The construction of the magazine front cover

For my magazine front cover feature I used the programme 'paint.net' to manipulate the photograph, add a title 'total film' and manipulate fonts, images and shapes in accordance to what I was aiming to achieve with the layout.

This is the photograph that I am going to use for my magazine front cover feature, as I need to ensure that there is a sense of branding across the ancillary products and the teaser trailer the image is of the young female protagonist (which is also evident on the poster and within the teaser trailer) and accompanied with the title 'flat 39' the film is constantly advertised and the genre reinforced. The only thing I had to ensure with this photograph was that it had higher key lighting so that the audience could easily recognise this female character.



These are some of the photographs I am going to include on my magazine front cover so that the audience is enticed by behind the scene action and interviews and 'never before seen footage' of set and location:







Looking back at my mock up of the magazine front cover feature I must ensure that I place the appropriate graphology/typography in the right place so that it appears as though it is a genuine magazine front cover feature with the appropriate conventions of a horror genre poster including an element of darkness, set/location indicators and traditional conventions such as other features in the magazine '100 greatest horror movies' and a barcode. A magazine front cover feature must include an element of informality such as colloquial language/ideas 'See what's inside!' so that the audience are enticed by this slight familiarity.


Above is a mock up I constructed on 'paint' so that I can establish where typography/graphology is going to be placed. I will refer back to this when constructing my final magazine front cover feature on 'paint.net'. I have decided that I am to include a section of 'this month's movies' so that the audience are enticed and I am also to include a 'review and preview' section so that the audience are again, enticed by other features in the magazine as well as my film 'Flat 39'

Below are some screen shots of me working on paint.net to construct my magazine front cover


I used the tools on 'paint.net' to make the backrounds of the image of the young female and the 'flat 39' title invisible so that I could place them as a seperate layer of graphology on my magazine front cover feature created on microsoft word


This is a screen shot of me placing the various layers of graphology on my magazine front cover feature for desired effect. As a dominant image of somebody looking at the camera over the 'total film' mast head is a convention of a magazine front cover I had to ensure that I included this. Microsoft word allowed me to move images around with ease and create the magazine layered effect whilst paint.net allowed me to get rid of backgrounds that I did not want.


This is my first draft of my magazine front cover feature:

Final Poster

This is my final poster advertising the horror film 'Flat 39' as part of my promotion package.



I decided to follow typical conventions of a horror film poster such as a dominant image, dark colours, the dominance of the colour red, teaser typography 'who should you fear?' advertising 'In cinemas 2011' and small print of the cast and crew list.
For my final draft I also decided to have an obvious seperation between 'who should..' and 'In cinemas..' because I wanted the idea of two people: a seperation, so that the typography itself parallels the image and the narrative: two people, a seperation between the two personalities. The tag line is important 'who should you fear?' as the second person pronoun 'you' combined with the rhetorical question and the young female staring directly at the audience involves the audience directly as she appears to be challenging the audience with this rhetorical question therefore evoking a specific emotion of fear.

The construction of the poster

I am going to use 'www.picnik.com' in order to upload my photos and manipulate them effectively so that I can create my poster. This website allows me to change the colour, sharpness and size of my images so that I can create the desired effect for each product according to their individual conventions.
This is a screen shot of 'picnik' as I was working on my poster:


For my poster I must ensure that I have a significant amount of darkness connoting mystery and isolation as this fits in with the narrative of my teaser trailer. I must also include traditional conventions of a poster, including the film title and simplicity of the poster to create intrigue as well as a cast/crew list at the bottom of the poster.

For my magazine front cover feature I must include specific conventions such as a lighter image so that the film brand is recognisable (an image of the young lady) and I must also include traditional conventions such as colloquial language, various colours and fonts and different features advertised on the front cover. (USP)
I used the audience feedback for my mock ups to recognise what I must include on each ancillary product.

Whilst constructing them I must keep in mind that I am aiming to create a promotion package so I must create branding across the teaser trailer, poster and magazine front cover feature. I am going to do this by including the young lady within each product, so that the audience recognise the brand as well as establishing that the young lady is a key part of the narrative.

