Analysis of 3 film magazines

For this next piece of work I will be analysing 3 film magazines front covers.

The first film magazine I’m going to analyse is a film magazine called Empire and the main image is the Joker played by Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight.

There is only one main image on the front of this film magazine that is really effective because it also has the background of Gothem falling to pieces behind him that connotes that the Joker is here to cause destruction.

They use the colour for the font really cleverly with the colour green because that is one of the colours that the Joker wears so as soon as I saw this coloured font and the Joker as the main image I immediately thought of The Dark Knight. Another good thing about the font is that it stands out on the front cover and is easy to read it off.

The three main colours on the front cover of this film magazine I would say are Black, Green and grey so overall it’s a very dark and depressing. The black connotes darkness and evil which then comes into the main image on the front cover of this magazine who is the Joker which is the Villain in the film.

The second film magazine front cover I’m going to analyse is a front cover of a film magazine called total film with the main image being the actor that pays the character of Max Payne.

Again there is only one main image I think they do this so that the target audience see this and it immediately grabs their attention whereas if there were loads of pictures on the front cover the reader might not focus as much on the main image when this is obviously what this magazine what

Analysis of 3 film posters

The next piece of work I will be doing for my A2 project is to look at and analyse 3 film posters. Again I will be looking at what it shows you by looking at the images on the poster and the font they use and how it makes it stands out or what they could do to make it stand out more. I'm going to analysis the same three film posters that I analysed for the trailers.

The first movie poster I'm going to look at is Shaun of the dead

Looking at the poster immediately gives away the genre of this film with obviously being zombie you can see this because of around the main characters there is a load of zombies surrounding them which I think looks really effective and I also feel it works really well.

The three main colours for this poster is red, white and black which I expected really with it being a poster for a zombie film. The colour red connotes anger and in this case probably blood seeming as its a poster for a zombie film. The Black connotes evil the evil being on this poster the zombies obviously because they have plagued and are trying to wipe out the human race. The final colour is white which connotes the hero's on the poster which in this case is the humans that are still living and by looking at them in the poster are trying to fight them off its clear they are trying to do this because the three characters are wielding weapons.

I think that the font that they use for the title is really effective because of it being in bold in a black font on top of a white and red background so it stands out really clear and everyone will be able to read what it says.

The second film poster I am going to analysis is Resident evil

Without knowing what genre resident evil is in I think it would be hard for people to class and they may think that the film is an action film because of the woman holding the gun despite the title being quite self explanatory with the word 'evil' in it you would usually assume it's a horror. When I first saw this poster I was surprised because normally on zombie film posters there's like a zombie or a man with blood all over him but in this case its just two woman with one of them wielding a gun and they other one looking like she's about to run away.

Again the three main colours are red, black and white which seems to be the case for most zombie film posters the reason being is its always about the hero, zombies and blood which is what all of the colours connotes and which I explained when analysing my first zombie poster.

The third film poster I'm going to analyse is Silent Hill

Again first glimpse at this film poster and you are able to identify that the genre is horror, by the way it looks all so gloomy and a image of a dead girl standing in front of a similar styled looking crucifix. The poster also looks freaky/unusual because there are bits of paper being sucked into the background of the picture.

In this film trailer I would only say that there are two main colours those being black and yellow. They use colour cleverly on this poster because the black connotes the evil and the yellow connotes purity and on this poster it seems as if the good is absorbing the evil and making things normal again.

The font on the poster is what you would expect on a horror film poster its bold so it stands out to the audience and is also kind of fading which could connote the evil being taking away.

Analysis of 3 film trailers

My first task for my A2 coursework is to look at and analysis 3 film trailers and look how it portrays youth culture.

The first film trailer I have chosen to analysis is a film called Cyrus:

The crew:

Directors: Jay Duplass

Mark Duplass

Produced by: Micheal Costigan

Tony Scott

Ridley Scott

Written by: Jay and Mark Duplass

Starring: John C. Reilly

Jonah Hill

Marisa Tomei

Catherine Keener

Matt Walsh

Music by: Micheal Andrews

Cinematography: Jas Shelton

Editing by: Jay Dueby

Studio: Scott Free Productions

Distributed by: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Budget and gross revenue

Budget: $7 million

Gross revenue: $7,138,000 (August 2010)

The actors in this film trailer is John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei and Catherine Keener

The genre of this film is comedy.

This film portrays youth culture but in a completely different way normally when you think of a new film coming out with portrayal of youth you would probably think the genre would be violence, gangsta and football hooligans however Fox has come up with away of portryaing youth culture but in a funny way.

