My magazine is for young people aged 18 to 22, although I am certain that it would attract younger readers as well. It is for young people interested in new release films, film production (i.e. costume, makeup, set) and features interviews with A List actors.
I began with taking pictures for the front cover. I decided to use 'Tom' who is played by my brother to be on the front cover as he is the main protagonist and is not featured in the poster. I already have the element of blood and gore on my poster so I wanted to try something different. 'Tom' is seen on more than one occasion in the trailer, brandishing a weapon so I decided to use weapons as the main theme. My brother posed as if he were about to chop into the camera and he had a menacing expression on his face, however I encouraged him not to exaggerate this as it may make the picture look comical.
The picture was taken from a upwards shot; I had to physically kneel on the floor to get the angle right. I chose to do an upward shot because it would make the character of Tom look very dominant; this was befitting as he is the main character and throughout most of the film he has complete control over his sister, 'Jade'. The upwards shot also made Tom look very tall and large; this let the audience know that he was a threat (aside from the meat cleaver in his right hand) one of the 'bad' characters.
Getting the right shot for my magazine cover was not easy; I had to take the same picture many times and ask my brother to reposition himself. Lighting was also an issue; I didn't want any windows in my picture because I wanted the picture to have the feel of an enclosed space, that there is no escape. Below there is an analysis of the pictures I didn't use for my final cover as they had one or more faults.
This was the first photo I took when beginning work on the front cover, this was a 'practice' photo to see if this positioning is correct. From the start I wanted to do an upwards shot so I thought that using stairs would help greatly. However when I looked at this photo on the computer screen I was not happy with it. The photo does not allow the audience to see Tom's facial expressions clearly and he was holding the axe downwards so he did not look very menacing. I wanted to experiment with this photo as using software like PhotoShop can improve a photo drastically. I darkened the photo to try and make it look scarier and changed the saturation slightly to try and bring out the expressions on my brothers face, but this did not improve the photo; it made it even worse so I decided not to use this photo for my magazine cover. Obviously I would have removed the colourful blanket hanging over the banister if I were to use this photo.
This is the next photo I took for my magazine, I decided to opt for a low angle shot again, but my brother and I were on the same level in terms of flooring; he was not elevated in any way like the previous photo. However I still wasn't happy with the position of the photo, so I decided to crouch down even further to make the photo look even more imposing. The picture to the right was the result I had after I changed the angle and lighting;I also edited out the logo on my brothers t shirt using the clone stamp tool on photoshop. I decided that this was going to be my image for my magazine as it was very menacing; more of my brother's torso can be seen which accentuates his size and the lighting was perfect; the lights I used could be brightened and dimmed which helped me greatly in terms of lighting. I also left the door in the left hand corner of the picture ajar and switched on all the lights so it was as if 'Tom' was blocking out the light (goodness/hope) and only a little escaped. I feel that this gives the picture an eerie feel.
My final image (above, left) was taken with the flash on. As you an see this made the picture bright and my brother's features and body look shiny. I wanted this picture to be dark, so as to follow the conventions of a horror film, so I decided to edit it further on PhotoShop.
This process was very simple, I clicked on adjustments and altered the brightness of the image. I then changed the hue and saturation as well to acentuate the light shining out of the door and to emphasise my brother's expression as it was very dark.
Next, I began to add text to the image. I decided on a font quite quickly as i was not looking for anything extraordinary; I wanted a simple and effective font that was going to grab my audience's attention. I chose the font Trajan Pro as it is bold and simple. I decided that the font colour was going to be red as it stands out even if a picture is bright. My image is very dark; my brother is wearing dark clothes and the only colour that stands out is the light shining out of the door behind him. Red would probably be the standard colour for 'FilmFest' but I felt that red was also a good colour as it is relevant to my film; it is a horror and contains lots of violence and blood and red symbolises this very well. Below is the image with my desired font and colour; this was only a rough draft as I wanted to see what my magazine could potentially look like.
I was content with the font and colour but I felt that the text needed some effects addded to it to make it look more professional. I had also decided what features I was going to put on the magazine. The font size on the title is 200pt and it has the 'Bold' effect addded to it. Next I added some extra effects onto the font to make it look more professional and eye catching. The effects I used were:
Bevel and Emboss
Inner Shadow
Outer Glow
Outer Shadow
These effects made the text look far more professional and I was pleased with the results. Therefore I used these same effects on the rest of the text on my poster.
I also added in magazine conventions such as special offers, a bar code, a date line, the price and the issue number. The picture below is my finished product; I am very pleased with the results as I had very limited resources and I feel I have done the best I can. Please note that the quality of this image has depreciated by converting it into a JPEG, therefore all the features may not be as visible.
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