‘Total Film’ is the UK’s second most successful film magazine that provides film reviews, previews and DVD and Blu-ray news. I have chosen to analyse another mainstream film publication as I believe it would pose difficulties creating an independent magazine for such a vague target audience. Therefore in order to gain as much knowledge and understanding of mainstream movie magazines, I must analyse a wider range.
We shall begin by exploring the mise-en-scene elements of the image of actress Megan Fox. Who in which features of the front cover of this issue to promote the teen comedy-horror ‘Jennifer’s Body’. In this image she is wearing a cheerleader’s outfit that can be described as a ‘sexed up’ alternative. Her costume combines elements of both innocence and promiscuity, as the cheerleading outfit establishes the cutsie, innocent school-girl look, yet the alterations which allow her to bear her cleavage, midriff and legs, give the outfit a sexier, more provocative edge.
The outfit alone reveals important information about the movie and is of course ever so successful in luring in the intended target market. The combination of blood stains and the cheerleaders outfit suggests the genre of the movie and the role in which Fox plays. These two elements are key pieces of iconography that establish that ‘Jennifer’s Body’ is a teen horror movie. Also, in this image Fox’s character embodies qualities of characters commonly shown in horrors; girls who combine angelic sweetness with provocative attitude and sexual desire. Also, the fact that this outfit has been used plays on the idea of the male fantasy and of course seeing Megan Fox, (considered by men all over the world to be the sexiest woman alive) in a skimpy ensemble is bound to convince any man to want to watch the film.
An additional attribute to the costume is that around her neck, she appears to be wearing a heart shaped necklace. This can symbolise many things: traditionally the shape of a heart suggests love and passion which reflects the status of Fox as an actress, she is considered to be a desirable woman not only in reality but in the narrative also. Another possible representation is that the necklace could be a friendship necklace, which could mean that the narrative also focuses on relationships of friends.
Moving onto hair and make-up of the character. The characters ‘natural’ curls fall down past her bust, not only to draw attention to that area, but to also create the impression of a healthy head of hair that is long and voluminous with a glossy, smooth shine. The texture appears soft and silky, which further attracts the male target audience as they feel the urge to reach out and touch it. Fox appears to be wearing a few coats of mascara to emphasise the length and thickness of her lashes, her cheekbones have been contoured and defined to create the impression of perfectly chiselled bone structure and her lips have been glossed to draw attention to her full, plump pout. The make-up resembles that of traditional and conventional beauty which men find most attractive; long lashes and full lips.
The lighting used to photograph the actress is most likely to be artificial as there appears to be no shadowing on the image. This type of lighting is used so that every aspect of body can be seen clearly, which is exactly what the target audience want.
Her facial expressions include narrowing of the eyes and a pouting mouth to create a sultry, sexy look. When reading her body language it is clear to see that she is pushing out her chest and bottom to create more of a curvaceous hour-glass silhouette. Her arms hang down straight behind her which gives the impression that she is leaning against a wall. Her right foot appears to be pushed against the wall, almost as if she’s getting ready to pounce. The positioning of her body is informative as to the film narrative as she subtly and sexily adopts the stance of a predator ready to pursue its prey. The blood stained hand and foot prints further re-enforces this idea of animalistic behaviour as well as hinting towards the film genre.
A long shot has been used to show a full length body-shot of the actress, which is conventional of film magazines. It has been used to also show off the actresses figure and attributes and relates to the name of the film in which she is promoting, ‘Jennifer’s Body’.
Allow us now to move onto discussing the relationship between the image used for this front cover and the film poster. When featuring a film on a front cover of a magazine, the image must adopt similarities to that of the poster. I have indentified that in both images we can see a full body shot of actress posing in a sultry and provocative manner. Both images contain a school theme, the magazine adopting the cheerleading look and the poster using the idea of school desk whilst holding books. Fox continues to wear next to nothing in revealing clothing in order to ensure she attracts a predominantly male audience. Also, both images include uses of blood stains, the same uses of costume/hair/make-up, as well as combinations of innocence and promiscuity.
The main uses of colour on the front cover include primary colours such as red, blue, yellow, grey and black. These colours are used because they appear strong and dominant which reflects the characteristics of the target audience. They are bold and so they stand out to the male eye. The costume of Megan Fox even adopts these colours, which re-enforces her appeal.
The masthead of the magazine reads ‘TOTAL FILM’ which imitates the language in which the target audience would use, for instance ‘total’ – ‘totally’ suggesting that they are young and cool. The style of font used for the masthead is in thick block-lettering which is bold and sharp around the edges. This reflects the characteristics of the male audience as being quite masculine and strong. The font is in sans serif which is informal and casual, implying that the audiences are laid-back, relaxed individuals who are simply fanatic about film.
The main sell-line reads “I don’t want to be the Jar Jar Binks of a movie” which is quote from the feature article on Megan Fox. The audience will read this quote and be able to familiarise with the Star Wars reference as they are fans of the movie, they’ll also find it humorous which urges them to want to read on.
The sell-lines situated on this front cover tend to take an unconventional format as they include some kind of number coordination of the page. This type of method is commonly seen on the contents page of a magazine, but this publication appears to take on a different approach. An approach that gets straight to the point by specifying the page numbers on the front cover. This is a quality that men obtain, they know what they want and they intend to get straight to it. Not only does it make it easier and less of a hassle for them to read, but it also convinces them to read every piece of text included in the sell-line. This is appealing because they can identify what page they’d like to see and immediately turn to it. Examples of this include “The Future 100” “Everything that matters over the next 12 months”, “#9 Stormy Twilight” “#53 Final Harry Potters” “#6 The Deadly Megan Fox”.
Within the text of a sell-line often we see uses of language devices that work further to attract readers. For instance, a play on words such as alliteration intrigues audiences, for instance “More movers, shakers, movies and makers”. A male reading this would associate it with physical movement of a human, which urges them to want to read on. Even if the context of the sell-line turns out to be something completely different, the magazine uses sex to appeal to the male readers.
Additional attributes of the front cover include images of film stills taken from the movies “Tron Legacy”, “Iron Man 2” and “Inception”.
I appreciate that even though this is a mainstream magazine, unlike ‘EMPIRE’ it avoids cluttering the front cover with an over-load of text and image. I like how the white background allows the magazine to appear clean and tidy allowing the entire focus to remain on the main image and sell-lines. I intend to create a magazine that too adopts this approach.
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