This film is about a man called John who's wife walks out on him but then at a party he finds a new women however he is in for a big shock when he goes back to her house and realises that her grown up son still lives with her.

During the trailer there are a number of messages which creates the scene on how Cyrus the man responds to a man being in his mums life. Cyrus sees John as a threat and is worried that with his mum seeing a man that Cyrus is going to spend less quality time with her.

In the trailer it is very clear that although Cyrus is an adult he is still very close to his mother and he is still like a kid such as one bit he walks in to go to the bathroom when his mum is showering in there which is something you would do as a kid so that portrays youth but in a funny way.

Another thing that portrays Cyrus's youth is seeing John as a threat he becomes really jealous because John is seeing his mother and he doesn't like this because as a kid if you see someone with one of your parents after they have divorced or something n the same situation then you immediately think that the person is going to take either your mum or dad away in this case it's the mother Cyrus thinks he's going to lose.

Who and what the film represents:

During the trailer there are three main representations:

Single mum

Only child

Single man

Mise en Scene:

During the trailer there is a huge case of male influence that has affected the behavior of Cyrus who has only ever lived with his mum so when a male figure comes into his life he doesn’t know how to act and he’s worried about how his relationship with his mum is going to be effected.

Another thing that is clear during the trailer is that John and Cyrus are competing against each other and John feels really uncomfortable being around Cyrus because of the way he acts around him its as if both of them wants the male dominance.

During the trailer its clear that Cyrus has developed habits of certain things to show how close he to his mother which John finds hard to come to terms with and finds it awkward because of Cyrus's behavior around of his mother because he is so close to her.

Camera Work:

During the trailer there's a variety of different camera shots used. One of the main types used during the trailer is close-ups but in a number of different ways of showing the different reactions and emotions from the characters. During the trailer there is also a long shot of Cyrus holding a knife, although the genre of this film is comedy it still makes the scene quite tense when Cyrus is just standing straight with a knife at his side. Also during this trailer there is a two shot which shows off both Johns and the mums emotion because John tells her how he feel uncomfortable around Cyrus and she is unsure what to do. Later on during the film there is also a two shot of Cyrus hugging with his mum again this is showing emotion and connotes on how close they are and it proves even further because after that bit there is a close-up shot on Cyrus and he says “I’m so proud of how close we are”. This connotes that there relationship is very special and they have a really strong bond.

Sound:

Throughout the trailer there is a non-digetic sound which really sets the starts of the trailer and and grabs the audiences attention already and then John (John C Reillly) explains the situation and says what has currently happened in his life. There's also digetic sounds during the trailer for example when John Reilly is singing.

Actors:

I can see this film doing well in England it has already been a big hit in America. The reason why I think this film is doing so well is because they have big actors such as John C Reilly who has also been in comedy films such as step brothers which was also a big success so as soon as the audience see big actors then it makes them automatically want to go and see the film because actors has a huge influence whether or not people want to go and see the films.

The second film trailer I have chosen to analysis is The Karate Kid:

The crew:

Directed by: Harald Zwart

Produced by: Jerry Weintraub

Will Smith

Jada Pinkett Smith

James Lassiter

Ken Stovitz

Written by:

Script by: Christopher Murphey

Story: Robert Mark Kamen

Starring: Jackie Chan

Jaden Smith

Taraji P. Henson

Music by: James Horner

Cinematography: Roger Pratt

Editing by: Kevin Stermer

Studio: Overbrook

Entertainment

JW Productions

China Film Group

Distributed by: Columbia pictures

Budget: $40 million

Gross revenue: $268,583,702 (August 2010)

Mise en scene:

During the trailer of The Karate kid it shows about a boy who moves from America to China with his mum although he didn't want to. He finds life difficult and everyday is a challenge because a group of children decide to pick on him and pleads with his mum to go back to America. He then gets trained by someone so that he can stick up to the bullies.

At first the boy is determined that he wants to go back because he gets bullied so bad and he doesn't know what to do that shows a representation of bullies and the victim which in this case is himself it sends out the message that the victim doesn't need to feel alone as it shows in the trailer because the young boy then joins a martial art class and learns how to stick up for himself and then feels a lot more confident and doesn't feel intimidated by the bullies anymore.

During the trailer there is a lot of both sadness and happiness that you can tell from the expressions on the characters face because of everything that is happening in their life right now which really sets the scene and gives you the idea of what is really going through the mind of the characters and the way they react to things that are happening to them.

