Magazine Cover Inspiration

One of the tasks of creating a promotional package for a new film was to create a front cover for a film magazine. To achieve this I had to look at a selection of different film magazines as that I would be able to use an existing magazine as the basis for my work and to make use of their codes and conventions. I decided to look at ‘Empire’, ‘Total Film’ and ‘Little White Lies’ for this. Below are a selection of different film magazine covers and my opinions on them:

This is the first magazine cover that I looked at. I liked the strong logo that ‘Empire’ used and their decision to have text both in front and behind their model (which is Wolverine). It seems as though the style would be easy to replicate due to the simplicity of the image and the masses of basic text that are present. Unfortunately I did not like their decision to have such a large amount of text present on their front cover and have therefore decided to use a different magazine for my magazine cover.

The second magazine cover that I looked at was one for ‘Total Film’. This was possibly my least favorite design due to the amount of text and images that cluttered the front page. On a positive note, it contained most of the conventions of a standard magazine cover. However I think that the style would be very difficult to replicate and would end up looking dreadful if I were to base my magazine cover on this type of design. In addition to this, it would be hard to find images for other films such as the ones that they are promoting on this issue of the magazine.

The third magazine cover that I looked at was one for ‘Little White Lies’. This magazine defies most conventions of common film magazine via its choice to use only their logo, main image, title and occasionally a small amount of additional cover lines. This results in a very simplistic style of magazine cover. This simplicity would make it very easy to replicate the style of a ‘Little White Lies’ magazine cover. However their covers are highly stylised, this would add difficulty to creating a magazine cover of this type but at the same time would give me a high level of creative freedom.

This next magazine cover is another from ‘Little White Lies’. Unlike the previous cover it has a set of cover lines. In addition to this it had a different art style to the previous magazine.

This version of ‘Little White Lies’ features a different logo to the other copies. The logo’s text takes up more space and it looks a lot stronger than the other type of logo that they use.

This copy of ‘Little White Lies’ shows yet another art style that they used.

In conclusion, I have decided that I shall be creating a magazine cover for a ‘Little White Lies’ magazine. I liked their cover design the most due to its simplicity, stylized graphics and the amount of creative freedom that I would be allowed if chose to design a cover for their magazine.

Poster Inspiration

In preparation for the creation of my film poster I decided to take a look at a range of existing film posters. This was done so as to allow me to see a range of different types of posters so as to inspire me and to give me an understanding of the general conventions of a movie poster.

1: The Dark Knight:

The first poster was for the Dark Knight. This is a very basic poster and only contains a limited amount of text due to the focus on the main image and the logo of Batman. I am unlikely to have such a small model for my main character as I do not feel that I have a background strong enough to carry the image, as is the case in this poster. One of the other interesting features of this poster was the selection of credits at the bottom. These are included because it is a theatrical poster; I shall not be including these in my poster as I intend to create a teaser poster.

2: Rise Of The Guardians:

This is a teaser poster for Rise of The Guardians. It has large bold writing and the primary focus is on the character Jack Frost. To emphasise his importance they have used a simple background so that the attention shall be drawn to the character. At the top of the poster is a simple statement which says “Jack Frost is more than a myth”, this helps with drawing attention to the film and provides a mild insight into what it is about.

3: Orphan:

This teaser poster for Orphan features a strong image of a child staring directly towards the camera. The expression of the character hints that the character is sinister. This is then supported by the line “There’s something wrong with Esther” thus telling audiences that it is indeed a horror movie. The message is supported by the dull background of the poster.

4: Drive

This theatrical poster for drive is simple yet very effective. The character’s thuggish appearance symbolizes the genre of the film and the city setting tells the audiences what sort of location it is primarily set in. There is an emphasis on the name of the primary actor ‘Ryan Gosling’ thus attracting people that are fans of the actor. The positive message at the top of the page is used to spark an interest with people as it certifies that other people consider it to be a good movie.

Film Merchandise

The majority of films these days tend to have a variety of merchandise associated with them. This merchandise can include a large range of different things such as clothing, toys, cups, posters and more. I believe that clothing would be the primary piece of merchandise that would be associated with Dyers List if it were a real film. Therefore I created a mock-up of a possible shirt design for the film, using a design that my fellow group member Joseph Inns created and the website shirtmockup.com. Most of the merchandise associated with the film would contain either Jason Dyer or Rory Macbride as they are the two primary characters in the film.

Trailer Proposal Feedback

After presenting the proposal for my group’s trailer we asked a selection of people for their feedback on it. Getting feedback from these people was important as it allowed us to identify potential issues with our ideas as well as seeing the initial reactions and people’s opinions of the film trailer that was proposed.

The first person interviewed was Micah Hills, a student currently taking media studies:

The second person to be interviewed was Mark Rowland, a former media studies student:

The third person to be interviewed was Megan Smith, a student currently taking media studies:

Overall the responses from people were positive. Their feedback has given us an insight into people’s opinions on the ideas presented. Due to what we have heard, our group has decided to keep on heading in the direction that we were planning on taking the production.

Film Title Survey

One of the problems the group was facing was what to name the fiction movie that we were producing a trailer for. As a solution to the issue we decided to create a small survey via the use of the website SurveyMonkey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/) to select the name of the movie. We came up with a selection of seven potential names. These seven names were The List; Revenge; Dyer’s List; Payback; Dyer’s Days; Cold Hard Killers and The Thug. This survey was then sent to 20 different people to answer.


The layout of the survey is shown below:

What do you think would be the best title for my action/thriller movie? (the movie is about a man who has his money stolen from him and is out for revenge)

Choice 1 - The List

Choice 2 - Revenge

Choice 3 - Dyer's List

Choice 4 - Payback

Choice 5 - Dyer's Days

Choice 6 - Cold Hard Killers

Choice 7 - The Thug

The results of the survey were as follows:

The List – 3 votes

Revenge – 2 votes

Dyer’s List – 6 votes

Payback – 2 votes

Dyer’s Days – 0 votes

Cold Hard Killers – 4 votes

The Thug – 3 votes

From the survey we were able to decide that the name of the film should be ‘Dyer’s List’. I believe that this is an appropriate name as it intrigues the audiences as well as including the name of the main character and one of the major plot devices.