Magazine Development

Below is one of our very first drafts of the magazine cover, and we did not choose it for a variety of reasons. For example, the position at which the girl is holding, mirrors that of the one she is pulling on our official film poster. We thought even though this would show a continuity between our two media products, it would rather give off the impression that we had ran out of ideas... And whilst mentioning continuity, the outfit which she is modelling is not what was shown in either the trailer or the poster. In addition, another downfall of this draft is that we would be unwillingly challenging conventions of film magazine covers, this is due to the fact that this shot is taken with an action-like stance. However, despite all of these points, we did decide as a group, that we think that it would be effective to keep the barcode and grey arrow-like shape as it was, because that positioning is conventional for the Total Film brand and would help us to get ever closer to resembling a professional magazine cover.

This image marks the first time that we applied this photograph to PowerPoint so that we could add subheadings, a tagline and the barcode. As a unit, our general overview of this draft is that it is a mixture of good and bad points. Firstly, the benefits were that the image we thought, was proving to be effective as it gave us enough space to put the Total Film logo in and that in terms of images, we really liked how all three girls are giving strong eye contact to the reader, as if they are directly looking and enticing them in. Furthermore, we assessed that the brightness of the image really allowed the title Queensdown Warren to stand out so that the audience can clearly see what film this image is supporting.
In light of this, we believed that overall the tone of the magazine was too dark and did not look as bright as the professional magazine covers managed. Another contributing factor as to why it was decided we needed to Photoshop this image, was that the scratches into the metal container did not look accidental as you can make out that a " 2 A 2 C " is marked above the girl's head on the left.

Finally, this is my group's official Total Film magazine cover. As can be seen, the scratches are not visible to the audience which eradicated one of the disadvantages previously stated. Instead, now all that can be seen is a burnt, scratched effect on the green container which looks effective and as if youths have mistreated it. Also, beforehand we had queries as to whether the image was too dark for the magazine, however having edited this three person shot, we increased its brightness so it would now not look out of place admist the Total Film brand. The negatives of this magazine cover is that the fonts do not look effective at all as they do not follow the conventional fonts used on the professional covers. However, the text is relevant and following the stereotypical pattern that is usually featured on a front cover.

In conclusion, this final version successfully completed what it was set out to do, inform people of the impact which Queensdown Warren had on these three girls as something did not go according to plan. This can be noted by the helpless expression on their faces and the dirt marks on the middle girl's jumper.