Camera work:

During the trailer it shows a lot of close up especially on the young boy at the beginning there is a close up on his face when they are moving to a different country this shows that he is not happy with the move and he was quite happy were he was. The next close up that is used on the boy is when he starts to get bullied and he tells his mum that he wants to move back to America again this is because he is unhappy with not only were he is living know but he is also upset because he is unable to fit in with everyone else. Then half way during the trailer there are a lot of two shots with the young boy and his trainer which shows them both working hard in order for the young boy to fit in and at the same time the young boy and his trainer build up a close friendship.

The camera work is really effective and gives you and makes you feel what the young boy is currently going through and you can see how it is affecting him and at the beginning how he has know confidence however when he get trains he feels more and more comfortable and feels as if he fits in better.

Sound:

Throughout the trailer there is non-digetic sound playing in the background but its played the opposite way round such as when the boy is in America theres Chinese music playing in the background which straight away gives the viewers the idea he's moving to China. However the second half of the trailer the music changes into rap which is American however this music also connotes that he is getting stronger through the training he is receiving and his commitment for the new sport he is doing which is martial arts.

Actors:

One of the actors in this film is really well known for many other martial art films and other different genres of film so that could attract a large number of people that will end up going to see the film also Will Smiths son plays the karate kid so I can see this film being really big in cinema.

The third film trailer I'm going to analysis is the expendables:

The crew:

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone

Produced by: Avi Lerner

Kevin King Templeton

John Thompson

Written by: Sylvester Stallone

David Callaham

Starring: Sylvester Stallone

Jason Statham

Jet Li

Dolph Lundgren

Randy Couture

Steve Austin

Terry Crews

Mickey Rourke

Bruce Willis

Music by: Brian Tyler

Cinematography: Jeffrey Kimball

Editing by: Ken Blackwell

Paul Harb

Studio: Nu Image

Millennium Films

Distributed by: Lionsgate

Release date: August 13, 2010

Budget: $82 million

Gross revenue $114,000,000 (United States August 2010)

Mise en Scene:

This film is to do with a group of mercenaries who have to overthrow a Latin American dictator. It starts off with the mercenaries being deployed to the Gulf of Aden to stop the pirates from executing the hostages they are holding captive.

The team split up probably due to not being able to follow each others orders and having different opinions and ways of doing things. However they decide to get back together again to try and take out an army of men that have kidnapped some women. Despite he team being outnumbered and the army. It is clear that they are mercenaries because one of the first things you see during the trailer is a man offering them a bag of money in order for them to do a mission which of course they agree to even though they know there going to be outnumbered.

Camera Work: Again the main types of camera shots during this film trailer is close ups and two shots because the trailer is used to show the viewers the main characters that will star in this film and they want to give you a brief on what the story is about and then it goes onto showing some of the action during and other bits that will happen during the film

Sound: During the trailer yet again there is a lot of non-digetic sounds such as the voice over which is used pretty much throughout the whole of the trailer the man that does the voice over has a really low and quite intimidating voice which really sets the scene and the genre for this film. There is another clever piece of non-digetic sound that is used which is a piece of music which kicks in when the action starts to pick up and at the end of the song it says "everyone one of them is expendable" expendable of course is the title of the film.

Actors:

I can see this film being a huge success because of the actors that star in this film are all really famous because of the previous films they have starred in such as Rambo, Terminator and Condemned which all made loads of money.

PLEASE NOTE: All of the trailer I have analysed I have watched off www.apple.com unfortunately I can not link the trailer to my blog as they don't have the hyperlink.

My chosen brief Brief 2

I have decided to choose brief 2 because my coursework last year was to do with magazine so I thought this year I will try and learn the skills of doing film so then I have a range of skills I will be able to successfully use.

To complete this piece of coursework I will have to produce three pieces of work these being a front cover for a film magazine, a poster and a film trailer for the genre of my choice. At the end I will then have to use critical reflection in which I can evaluate my three pieces of work.

A2

The post onwards will all be work and research to do with A2

My double page spread

The final bit for my music magazine was my double page spread. The first thing I done was my flat plan so I had a rough idea on how I wanted my double page spread to look like.

I'm also very happy with how this piece of work turned out this time I decided to have a few more images on my double page spread but I think it looks good because there isn't to many pictures I think I got the balance right between the amount of font and the amount of pictures so I feel I get the combination right.

I decided to use white on black background because it stands out well and its the kind of colours that they would use in a rock magazine and I feel it stands out well and the readers will be able to clearly read about the interview I have done.

I think the hardest thing about my double page spread is trying to get the writing in the right place to make it look like a proper music magazine and deciding were too put the images because I wanted the story to flow so I decided to have the pictures in the top and bottom corners and opposite way round on the other side of the page so it looks neat and tidy. I have also decide on the other page to tilt the images slightly so it adds more of an effect when the reader reads the article. Finally I decided to add a background image on each page so that the double page spread doesn't look to boring instead there is a lot of colour so it stands out more.

