The gaze magazine covers

This magazine cover allows you to see Leonardo Dicaprio, as one of the main characters of the film ‘Inception’ as a long shot to show you that he is the cover of the magazine. This magazine cover does follow magazine conventions with the date issue number and the bar code and price. It is one of the most famous magazine covers and covers not only the article on inception but also talks about other articles that are in the magazine.

The colour scheme for this particular magazine cover is quite metal like, with the greys and blues and very iron like. As this links in to the narrative of ‘Inception’ and it stands out to people to attract them to want to buy the magazine. This is something both Harley and I need to think about for our magazine cover as new need something to link in with our narrative to make the cover attractive and not tacky.

The picture of the actor on the front cover is a very familiar convention for magazine covers; they have taken the character out of the film and put him onto the front cover, rather than just putting Leonardo Dicaprio on the front cover. Magazine companies do this so that audiences will recognise the actor from the film and then they are more likely to buy it. For my magazine cover will take the photo of the magazine when we are filming for our trailer, so we can get the picture when the setting is right as well as the makeup and costume design.

This cover in comparison to the other cover is different. For one it’s french however they still follow the same conventions of a magazine cover. They have the title date and bar code price etc. The cover photo is of Robert Patterson but not as Edward Cullen but as himself, this is done when actors are very highly famous and are recognised not only in character form but elsewhere, and this is also why I choose the magazine in French because Edward Cullen is British but known worldwide therefore, the picture didn’t have to be in character form.

The colour scheme is quite simple with the colours white and red and doesn’t attract much attention to a particular film whereas the other magazine cover links in with the actual film inception and uses the colour scheme in a clever way to reflect what the film is about. The shot of Robert Patterson is also quite close up to show expression on his face and it attracts a particular audience, whereas the other picture shows the character in full and as if he was that character all the time.

film poster analysis

Poster Analysis

The notebook is a classical romance story and the poster allows you to understand the narrative as two characters fall in love with the image of the two characters kissing, a general pose understood by audience members allowing them to know that they are in love.
The font for the poster is very simple but the title is quite bold and easily understood, the font type is simple yet it adds effect to the film itself. For the rest of the poster the font is quite small as it then doesn’t take over the importance of the image and background allowing audience members to see it all and to not be distracted by the oversized writing that you may get with other posters.
The image itself is quite stereotypical with a romantic genre film, the two characters who are the main characters in the film are kissing with the added effect of the rain which is also very stereotypical of the iconography in these types of films, for example in ‘four weddings and a funeral’ the last scene ends with a kiss that is spent in the rain, something that is very typical when it comes to down to creating the romantic love effect this is something that all ages will understand that kissing in the rain is very stereotypical when it comes to romantic films and narratives, allowing for a wide target audience however we can see from the poster that this film has been created after a novel as the text on the poster reads’ from the best selling novel’ therefore the book itself may already have a target audience, leaving the film to create an entirely new target audience. However I think the target audience for this type of film would be mostly aimed at young adults and then adults up to the age of elderly as it is a love story anybody can relate to it as the narrative is quite easily understood. This in comparison to a romantic drama is very different in terms of the way in which the image is portrayed. The film ‘The last song’ is a romantic drama and the poster for that is very mellow yet sad with contrast in colours of yellow and black, this in comparison to The notebook is very different as The notebook has quite bright colours and shows two people interacting with each other displaying affection and love the colours have been chosen quite carefully for this poster. The colours used for the images are very neutral and aren’t over the top giving away the obvious storyline of two people falling in love, so in this aspect the colours for this poster aren’t as stereotypical as many other romantic films.
We can tell with every detail in the image that the two characters shown in the poster are in love as the woman has a ring on her finger entitling her to be married, all of these types of iconography add up to audience members wanting to watch a film and see the poster as it lets them know what they are going to watch.
We are able to see who the main actors and actresses are in the film with the list of names included on the poster for reference and for audience members to know who’s actually in the film, along with the producers name along the bottom. This is important in a poster as it allows information to be given to the audience so they can pick and choose if they want to see that particular film with that particular producer or director involved in the film.
Everything involved in a poster is important in order to sell the film to the audience, the director and producer must think carefully about what they want the poster to have on it, the colour scheme and the image this all adds come in to the way that the poster in conveyed by the certain target audience.
The main image of the two characters, is a mid close up enough to show the expression of the characters face, but also allows the long shot of the body language and shows that two characters are in love, linking it to the genre romantic.
Most posters generally involve a small amount of information about the film, in this case it’s been made into a film after being a best selling novel and that information is conveyed into the poster so that the audience know this particular information.
The poster focal point is very aligned with the actual title, this means that everything is in viewing point, this is a good advantage to the poster as it then makes the poster seem simple but allows the different information and the image itself to be taken in by the audience. Having an equal alignment with the title and the image is a common convention of a film poster.

