‘Empire’ is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. It is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain, consistently outselling it’s nearest market rival ‘Total Film’ and is also published in Australia, Turkey and Russia. I decided to analyse ‘Empire’ magazine due to its popularity in many countries, active readers and its ways of strongly promoting a vast variety of different movies.The movie featured for this 'Empire' magazine is 'Watchmen'. The magazine consists of a colour photograph of three men, two looking directly into the camera and one looking down. It is a medium long shot as their arms and legs are shown and they are all standing in a way which makes them look frightening and masculine. The background of the photograph is a dark purple and the photograph covers the whole of the magazine.
When we first look at this magazine, the first thing we would see is the man photographed in the middle and then our eyes would shift to each man standing on each side of him. The way the three men are dressed makes me think of them as villains rather than superheroes due to the fact that they are all dressed differently and without the iconic robes seen on ‘Superman’ or ‘Batman’. The reason as to why I think they are villains rather than superheroes is because of their costumes. The man in the middle is dressed in all black such as black spandex leg wear, a black padded body jacket which looks like it is bulletproof, black gloves, a black mask covering only his eyes with a cigar in his mouth. Wearing all this black could suggest that he doesn’t want to be seen while committing crimes and wearing black could disguise him in the darkness as criminals usually commit their crimes during the evening when it’s dark. Although I cannot see much of what the man to the left is wearing, I also think he too is a villain due to his mask only covering his eyes which could mean that he is also trying to conceal his identity while committing crimes. He could also look as though he is the right hand man of the man in the middle (similar to Batman and Robin). Both men are seen to be dressed rather similarly but the man on the right is dressed the most strange. He is wearing a long brown leather trench jacket, a grey top hat and his face is unknown which makes him look very sinister. With his eyebrows masked, the facial expression of the man in the middle shows he is very serious and not to be messed with, and he is looking directly into the camera as if they are his enemies. His ‘right hand man’ has his chin slightly up and looks down into the camera making it look like he is trying to make the audience feel insecure while gazing at them. The facial expression of the last man is unknown as we cannot see his face; instead of his face we are only visible to the mask with patterns which resemble a structure of a face.
The lighting in the photo is used in an extent to see all the facial expressions and details on the actor’s faces, making sure everything is visible including make up, costume and other props such as the masks and guns. I would say the lighting on this magazine front cover is rather high key as everything is visible but the main use of high key lighting is primarily used on the top half of the actors to make sure they are visible enough for the audience to see. The colour used in the background of the magazine cover is a dark purple, the reason it behind a dark purple rather than a light purple could signify that the characters themselves are dark which could also move onto them being evil characters. Also in the background behind the actor’s heads there is a mist of smoke, the smoke could be there to connote that a gun shot has just been fired seeing as the gun held by the character in the middle is pointing upwards, the smoke could be represent them as criminals therefore wanting to cover up their identities.
The main colour used in this magazine is yellow; other colours used are red, blue, white and grey. The colours used in the magazine were chosen very carefully as they compliment and contrast each other and by using the bright yellow font, it makes it stand out to the audience thus highlighting them and appearing more visible. I would say that the signature red ‘Empire’ masthead and the yellow ‘Watchmen’ used in the main story title and other slogans stands out well against the dark purple used for the background as they contrast each other and the word ‘Watchmen’ is definitely the first word we see because of it being in the middle and in a bright yellow font.
Empire is a popular magazine, therefore they have their signature red masthead which uses a font similar to MS Reference Sans Serif, keeping it legible and simple. Parts of the masthead letters are concealed due to the actor’s head being in front of them; this is a common conventional technique used in many magazines (usually a popular magazine as the audience will still know the title without being able to see parts of the letters). In a bright yellow font makes ‘Watchmen’ stand out much more than the rest of the text as it is big and bright yellow’ highlighting the fact that it’s important. I also like how on the ‘M’ of ‘Watchmen’ is a red blood splat which could show that this movie involves killing therefore resulting to blood splatters. The red blood splat works well on the yellow ‘M’ as is stands out clearly for the audience to notice. Underneath ‘Watchmen’ there is a caption (also in yellow to show they belong with each other) telling us about what the story will be featured on. Another yellow slogan clearly visible is the one above the ‘Empire’ masthead, I can definitely say the yellow used in this magazine cover is very effective as they stand out the most and they are the first headlines the audience will read. Although the main colour on this magazine is yellow, there are other significant colours used such as the blue and grey. The blue used in this magazine cover is not used to an extent that we see it everywhere; it is cleverly used in the small details such as the little heading stating that this magazine cover is 1 of 2 Watchmen covers. It is also used for the cross on the near bottom left hand side which stands for ‘plus’ indicating other features in the magazine. The minimal usage of white and grey are used in the bottom headers to create a more neutral feel as the other colours used are rather vibrant, the grey and white text seem to hide behind the yellow text more as yellow almost ‘pops’ out to the audience. Beside the barcode is what looks like a sticker highlighting another feature about ’10 Years of DVD! How a decade of discs changed cinema forever’, this is another way of placing words onto the front of the magazine to make it look more interesting and to stand out just as much as everything else. It is in grey which compliments the grey text beside it and once again the yellow text glows right through the grey, again making it stand out.
No comments:
Post a Comment