Overall I am very happy with the work I had to produced and I have learnt a lot more skills with using photoshop which I am very happy about because now I feel I can create better pieces of work and I can get work done a lot quicker and at a better quality.

Contents page

Next thing I done for my music magazine was my contents page which didn't take me very long at all because now I'm a lot more confident with using photoshop the only problem I had really was finding the right colours to go on the background. As you can see my contents page is completely different to how I flat planned it but I decided to try something different.

Again I chose to have a main image then a smaller image in the bottom corner. I done the contents page different to most music magazines and I think it looks good and I'm happy with how it turned out although I know it doesn't follow the conventions but I decided that i wanted to do something different to see how it looks I see what kind of feedback I get back off people.

I had to have two different font colours because I started doing the font in white put then realised that I was going to go on the white on the background so again I done something different with using two different colours so the colours stood out on the background. Again i used three different colours and two different fonts such as contents page is in bold whereas the font for the contents page is regular so it doesn't look all the same.

I had to do a bit to the images but this time I decided to not add effects instead I just cropped the picture of the boy and made the picture of the girl bigger so it fits in as my background so it turned out really well.

I think that my contents page turned out well I didn't want to put too many pictures on the contents page because I felt it would look to busy so I think the way I done it turned out well and I'm happy with the way it now looks compared to the one for my school magazine because I have learnt more skills with photoshop.

Front cover of music magazine

After thinking about what kind of music magazine I wanted to do I came up with a flat plan (above) and now I have came up with the final version of my front cover of my music magazine. I think that it has turned out well seeming as I had difficulties with trying to get the layout and everything right so i took a lot of time for me to get that right and another thing that took a little while was finding out were to put the writing so I could put a couple of images in.

I think my title is appropriate for the type of music magazine I am doing and I think it will stand out to the readers because the font colours stand out on the background and its also in bold so I think its appealing to the readers. A thing that took me a little while to think about was a catchy slogan because I wanted people to be hooked by it but after a few minutes of thinking I thought of one and I liked it so I added it.

The easiest part I felt was putting the images on and adding effects to the images such as with the image of the boy holding the guitar I used a glow effect and I think it looks really effective because the glow comes off the guitar which I think looks good. I also had to crop the picture with the boy so it fitted in between the two bits of writing. With the image of the girl I made it bigger so it stands out as my main image but apart from that I didn't have to do anything to the image because I felt the image looked fine.

It also took me a bit of time to find the font but now I'm finally happy with the different fonts I have used because I think it looks effective and definitely stands out to the reader such as I like how the teaser about the posters stand out.

I'm happy with the colours I have used for the font because I think it stands out a lot on the background that I have chosen and every bit of font is in a different font so it isn't boring and I think it looks a lot more interesting than just one font.

I have decided to put the barcode in the bottom left hand corner because I felt having it up the top next to the title would make it stand out more when I didn't really want it to I also forgot to put a price on my first front cover but on the one above it does have a price.

Overall I think my front cover of my music magazine looks good and I have improved a lot since I done my front cover of the school magazine because I feel I have got a lot better at using photoshop. I'm also happy with the way that the images have come out after a bit of editing and I think the magazine will definitely appeal to readers that are into rock music.

Photographs for front cover of music magazine

The next section for main task was to take photographs of people to use for my front cover, contents page and double page spread of my music magazine. This was the most challenging bit I found for the coursework because I have never really used a camera so I found it a challenge taking good photos so I have to do some work on photoshop to make them look good.

Here are some of the pictures I took:

I took this shot at mid shot and I think it looks really effective and I managed to take this photo well because the girl is in the middle of the shot. The clothes she is wearing is really relevant as well because she looks like a Rocker.

For this photo the girl turned around and done a Rock pose I think this is effective and different because you don't see a lot of people on music magazines with their back turned so I thought I would do it because its something different.

In this shot I decided to give the girl a prop and I took a longer shot than any of the previous one's because I wanted to make sure I had a number of different shots so I can show that I am able to do this I think with using props it looks better as well because there's more in the photo.

For this photo i decided to take a close up of the prop itself although there are hands on it because its something different I thought it would be a good picture to take and this was another photo I managed to take quite well I feel.

There was a few reasons why I choose this boy to be in my photo shoot firstly because I didn't want to be gender bias because then I wouldn't be advertising my magazine to a very big target audience if I was just aiming it at one gender and secondly again his dress code is very Rocky so i thought it would be perfect for him to be in it.