Magazine Cover Ancillary Analysis

Poster Ancillary Analysis

Title Screen Construction

We decided to produce our own title screen to add at the end of the trailer to remind audiences of the release date and name of the film. I created it on paint.net, using the vignette feature to put an emphasis on the title and date, as well as to create an effect that makes it look like darkness is engulfing the screen, which fits in conventionally with the horror genre. The date is smaller as it isn't as crucial as the title, which is an audiences main port of call when researching into a film. This title screen was inspired by the trailer of  'The Conjuring 2' which I analysed at the start of the year. That title screen can be seen below.

Final Magazine Cover Ancillary

Major Changes to Magazine Cover

After receiving some audience feedback from my peers and feeling unsure about the magazine cover myself, I decided that I would still keep a lot of my initial ideas but start to construct the magazine again. The main audience feedback I received was in regard to my choice of main image and some of the colours, and from this I decided to experiment with different images and use a more simple, conventional colour scheme of solely red, black and white.

For my initial draft of my second attempt, I kept my idea of the film strip along the bottom with some upcoming releases in the genre, as I thought this was really effective when seen on other film magazine covers and from the audience feedback I received, I felt that they thought this was the most effective part of my first cover attempt. I kept the same 'Empire' masthead and increased the size slightly, and this time placed the barcode landscape just beneath it to increase the amount of space that could be used down the right hand side. I included the same 'Delilah' title but again increased the size of this so it was more of a main focus of the cover. The biggest initial change I have made is the main image itself, as I chose a different image completely, and changed it to black and white as well as adding a red tint to our character's eyes. This allows the image to appear a lot more sinister and fit more with the conventional features of a typical horror villain.

Next, I firstly added some dark red blood splatters to the background of the image, but reduced the opacity in order to make them more subtle and not detract the focus from the main image itself. I also added some more basic conventional elements of the magazine cover such as the web address, the date and price, and the strapline of 'The world's biggest movie magazine', which is partly covered by the image as can often be seen on other 'Empire' covers. Above the masthead, I used my previous idea of the '30 page horror special' but in a different layout, using a clear and bold sans serif font in order for this to be easier to read. Lastly, above the film strip, I created a 'Plus' text, which will act as a buzz word, as well as looking more professional than my first cover attempt in the way that it is presented.

For the final stage of my magazine cover construction, my most important task was to add the cover lines and finishing touches. As shown above, for my cover lines I used the same ideas from my initial cover attempt but chose to present them in a different, more professional way. However, for this cover I chose to remove my previous headline of 'This Year's Most Thrilling Release' and instead include a smaller subtitle that says 'World Exclusive' as I felt this allowed the reader to focus a lot more on the film title, and the cover itself looked a lot less crowded so it would be easier for a reader to focus on the individual components in more detail.

Magazine Cover Update 3

For this draft, I made a few significant changes to the cover itself after some feedback by members of our target audience. Firstly, on playing around with the colour of the background, I decided to ask people what they thought worked better - a stark black background for the contrast or a darker grey colour. The majority of the people I asked said that they preferred the darker grey background and upon reflection I definitely agree, as I feel that the grey allows the aspects of the cover to blend more softly into the background. I also changed the actual text of one of the titles from 'The Ultimate Horror Special...' to '30 Page Horror Special...' as from continuing to look at more and more magazine covers, I realised that the incorporation of a special feature such as this was very common. If the reader is an active fan of the horror genre, they will be more likely to purchase this magazine as they have now been made aware that a large proportion of the content will be related to their favourite genre. Again, I played around with some of the positioning of the cover lines and ended up moving them further towards the masthead, and I also increased the size of our film title in order to make it more eye catching and take up a larger proportion of the cover itself, to highlight its importance.

