FILM MAGAZINE RESEARCH

The readers of little white lies are mainly ‘London based Hipsters’ although its target audience are 18-30 Young professionals/students, or graduates with significant disposable income and time rich.

By looking at the various covers of Little White Lies they appear to show more niche films. They focus on interesting and intelligent titles that either have or may well go onto to have a cult following. The films also allow a greater cultural discussion that goes beyond the world of cinema. This will appeal to an audience that frequent independent cinemas rather than the multiplexes.

Due to this magazine focusing on niche films and a different target audience to that or our film it would not be the appropriate choice for us to use for our magazine cover.

Empire features all the big blockbuster films and so this would be the most appropriate for our film because as well as this it has a younger (15-34) male dominated buyer which is the same audience that would most likely go to see our film.

Sight & Sound is marketed as a high-brow, consumer magazine. This will attract a differentaudience than the audience who would likely see our film the most and therefore wouldn’t bethe right choice of magazine to use.

Sight & sound features a wide variety of features and content from high budget to niche films.

86.6% 15-34

75.6% male

Like Empire, Total Film would suit our film as it features big blockbuster films and has a majority young, male audience, similar to the type of person likely to see our film. However when looking at various covers for both magazines Empire appeared to feature more horror films on the cover and therefore I feel this means it would be better suited to our film than Total Film.

Magazine Cover Analysis After choosing Empire as the best suited magazine for our film I have researched some covers so we can createour own cover suited to Empire and looks professional.

From an array of Empire magazine covers the features of the Empire covers are:The masthead always comes at the top and spreads across the entire width of the magazine. The masthead is of the word ‘EMPIRE’ which is nearly always in red but occasionally as different colour is used for a special edition on a film, but the font style is always the same and of roughly the same size. The masthead is either brought above or below the main image depending on the width of the main image, wider images have the masthead above the image and thinner images have the masthead behind. The dateline and price often come between the top parts of the letter ‘M’ in the masthead. The selling line tends to come just below the masthead. The main cover line tends to come at the lower middle third of the magazine and the font used for this changes to suit the film it is about. The cover lines tend to come both sides of the main image which is either a close up or mid shot of the main character only. The cover lines tend to include a ‘starring’ and ‘plus’ section with a list of celebrities and/or film names in the magazine below. The bar code tends to be bottom right or bottom left but depending on the placement of the cover lines/main cover line it is in some cases on the right edge of the cover.

EMPIRE-Cover AnalysisThe background of the image is a gradient of a dark colour whichgives it a dark feel to the film in the main image. The red of themasthead contrasts this and therefore stands out from the image.The masthead in this instance has been placed in front of the mainimage as it would be almost completely covered due to the widthof the image if it were placed behind. As the character in the closeup of the main image is covering most of the right third the coverlines are mainly in the left third so as not to cover over the imagewhich could also make them unreadable. In this instance the fontcover for the cover lines are a mixture of white and yellow as thiscontrasts the background colours of the main image and thereforestand out more. As the cover lines and subordinate image are inthe left third the bar code has been placed in the bottom right ofthe magazine. Here the cover lines include the films with contentabout them within the magazine. Like with other film magazinesthe character in the main image is wearing clothing related to the

film.