ANALYSIS OF FILM MAGAZINE COVER

Empire Magazine is owned by Bauer Media, and is a magazine focussing exclusively on the release of new films and an in depth look at film culture and history.

The age of most of Empire’s readers are between the ages of 15-44 and most of them are male with 76%So the target audience is people from the age of 15 – 44 and should have texts, imagery and colours that appeals to the male stereotypes.

The logo and title of the dark knight and batman on top first than anything else , implying its the main focus of the magazine

These words almost sums up the release or preview of Dark Knight making it seem big and successful.This also promotes the magazine saying it cant be read anywhere else.

The word ‘plus’ suggests and highlights the fact that the dark knight is main focus of the issue and anything else is just extra

The date and price of the magazine is in very small fonts which helps make the ‘empire’ and the main film stand out

The dark red title of ‘Empire’ highlights the darkness and the sense of the film and mirrors the title ‘Dark Knight’. Also it show-cases or give clues about the genre of the film.Quite subtle yet powerful use of graphics is used which may suggest that the magazine is unique with its crazy and funky fonts which looks eroded and very grunge like with paint sprays and scribbles, looking like its vandalized which also links to the theme of the film and joker.

Bright colours make the issue stand out and the two colour of purple and green are the Joker’s colours so already it promotes ‘ The Joke’

The main image is taken from a scene of the film and it is a very powerful picture which shows the jokers personality and style already with a particular cunning pose

Nature of vandalism linking to the jokers actions

MASTHEAD The masthead title of the magazine ‘Empire’ is a sans

serif typeface, which inclines to give it a lot more impact. This appeals to male audience and demonstrates the magazine’s upfront in depth look at exiting new movies, drawing the viewer’s attention into the page and making the title of the magazine memorable. It’s the iconography of Empire’s font typeface that makes it easy to recognize an Empire magazine front cover, as its most likely the first thing the viewers see on the page as its huge , often in red and its memory-triggery.

The fact that the masthead is covered up with the head of the main image, the character of joker and the title dark knight being before the masthead highlights its importance and superiority to the title itself.

STRAPLINE The strapline reads ‘Meet The Joker’; adding a sense of

importance to the joker as he’s the main subject of the issue reinforced with the word ‘The’.This already has its fan base as the joker is a famous villain in the batman series and everyone knows him , so this is a subtle way of bringing insight to the new joker or the villain (which is the topic everyone talks about when a new Batman movie is coming out). But it delivers the right punchy line telling the reader everything they need to know in short about the upcoming feature ‘The Dark Knight’.

In addition , the word ‘Meet’ already draws the readers giving them a sense of being exclusive and informing themselves about whose the villain.

MAIN IMAGE The main image probably has the most impact,

backed up with the dynamic and serious pose of the Joker – in which he looks very serious, cunning and evil which already give clues about who the joker is for the people who doesn’t know and for those who know, has its audience already as they know that the Joker is evil or cunning. Furthermore, the evil smile and his costumes also sums up the Joker. But the way he sits in the middle of the cell implies he means business, which is ironic linking to his name ‘Joker’.

The background of the cell looks dark and gloomy which reinforces the genre and themes of the film.

DIFFERENT TYPE OF FILM MAGAZINE

Sight and Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by BFI and it’s more of a independent and cultural type of magazine that focuses in depth on film culture and house movies. The target audience unlike Empire are varied but mainly aimed at older and students who have a more analytical interest in films. Similarly to Empire, I think the gender is again more of a male audience and ranges between the ages of 15-44.

The thing that separates Empire and Sight & Sound is that it mainly concentrates on independent, art house movies, has in-depth analysis, commentary and criticism on every film that is released.

I believe that the logo of Sight & Sound is pretty powerful and its memorable and recognizable which is very important with its bright colours of yellow and red but I don't think its as powerful as Empire logo. Also the boldness, font and the colours really goes well with the ‘art house’ style.

Special signature bit of the magazine with the BFI logo which almost looks like a sticker and it makes it easier to recognize and remember because its always on the top left side of the magazine in all issues and it promotes BFI

You can tell that Empire is more successful and more superior because the empire logo takes up almost half of the page whilst this takes up only the top left corner.

Greyscale or black and white image of Clint Eastwood suggest that it is aimed at a more older audience and his expression implies that the magazine is more serious.Also the magazine often has close-ups and medium shots of characters or stars of films implying its more of a direct approach

The colours red and yellow matches the colours of the logo and its very subtle unlike Empire which has mixture of colours.

Simple Serif font highlights the magazines formality and themes