Magazine Cover Update 2

For my second draft, I changed a couple of minor things with my cover. Firstly. I removed the red-cross symbol that was previously situated next to my 'exclusive' bubble as I felt that it did not really fit with the rest of the cover and that it was fairly out of place. I also changed the colour of the caption boxes for the secondary images from red to blue, as I felt that keeping them red would have been an overload, and I would like to use the red to highlight the key features of the cover such as the title of our film and the masthead. Another important element that I decided I wanted to be red was the text towards the bottom of the cover 'The ultimate horror special...', as the red really highlights the genre of the content inside due to its connotations of blood and gore in films. Another minor element that I added was the month and price of the magazine just below the masthead, as I realised from looking at many other magazines that this was very conventional, but with Empire magazine in particular it was always very small and situated around the masthead.

Final Poster Ancillary

Magazine Cover Update 1

As I am responsible for the ancillary task of creating the magazine cover, before making a start I thought it would be beneficial to watch a tutorial (shown above) on the basics of my chosen software. I have chosen to use paint.net, as it was recommended to me by my peers who have either used it last year for their main production or who are currently using it in their A2 year. In addition, the software was easy to access and free to download. I began by inserting the 'Empire' masthead and my chosen photo from our photo shoot, to start the magazine construction:

As shown above, I started with more of a dark blue background as I thought a plain black background might have contrasted too much with the photo itself. At first, before I added in any of the other elements of the magazine cover, using a black background did look slightly too stark, but as I began to add other aspects onto the cover, I realised I preferred the use of a black background rather than the dark blue. I added the headline 'THIS YEAR'S MOST THRILLING RELEASE' in the font 'Copperplate Gothic Bold' which I adopted from Microsoft Word as I felt it was effective due to the sharp edges that surround the letters. I then also added our title font in red, which is called 'Crucifixion' from dafont.com, but I struggled with the positioning and background of this, so I am currently working on removing the background of it and softening the edges:

I then proceeded to add some text/a strap-line above the masthead of 'HUGE WINTER PREVIEW INSIDE!' in order to immediately draw readers towards the cover, and for this I used the same font as the headline in order to demonstrate consistency within the ancillary. I then added a bar-code down the right hand side of our main image, in order to follow the conventions of a typical magazine cover:

Next, I added a 'film reel/strip' panel along the bottom of the magazine, as I had seen this effect on many other 'Empire' magazine covers and I thought it was an innovative way of incorporating my secondary images into the magazine cover. I added images from four recent or upcoming films (Split, Don't Knock Twice, Friday the 13th and Saw Legacy) that all fit into the horror genre or its surrounding sub-genres, in order to further connote the genre of our own film even more. Also, with the help of my group member Charlie, the black box surrounding the 'Delilah' title was successfully removed, and this made the entire cover look more professional overall:

The next thing I did was add the captions to the secondary images using a red text box to keep up with the conventional colour scheme and I used the font 'Aharoni' in white as it made the text look very clear and bold even though it is on the smaller side. I also enlarged the word 'PLUS' in the bottom left hand corner and changed the colour of the text box surrounding it to a brighter blue:

Changan Logo Edit

After incorporating our production logo in the trailer, we realised that it didn't look aesthetically pleasing, as the banner is narrow, therefore the logo didn't take up the whole background and looked out of place, as the stars were just cut straight off. We fixed this by expanding the background to fit a size suitable for that of a computer screen, therefore creating a smooth and professional introduction to our trailer.

Choosing Main Image for Magazine Cover (Megan)

This is the image I have chosen to appear as my main image on my ancillary task of the magazine cover. I particularly liked this image because it is able to achieve a direct mode of address with the reader, and this can make them feel a stronger personal connection with the character right from the beginning. Also, as I would like to use a darker background for my magazine, the white shirt that she is wearing will be able to contrast with the darker colour palette and therefore make my main image stand out more. In this photo, Lucy is also holding one of our main props of the knife, which features frequently in the trailer itself, and the way she is holding it to her neck demonstrates to the reader that she is fearless and is not afraid to put herself into a dangerous situation.