Generally as an overall point this poster follows the general conventions of a film poster, it uses the right contrast in colours to express the genre of the film, light colours, not to dark or intense. It uses the right size font to show the needed information about the film on the poster, also showing a release time period, ‘summer’. It also uses the image of the characters very well in suggesting the characters are in love by the way they are shot, kissing with the mid close up shot and the iconography of the rain, this shows a normal convention of a romantic love story with a kiss in the rain scene. The poster itself is simple yet gives the right information for the set target audience.

planning for poster

Ideas for our poster.

Our poster will show various conventions of our psychological thriller. The colour scheme will be quite dark for our poster, to represent the narrative for our film trailer.

 The poster will consist of Harley sitting underneath a window on the phone, as that then links to the title of the film, ’29 calls’. We will then have the male character looking through the window as this represents the narrative of a stalker.

 We found various posters from other thrillers or films, ‘The uninvited’ poster gave us inspiration for the looking through the window shot for our poster.

 We researched quite a few images on the Internet and came up with various ideas. However we don’t want to make our poster look like a horror but our thriller is quite dark and intense but it’s quite hard to make the difference between each genre. 

We also researched other stalker/thriller genres and a film that came to mind when we were researching was the film called 'obsessed', which has a similar narrative as our trailer.

Most thriller films have quite dark colour schemes like the film ‘Taken’ is also a thriller and uses black brown and grey throughout their poster. This was something that we wanted to include for our film poster, as it’s something that will follow the conventions of a thriller poster.

We may come across some issues when we put the photo of Harley into our poster as we have already created a poster before we’ve taken photos of the characters as a starting basis. It may be difficult because of lighting and the contrast between the photos we will take and the already designed poster background.
As we wanted to get ahead on our poster and start to film we downloaded an image to start off with as a basic poster back ground and then we added a window in via photoshop and started to edit the poster itself, our disadvantages so far is the fact we aren't as good at Photoshop and editing as we would like, but this is a challenge for us both and we will practice our Photoshop skills to edit the poster.
We wanted to go with the traditional thriller themed colour scheme and we have edited the right colours into our poster with the poster quite light and the background darker, giving the impression something is odd. We also had the idea of having the image of Harley on the poster in black and white but having just the phone she is holding coloured in red, this is something we will need to work on but it's something we feel will look quite good and will stand out, as it links with the narrative and the title of the film, '29 calls'.

After researching and brainstorming various ideas, we thought of an idea for our poster that will describe the narrative enough, not to give away the ending but enough to entice audiences to watch the film. Not only with the trailer but also with the designed poster. Using dark colours with the contrast of the grey window we imported externally from the internet, on top of the background of a room we found from a non copyright website.

Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall was a media theorist who thought that the media practically interpreted what happened in reality into films and tv programmes ie the media, Hall’s theory was letting the audience view the encoded messages that are included in television and film so that they understood a more deeper meaning but not just that but the fact that young people rebell to become less like their parents. I agree that his theory is commonly used in films as it something audiences find interesting to watch as it relates to a young persons life.
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I think that Stuart Halls theory is something is very familiar in terms of television soaps or dramas, as there is an obvious relationship with the programme itself and the message it is trying to be shown, it’s also easy to pick up on encoded messages hidden throughout.
Kidulthood was a good film that had a target audience that could relate to the situations and problems that occurred throughout the film. It included teenage pregnancies that are very popular nowadays, it included the fight between young people and hierarchy with the three boys shopping but being discriminated for being young and black in an expensive shop. This is an everyday problem in terms of young people and I think that Stuart Halls theory really relates to this film the way it was directed by Noel Clarke. It also shows the rebellious side of teenagers that is with use of drug taking and alcohol abuse at young ages. This can be related to young people as they may feel this is a lifestyle that is common as the young people in the film are not Another film that relates to Hall’s theory that I have studied and looked at is Clockwork Orange although that film doesn’t contain normal conventions of a young person life it relates to Stuarts theory as it contains rebellious acts as in the use of alcohol and sexual aggression also similar to kidult hood. The theory that young people want to be less like their parents and this is then projected into films creates a getaway for audience members as it gives them pleasure to watch something that is very significant as it happens in also everyday life.

　Dominant Hegemonic Position is something that was also included in Stuart Hall’s theory, it means that when a large audience understand the message that is being given throughout television or film then that was meant to be understood by the audience, they are then operating the dominant code.