child appears to fall off of a ladder when one of the steps break, but in the next shot, an over the shoulder long shot, he is in a hospital bed with and oxygen mask amongst other things, alerting the audience to the fact that something else has happened as he would not be this unwell because of the fall he had. The diagetic dialogue following from Dalton’s mother, “He’s not in a coma, they don’t know what to call it”, also shows the audience that something else is going on. In between all of these shots, the “Insidious is insidious is” shot keeps reappearing. This will be building tension amongst the audience rapidly.
The ticking pendulum is still present whilst all of this is going on and does not stop until the next scene when the ticking sound merges in with the daigetic sound of a wooden rocking horse. When the mother stops the rocking horse more medium shots and shown with a faster pace than previously. All of these shots have very dark lighting, making the audience concentrate on the screen more, making it easier to make them jump when the non-diegetic sounds stop and a muffled daigetic dialogue shouts through the baby monitor at the mother. Lots of loud noises start to happen here including a large crash and a crying baby. All this will be confusing to the audience and will make them feel uneasy.
A sequence of fast paced medium shots happen afterwards, including one shot of the hospital bed Dalton has been sleeping in with blood stained sheets, proving to the audience that something very sinister is happening here. A close-up of a handle rattling with no supposed culprit is also shown, hinting to the audience of something paranormal. The shots are cut so quickly that it is hard for the audience to keep up with what is happening and increases the tension ans anxiety amongst the audience due to the fast pace. Most of the sound used during this sequence is dialogue from the worried parents of Dalton.
Next there is diagetic dialogue from paranormal investigators as well as close-up shots of the equipment they intend to use to try and sort out the problem the family are having. The dialogue is details of what the paranormal investigators wish to do in order to sort out the problem with Dalton. They also enlist the help of an older lady, presumably an exorcist. They use an extreme close-up shot of this woman’s eye while she is speaking to the family. These shots allows the audience to see the emotions clearly on the faces of the actors.
Another sequence of medium shots in a dark light follow with the prominent diagetic dialogue of a female character saying “I wanna leave” repeatedly. Throughout this sequence jump cuts back to the film’s title occur in order to disorientate the audience slightly and scare them. The editing pace is at it’s fastest now and high pitched noises start to happen, building with the tension and editing pace. This peace of editing is designed to have the audience on the edge of their seats.
At the end of the sequence the screen goes black momentarily and then cuts to a long shot of a dark, sinister looking hallway. This will intrigue the audience and they will focus on the hallway. The sound of a heartbeat, and the return of the ticking pendulum, can be heard over this shot, along with dialogue from the exorcist. “It’s not the house that’s haunted…it’s your son.” A loud noise signals the start of yet another sequence of medium and close-up shots with dark lighting edited at a fast pace. The film’s title is displayed again, at the end and the screen goes black.
With the screen still black the audience thinks the trailer is over, until a quick close-up shot of what appear to be a ghost is shown momentarily to leave the audience feeling scared and uneasy one last time. It is intended by the producers for that last scene to have a lasting impact on the audience.
I have chosen to look at and research three magazine publishers to see which would be best fitted for my own film magazine.
IPC Media
IPC Media is one of the biggest publishing companies in the UK, producing over 60 iconic media brands. The company focuses on three core audiences, men, mass market women and upmarket women, with their prints reaching 26 million adults a year. The company publish a range of magazines including NME, Marie Claire, Look, Now and In Style. The company was founded in 1963 and has headquaters in London. The official website is: http://www.ipcmedia.com/. This publisher however doesn’t deal with any film magazines, only ones about television.
Future PLC
This publishing company was founded in 1985 with just one magazine to it’s name, now the company has operations in the UK, US and Australia creating over 180 special-interest publications, as well as websites and events for people who are passionate about their interests. The company sells around 3.2 million magazines a month, Future PLC also export magazines to around 90 counties worldwide, making this company the number one exporter and licensor of monthly magazines. Their official website is: http://www.futureplc.com/. Future PLC owns Total Film which is one of the biggest film brands in the UK. Total Film also has a website which receives ten million page views each month as well as having their own iPhone app.
Bauer Media
Bauer Media is Europe’s largest privately owned publishing group. Not only does it have 300 magazines in 15 different countries, it also offers people radio stations and TV channels. The company started publishing magazines in 1953 when Angling Times was launched. Bauer employs 6,400 and has it’s headquaters in Hamburg, Germany as well as offices in many other countries. Their official website is: http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/home. Bauer Media publish Empire magazine which is also another well respected film magazine.
Shannon Cotton 