‘Total Film’ is a film magazine that has an issue released monthly. It covers a multitude of different genres such as comedy, sci-fi, horror and so on. In this issue the main image is Megan Fox posing to be the character from the film ‘Jennifer’s Body’, which is a horror film. You see a long shot of Megan wearing a cheerleader’s outfit; her facial expression looks very seductive and sexy. She has long, thick, wavy hair with slutty like make-up. Her lips are glossy, her cheeks have a lot of blusher on and her eyes are black and smoky, all attracting the male audience. The target audience for film magazines are mostly men because women are more into gossip and fashion whilst men love things like film talk and respond more to visuals.
The make-up makes her look a lot older than she is as she is supposed to be a school girl but looks like she is in her early 20’s. The seduction in her eyes make her look evil and bully like. Also her top is very low cut but usually cheerleader tops go all the way up and cover any cleavage; showing that she could be breaking the rules and doing things her own way because she is popular and can get away with anything. I believe when the male audience look at this picture of Megan, they will see her as a sexually desirable bad girl which a lot of men find very attractive.
Because she is a cheerleader the bully image suits her as it’s very stereotypical to see cheerleaders in films that are bitchy and stuck up. The main image is of course Megan; she dominates the page and was purposely placed in the middle to be the main focus. On her right hand you see blood dripping down from it, telling the audience that not only is the film that she is in a horror, but also that she could be the main evil character in the film. The way she is standing also looks like she is about to start a cheer as her hands are placed on both sides of her, fingers wide open. She also looks quite relaxed leaning against a wall sort of like a rebel.
On the top right corner there are featured article photos showing snapshots from new films that have recently come out such as ‘Inception’ and ‘Iron Man 2’, showing that it’s a magazine with different genres featured and promoting the films too.
The masthead is in a large, red, bold font. It’s placed behind Megan in the centre on the page. The fact that Megan’s head is blocking the letter ‘L’ shows that it’s such a well known publication that they don’t need the whole masthead showing as everyone is very familiar with it. The word ‘Total’ is in the top part of the first letter of ‘Film’, it’s been discretely put there so the title of the magazine didn’t dominate the page as that’s not the most important part of the magazine.
The Masthead has been placed in the middle of the page just like any other magazine because it’s somewhere a reader will look first because it’s at the eye line of a person starting from left to right just the way we read, and it’s done that way so the reader can recognize what magazine it is they have picked up before they open it.
The fact that the name of the magazine is ‘Total Film’ straight away tells the reader that it’s a film magazine. The font is also quite masculine and sophisticated leaning more towards the male audience, yet it’s still suitable for the female audience too. It also keeps a brand identity as the masthead font, size and structure is always kept the same in every issue making it recognizable to their readers.
The sell-lines are placed on each side of Megan, they include articles and reviews about newly released films. They sell-lines don’t give away too much therefor making the reader more inclined to buy and read the magazine. The colours are black, red, blue and grey so they can stand out against the white background and grab the reader’s attention, also because the sell-lines include interview’s with the film stars like Megan Fox, it makes the reader more interested as she is a sex symbol and people love hearing what famous actors have to say about the film and the making of it. The big blue arrow also attracts a reader’s attention because it’s big and bright and the eye will go straight to it.
The style and font of the sell-lines are kept simple and similar to the masthead, as this magazine is male dominated, fancy and italic font wouldn’t fit right so it’s kept simple. The colours are also kept simple but bright to grab attention of a potential reader and they go well with the white background. Red also reflects the horror genre, which is blood. The blue represents a cold and chilling feeling and the grey could represent the darkness and confusion.
There are a lot of sell-lines on this front cover that frame the main image which is something every magazine does so the main image is the main focus. This is done because the editors want the main image to be seen first, in this case a beautiful woman which grabs a male audience’s attention, and the women will envy her and will want to look like her which is also something the editors want.
Our eyes read from left to right, which is how the sell-lines are cleverly placed making sure that there are all seen and read clearly. Because the main image is Megan Fox, on the right hand side, the sell-lines are black and grey accept for one of them which is in red saying ‘The deadly Megan Fox’ it was placed there in red so it stands out most and links to the main image and subject matter which is Megan Fox in the new horror film ‘Jennifer’s Body’, it’s also in red as it’s a horror and links with that too.
At the top left corner you see a sell-line saying ‘Our biggest preview ever’, the word ‘biggest’ is in a different colour to the rest, again grabbing the reader’s attention and really making the word ‘biggest’ more solid. As the sell-lines frame the image, it shows that it’s the main selling point; the magazine follows the codes and conventions of magazines but has some of its own twists and perks about it.
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