Magazine Analysis - Empire Magazine

 

When looking at this magazine, the first thing that drew me in was the cover line in the middle of the magazine that says “Gone Girl”. The reason this drew me in is as the colour red makes it stand out compared to the bland, grey colour of the picture. The colour red also symbolises the sense of power, energy, importance but also danger. This straight away gives me an idea of what to film “Gone Girl” is about. The fact that the text is in all capital letters also makes it stand out a lot more than it would if it was written in lower case. Also, the fact that it is centre of the magazine, straight away shows that all the attention should be on this, and it should have priority over everything else on the front of the magazine front cover.
The next part of the magazine that really stood out to me was the feature article picture. It fits in very well with the genre I am using on my trailer – Romantic Drama. It gives off the idea of Romantic Drama, as in the picture, it is clear that these people are in a relationship. However, the connotations of the picture, for example: the man has his hand around the woman, touching the side of her face, with his face very close to her other cheek and his other hand above her. He also has his leg over the top of her, and his body is very close to hers – this gives off the impression that he is attracted to her, specifically sexually attracted. However, the woman is not portraying any of the same signs as she is both of her hands are by her side, she is not looking at the man, she is just looking straight forward, however she is not stopping him from touching her. The lighting in this picture is also very dark and gloomy, suggesting danger and risk but also a sense of exposure and vulnerability.
Although a lot of the mast head is covered by the feature article picture, this shows to me that it is clearly a well-known magazine, as viewers don’t have to see the whole of the masthead to know what magazine it is. The masthead is also in bright red, like the cover line, showing its importance compared to the rest of the information on the front of the magazine. The masthead is also in a large bold font, and all in capital letters making it in the priority of the front cover.
At the bottom of the magazine, it has a row of all different films and a small picture of the main character / most famous character in the film. This is so that it is promoting the actual film, but it is also promoting the film by showing the most famous actor/actress in the film – for example: Jennifer Lawrence in the Hunger Games – if someone who is reading this magazine is a big fan of Jennifer Lawrence and they see she is in a film – they will most probably go and see the film straight away.
Underneath this, they have some text in white writing, explaining what else is in the magazine – giving potential buyers more of an idea of what stories and information are inside the magazine – which would make their mind up on whether they wanted to buy the magazine or not, due to if they were interested in “Jolie’s Unbroken” for example.
There is another cover line saying “Winter Preview”, this also stands out very much as it is capital letters, in large font size and takes up quite a lot of room on the front of the magazine. The font that it is written in, is quite sharp and almost aggressive – which almost draws you in and makes you wants to know what it’s all about.
They’re promoting films in all different ways on this front cover, but the way that most of the films are being shown and advertised on the bottom of the page and the Ninja Turtles is at the top of the page, and it is also is in its own section, with a circle around it. This tells me as a viewer, that this clearly has more priority and advantage than the rest of the films.
The first bit of writing, which is the title of the ninja turtles bit, is in bold, red writing in all capital letters – which makes it eye catchy. This would result in people looking at it and thinking that it clearly has some importance so they should go on and read it.