This is the first draft of my film poster that I constructed on www.picnik.com



During the first draft construction I tried to incorporate specific conventions of a teaser poster and for my second draft I have established that I must include a tag line for the film to create mystery surrounding the narrative which will be 'who do you fear?' the use of the verb 'fear' will ensure a particular emotion will be evident when somebody views this poster and the use of the rhetorical question on the poster will ensure audience involvement and create mystery which is what a teaser poster is supposed to do, so simplicity is key, here is my second draft:


I must ensure that I have simple information on my poster 'in cinemas 2011' This is the only form of date advertising I am going to use so that the audience is more interested in the actual poster and what the narrative may be. The darkness is very significant as it draws people in. I have decided to flip the letter 'e' in fear to suggest that what a person may fear may not be the correct thing to fear, it may be something else. This is my third draft:


For my final draft I decided to incorporate the cast and crew list as I did in my first draft, it is a convention of a film poster and I think it makes the overall product look realistic, I have still included all of the typography discussed above and believe that this draft is my most successful.


I decided to make some final changes and decided to change the verb phrase 'who do' to 'who should' because I believe that this verb phrase is more intrusive and will scare the audience as it is suggesting that this film doesn't involve obvious fears but perhaps something that you do not think you will fear. This links in with the typography I have included in my teaser trailer 'what happens when the people you trust become the people you fear.' This creates a sense of branding across the two products as part of my promotion package. I have also decided to place the tag line 'who should you fear' more central across the divide of the 'two' female characters to create an effect that the typography is depicting the narrative and paralleling the image. A sense of two people is created.



I have decided that my poster will be a quad poster. A quad poster is landscape in style and allows more of an image to be seen and more emphasis to be put on the size of image/images or particular typography. These are a few examples of quad posters:




I have decided to make my poster a quad poster so that there is an emphasis on the idea of 'two' people, two different sides to this vulnerable female. The line of the mirror inbetween the girl and her reflection represents the divide between her two different sides and I believe a quad poster would place effective emphasis on the idea of the two sides to this young woman and how she has been negatively affected by 'Flat 39'.

Final Teaser Trailer

This is the final edit of the teaser trailer 'Flat 39' for my promotion package


This is a 'youtube' link to the teaser trailer of horror film 'flat 39'. Whilst viewing this final edit I can establish that teaser trailer conventions are evident from real media texts. Conventions include a slower pace at the beginning to establish set and narrative and then the edit pace speeds up parrelling the adrenaline the audience are made to feel as they view diverse scenes from the film. Intrigue is created due to the nature of the plot and the order of the edits connotes mystery and fright. Another convention that I have used within my teaser trailer is the use of music, non diegetic atmouspheric music is used to set the scene and bursts of loud music are used parallel to the mysterious typography. Conventions such as these constantly reinforce the genre of the teaser trailer so that the audience can establish what type of film this is.

- they are short in length
- they evoke intruige and excitement
- they establish some form of narrative
- they are released a long time in advance of the actual film
- the pace is usually fast or is slow and then picks up

These are the teaser trailer conventions that I researched and I can ensure that each convention is evident within my own teaser trailer. My teaser trailer is 1 minute 33 seconds, so it is long enough to establish a narrative but short enough to 'evoke intruige and excitement' which is another convention and this is followed due to the various scene changes and pace changes.

Audience feedback for ancillary product mock ups

In order to construct a successful poster and magazine front cover feature it is important to get audience feedback so that I know what they think is good and what needs improving, I allowed 10 people to see the computerised mock ups I constructed and the actual photographs that I am planning to put on them and I then got them to complete a questionnaire.
I created it on www.surveymonkey.com

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

After 10 people had completed it I then translated the results onto microsoft excel and created these pie charts to present the results so that I could use them for my improvements.



These results tell me that the thing that most people expect to find on a magazine front cover feature is a dominant, recognisable image. As it is a promotion package I must make sure that there are obvious trends between my teaser trailer, magazine front cover feature and poster. The second most popular answer was 'all of the above' people expect to see all of the features described so I must ensure that I include all of them when constructing my final ancillary product.



Most people said that my poster mock up was effective in looking like a real poster. I will try and follow the conventions of a horror film poster, such as, dark colours, a dominant image/title, simplicity to create intruige and a cast and crew list at the bottom of the poster.




Most people said that the dominant image (girl in the mirror) is the most effective thing on my film poster and the second most popular answer is the dark colours, dark colours are important as I want to portray the genre of my film is the most simple yet effective way.




