17.11.09 - Magazine Cover - Planning and Production

As part of the marketing campaign, we were also required to create a front cover of a film magazine featuring our film. Like the poster, we began by choosing an image we thought would be most effective. In this case, we selected a long shot of the killer as it would be easier for the text displaying other sections of the magazine to be visible. Conventionally, a mid shot is often used on the front cover of a magazine however, as this is a film magazine it would be easy to break this convention. This is because a long shot taken outside of a studio looks more like a film still rather than a posed shot taken in a photoshoot specifically for that magazine. It is also a shot that is commonly used in film, therefore it would create a cinematic atmosphere reflecting the theme of the magazine and would make it acceptable to use this as a cover image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shockstudios/4111900065/in/photostream/

After our image was selected, a flat plan was created to indicate where text would be placed and what other content would be featured in the magazine: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shockstudios/4155286564/in/photostream/ We decided to call our magazine Britscreen, a magazine issued specifically for British films. We also decided that this magazine would be a slasher horror special to go with our cover image and make it more acceptable to use conventional horror colours for the rest of the magazine.
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Using Adobe Photoshop, the colours of the image were adjusted to create a darker tone suggesting the horror genre. We chose a simplistic font for the magazines title to suggest this magazine caters for all types of film and audiences however, included whites, blacks and reds in our text to fit the slasher horror theme of this special. I sophisticated the cover more by overlaying the subjects head in front of the text to showcase the magazines content more than the title and added shadows on the text making it easier to read. To finish, a barcode was added as well as the date (september 2009) ahead of the release of the movie to boost a viral marketing campaign prior to the films release. We decided the magazine would be priced at £3.50, a price close to that of other film magazines with a similar target audience.