Credits & Fonts

Over the past couple of weeks, we have begun the editing process for our trailer. An important feature of trailers is the numerous amounts of title screens, which may consist of plot information, reviews and information regarding the cast and crew. Since this is such as important part of the trailer itself, it was a crucial decision for us with regards to the font we selected for our credits. In the end, we selected a font called 'Grunge' from Final Cut Pro, as the shaping of the letters was something that really appealed to us. Within this post, you will be able to see some examples of our trailer credits using the font previously discussed. This font is very clear and bold, making it extremely easy to read and understand, and the letters themselves are also quite sharp-edged, which fits with the fonts we have chosen to use in other aspects of our production such as the ancillaries.

Custom Green Preview Screen

We decided to produce our own green preview screen for our production, as the only others we could find were American, which wouldn't make sense for our UK-Produced trailer. The other previews featured the US's film rating company (the MPAA) therefore I switched it out with the UK's film rating organisation (the BBFC). Furthermore, I swapped out 'America' for 'The United Kingdom' within the preview, to continue the authenticity of the screen, which we will place at the beginning of our trailer.

I decided to make another change, as the previous one I made stated that the film was approved for "ALL AUDIENCES" when it should have been "APPROPRIATE AUDIENCES", due to the fact that our film would be a 15 - therefore I made appropriate alterations to my preview screen.

Poster Draft 4

Following feedback from one of my teachers, I have made further alterations to my film poster. I changed the two blood splatters at the top of the poster, as I believe the previous ones looked too cartoon-like, and were just rather plain. The new blood splatter is grittier and looks more integrated into it. Furthermore, I changed the colour of the byline to plain white rather than silver, so that it stands out slightly more, and mixes well with the colour scheme. Plus, I added the BBFC logo at the bottom right, as well as our company logo of "Changan Pictures" next to it, because after researching more film posters, I found that it is a regular occurrence to feature 4 or more logos. I also reduced the size of the Twitter/Facebook websites in the credits, as they are smaller on many other posters too. Finally, I added a 5 star film rating by the Guardian, which is also conventional of posters, as if a respectable newspaper rates a film 5 stars, audiences are more likely to go and see the film, as they're promised good quality for money. The quote "Truly Terrifying" is alliteration, therefore giving the phrase a more effective and memorable touch. The Guardian are a newspaper which reviews a large number of films upon release, therefore sticking to the conventions of a poster.

Poster Draft 3

For the final draft of my poster, I removed the gradient background and instead went for a pitch black one instead, as it is more conventional of the horror genre and gives off a much darker atmosphere. I also reduced the size of the release date, as it distracted from the tagline and title. I then moved the both of the logos to either side of it to even out the layout to my poster. Two blood splatters have been added to the top of the poster to prevent it from looking bare, and they are also conventional of the horror genre, complimenting the knife that our character is holding. I also altered the colour of the eyes to red in order to have stronger similarities to the magazine cover, which will also feature red eyes on it. Red eyes have connotations of evil, contrasting with the colour grey of our character on the poster which suits an anti-hero. The most notable change I made to my poster however was changing the image to black and white, which fits more into the conventions of horror than the previously coloured image, which was too bright to be considered 'scary'. The image on our magazine cover is also likely to be black and white, therefore increasing continuity between our products.

Poster Draft 2

Following feedback on my previous draft, I've decided to alter a number of features on the poster. I've changed both the release date and the tagline to a sans-serif font, as I was told that they distracted from the title, with the tagline actually looking like part of the title itself. The sans-serif font on both is more consistent with my magazine, and is still effectively bold on the poster. I inverted the colour of the tagline from black to white, so that it could be viewable on the dark background, and added a light glow to it which complements the anti-hero aspect of Delilah, emphasising her innocent side alongside the evil. I moved the tagline downwards in order to increase the size of our film's title, as that needs to be the most prominent part of the poster to get the audience to remember it.