Conventions of a Film Magazine

The front cover of any magazine is the main focal point for every reader. They are used to draw in their audiences with the combination of image and sell lines. Some of the main codes and conventions that you expect to see on a film magazine front cover are as follows:

·         The type of shot that is used on the front cover of a film magazine are mainly close up’s.

·         Like any magazine, they feature a big, bold, eye catching mast head at the top of the page.

·         Image dominates the page, which is again the case with any magazine front cover that you will see on the shelves.

·         Film magazines tend to use dark, primary colours because they are simple and bold.

·         The names of actors, actresses and famous directors are featured on the front to draw in all kinds of different target audiences.

·         The name of the featured film is always the second largest piece of text, after the mast head, which is on the front cover of the magazine.

·         Graphics and colours are interchangeable, depending on the featured film. For example, if a horror film was being featured on the front covers, the colours would be dark and dull whereas if it was a romantic comedy, colours would change and be brighter and more welcoming.

·         The few sell lines that are actually featured on the front cover of a film magazine indicate the information that they will be able to find inside.

·         Only three/ four colours maximum are used on the front cover to maintain the simplicity of the magazine. An example of this convention is exemplified in the below editions of 'EMPIRE'.

·         Like film posters, props are used to suggest the main genre of the film.

·         Along the top of the front cover, additional information that could determine that the audience will buy this magazine is featured. E.g. free posters, entry into competitions and so on.

Final Pitch Analysis

 This is how Representation, Genre and Narrative theorist are related to my film 'SL#TAG'. Me and my group discuss how and why these theories are connected and why they aren't connected to the plot of my film and also how they are connected to my main characaters.

 

Ancillary Texts

These are 3 different cinema magazines, Entertainment, Empire, Total Film and Premier, these are seen as the  most popular film magazines on the market today. The publishers want their audience to be engaged with whats on the front cover at first sight, to make this possible they use well known actors or odd pictures that look interesting. This is an idea that I will use to draw customers to watch my movie. For horrors, it is important to have something that people will recognise every time they see it, for example, Scream at the bottom right of the pictures. This is what I hope to do with my film having the white mask which is one of the main features of the film SlashTag.

Entertainment

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by Time Inc, that covers film, television, music, Broadway, theatre, books and popular culture. Different from celebrity-focused publications like US Weekly, People Weekly, and In Touch Weekly, EW primarily concentrates on entertainment media news and critical reviews, and unlike Varity and The Hollywood reporter, which are aimed at industry insiders, EW targets a more general audience.

Empire

Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Sonsumer Media, From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer media in early 2008. It is the biggest selling film magazine in the United Kingdom and also published in the United States, Australia, Turkey, Russia and Portugal. Empire organises the annual Empire Awards which were sponsored by Sony Ericsson, and from 2009 sponsored Jameson. The awards are voted for by readers of the magazine.

Total Film

Total Film is a UK-based film magazine published 13 times a year (every four weeks) by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers cinema, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features. Total Film is available both in print and interactive iPad editions.

Premiere

Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., between 1987 and 2010. The original version of the magazine, Première, was established in France in 1976 and is still being published there.

The company's do this because this is the first thing the audience see. It's the visual syntax. They first look at the image, then he masthead, then the main headline. If somebody was a James Bond fan, they would choose Entertainment over any of the other 4 because of the picture.this is why the magazine company's spend lots of money to get the most famous person they can get on the cover. Another feature that attracts an audience is the colour of the magazine. Magazine company's work very hard to try and get the right colour for the right celebrity. Bullet grey is the perfect colour for James Bond as it matches the films personality. As you can see he shot type for each magazine is very different. Entertainment and Premier have gone for only having one character, this is because the films both follow one person (Iron Man and James Bond). The two other magazines have films that have more than one important character meaning they need more than one person on the cover. A lot of money and research goes into finding out what people look at when buying a magazine