For this question, the audience felt like trends between magazine front cover feature and poster were the most important feature and as I am constructing a promotion package I agree with this and will ensure that there are obvious trends: colour similarities, the female character. The least popular answer was 'other conventional features of a magazine' I think that this may have been the least popular as the features are so simple and obvious my audience didn't think they were important as they are just there. But I will ensure that even simple things like barcodes, colloquial language are evident to conform to magazine front cover conventions.




For this question my audience were given the chance to voice their opinion on what I needed to specifically improve on my film poster. Interestingly, a few had similar answers and I have generalised their actual text into three answers. The most popular was allowing the title to stand out, I will make sure I do this as this is the point of a film poster, to advertise a new film and the audience need to see clearly what it is called. 'Flat 39' will stand out in an effective manner and the colour red will help it do this.




This question is the same as the one above, yet it is about improvements for the magazine front cover feature. Interestingly, the most popular answer was regarding similar colours on magazine and poster. I think that this is important to my audience as they need continuity to establish that the two products are connected. I will make sure that in my final construction of both products there will be dark colours and red on both.




For effetiveness the most popular answer was 4 and 5 which is encouraging as my audience think that my poster is effective. I now need to make sure that I take the mock up idea and effectively manipulate it on photoshop to create the desired effect.




Finally, for effectiveness regarding the magazine front cover feature, my mock up scored 4/5 which is again, encouraging and I will ensure that I again translate my mock up ideas onto photoshop.

This audience feedback allows me to establish what I need to change for my ancillary products to make them effective and attractive to my audience. I need to make sure that there is a dominant image and title on the poster with strong colours. I need to make sure that there are similar colours on the magazine front cover feature with an effect USP (interview/behind the scenes action)

Computerised Mock-Ups/ Conventions of horror

This is a very basic mock up for the magazine front cover feature that I constructed on a word document so that I could establish where I would place individual typography/graphology. The writing in the white text box simply state what I would have in that area for example, in the middle I would have 'a mid-long shot of the female character looking straight into the camera or down'



This is a computerised mock-up for the poster I will be constructing. The white texts boxes explain what images are going to go where, for example in the middle of the poster there will be a mid shot of the female character looking into the mirror and in the background there will be very slight layers of graphology of the exterior of the flat. On my poster I must ensure that I follow the codes and conventions, for example, I will have at the bottom of the poster in small, undefined font all the members of the cast and crew (the credits)
In researching conventions of a horror movie poster I found that 'darkness' is an important element 'since horror posters inherit a lot of gothic conventions' I also found that 'if someone is shown being menaced it is usually a woman -- the persecuted maiden is often the viewpoint character in those stories.'
And finally 'There is often a picture of the setting of the tale. Not always but often.' I aim to try and incorporate some of these conventions into the construction of my own horror poster for maximum effect.

Production credits

At the beginning of my teaser trailer before it begins I need to ensure that I have suitable production credits to introduce a production company. Here are a few examples that are used in film:




For these production logos I have established a common trend: They all have an establishing shot style landscape with the title placed in the middle or playing a dominant role on the whole image.
For my own production credits at the start of my teaser trailer I will have an image which will be on the screen for 2-3 seconds with a landscape image and the title of my production company.

I plan to use this image as the logo for my media production company. I have decided that in order to indicate to the audience that the teaser trailer they are about to view is of the horror genre I wanted to incorporate dark lighting and a sense of isolation/vulnerablity, a wide open space with nobody around.



I am going to place the name of my production company on the water landscape of the image and make it similar colours to the background so that the genre as well as the company is established effectively. A few names I am considering are 'independent media productions' and 'dynamic media productions' I have to think about the connotations of these words and how they would represent my media company. Dynamic connotes force, energy and spirit. Independent connotes freedom, self governing and self reliance. I have decided that I am going to use 'dynamic media productions' as the title of my production company as the connotations are more interesting and what I would like to associate my production company with.

I constructed my production credits by using Adobe Premiere. I added 'Dymanic Media Productions' as a title over the photograph of the sea landscape and the moon. To make it conform to the horror genre, I then edited the image with the typography on it to darken the water and give my teaser trailer a tense/dark atmousphere from the very beginning through the production credits.