Image of Mask and Knife

This is the picture of the mask that Nathan will be wearing when he goes on a mental rampage. The blood in this picture is obviously not blood but it is just an idea for a magazine cover. The image shows the mask, a phone and a knife, all of which have blood on them. This gives us a mix of the slasher side, horror side and the fact it is based around social media. This picture is taken on an iPad so the picture quality isn't as good as it could be. If we were going to use this image on a magazine front cover, we would make he blood much more realistic, have the whole knife in the picture and the phone screen will be visible and it will show our film logo so it looks good on magazine front covers. The background will also be different. We will change it to grass rather than wood and the lighting will be much darker. This will make it fit the horror genre much better.

Possible Music

This is a list of possible music for my film trailer. All the music is in the Genre R&B and has quite an aggressive tone. The music is associated with target audience. The people we want to come and watch our film will be interested in this type of music. Having this music on our trailer will grab the attention of our target market. The wolf of wall street trailer is a good example of this. There is a kanye West song on that trailer that attracts a teenage audience. As soon as the music comes on teenagers will hear it and focus on the trailer. This is the effect we are going for.

First Stage of Filming

 

This is the first stage of filming me and my group planned to do. It included the loctaion, who is going to be in it and what camera view it will be. This helped my group as we knew exactly what we were going to do and what order to do it in. This helped when we went to edit and put our clips together as they were all in order of where we wanted to put them.

Example Risk Assessment

New Character

This is Luke Hemming. He will be playing Dom in our film trialer. Dom is one of Scotts friends which makes him a sheep. He follows Scott around everywhere and joins in with all the bullying Scott does. This is another character Nathan will go after in the film. Dom will have a car in the trailer. This is something that we need to add to the prop list as it is used as a weapon in the film

SlashTag- Film Summary

Film Summary:

-   Our film is called SlashTag, The slash section of the name is derived from the fact it’s a slasher horror and it

   rhymes with hash. Hash tag relates to social media, this has connection to the social media side to our films title, this is due to how our films plot revolves around the social networking aspect of our film

   We called our film this because our film is about a boy called Nathan who becomes a psychopath due to intense bullyimg from his class mates, this eventually leads to him being tipped over the edge resulting in him becoming a slasher murderer. His methods of tormentation is using social networking sites to torment his victims, playing with their minds as he plots to kill them.

The film starts of with a 16-year-old boy called Nathan. Nathan is severely bullied by a 17-year-old boy called Scott and his gang of mates. Nathan hates school and finds it hard to get himself up and into school every day. One night after another day of being beaten up and scarred mentally by his classs mates he discovers social media and its power to watch, stalk and manipulate people.

This is when he realizes he can set up a fake account and torment his bullies online without them knowing who it is. Nathan starts to be very active on social media and starts to take the online harassing very far, by using extreme techniques and manipulation to get to the bullies, Nathan then starts to threaten his bullies with murder.

Nathan steals a white mask from the drama department at school, he uses this as a disguise to take the harassment of his school bullies even further. (This is the stage the audience will stop feeling sorry for Nathan and being scared of him). Nathan then goes after each bully one by one murdering one at a time, using various techniques of torture and death to kill them. Nathan violently kills each bully until he gets to Scott. The main person who has been making his life an utter misery. He makes Scott suffer more than any of the others; this is why he left him until last.

Nathan then realises what he has done and takes his own life. The worry of the consequences of what he had just done was too much for him as he couldn’t cope with the guilt, pressure and his own self after what he had done.

Unfriended Trailer

Trailer above is for the new horror film called unfriended. At the start of the trailer, a girl shoots herself because someone has posted something about her online that she was very embarrassed about. An anonymous account then haunts the people who they think posted the video. The story of unfriended is very similar to the story our film trailer we are creating, both films are a new genre of horror, social media/online horror. We can take a lot from the unfriended trailer as we are doing something very similar. this trailer can help us massively towards our end product.