Ancillary task: magazine practise and final

• We went through various stages in creating our magazine front cover. We started of with an image of three of the characters, Ben (Ben C), Catie (Sarah) and Lewis (Ben I). Here we used a form and convention of the 'Sky' magazine as they usually have the main character or characters from a film that they are featuring in that particular magazine on the front cover, a lot of the time the characters aren’t in their costumes and are in normal clothing. This is the convention we were trying out, however after receiving some audience feedback we decided this style of magazine front cover wouldn’t be suitable for our film as the genre is horror and the characters in this image have a happy expression on their face.

• This is the magazine front cover we had developed after receiving audience feedback on the image we had in the first draft of the magazine front cover. We used this image because we felt it gave the film trailer a narrative enigma as it betrays the character Ben (Ben C) as the killer. However after receiving more audience feedback we realised that the image was in fact too dark and you wouldn’t necessarily find a magazine with the front cover this dark. We then decided to go away and re-take the image, in better lighting.

This is the original image we took using a digital camera for our main magazine image, of which we further manipulated on the programme; Photoshop.
We chose to take this image in the early hours of the morning to ensure a blue tint was achieved which is a common convention of the horror genre.

• This was the third draft of our magazine front cover. We had re-taken the image and we felt this time it worked well. We thought that the film strip at the bottom of the magazine front cover was very effective as it shows the audience/reader what to expect and to help establish the genre and hopefully sell the film more on DVD and in cinema tickets, due to the fact that the audience can see that they will be receiving something free after purchasing the magazine, and associate the film with the magazine. 
• We used serif text in our magazine for the some of the film names etc which signifies, sharp phallic objects such as knives, which connotes violence.
• We have a natural blue tint in the background of our main picture which was achieved naturally by taking the image early on a winter morning, we did this because blue tinit is a common convention of the horror genre, so would further anchor the genre of our film.
• We kept to using simple primary colours which are all conventionaly used as tints in horror movies and images, and it also kept the magazine quite simple but with lots of information making it clear to the audience.
• After extended research we also added a bar code, price and date to the bottom of the magazine, to help make it look like a real film magazine.
• You will find this convention in many magazine front covers. However after receiving a little more audience feedback we realised we needed to change a few minor things. The title's font should be cleaner cut and more universal, and the title should go across the whole magazine as a top banner and make the word 'THE' smaller.
• We were also advised to take the star rtaing off the bottom as it was not a review of the film;  and to add more information on the actual front cover as it looks a little bare. After making these few adjustments we then had a final effective product.
• By using the rule of thirds we placed the title and tag-line of our film and majority of the film strip in the first third, as this is the first section you naturally look at because you naturally read from left to right hence the first third being read first. Next you see the second third which contains one of our central protagonists, and finally in our third third you see a common convention of magazines the poll voted by the public, this shows that we effectiveley planned the layout of our magazine.
• We chose to use the image of Ben Crossley 'the suspected killer' rather than Ben Illif  'the actual killer' as a real distributor would market the film in this way to keep the secret of the killer. Also the killer 'the bady' is traditionally used to a market a film, of which is commonly a visually intimidating male which is why we cast Ben Crossley as hes a rugby player so is broadly built, Another convention of the killer on front covers is for them to convey an atmosphere of uncertainty, to achieve this look we directed Ben to stare oddly into the camera as if he were an evil and obsessive stalker.
• However we did try to connotea small clue of him not being the killer by using the subtle signifyer of lighting to create shadows across his face, hence showing the evil side as hes percieved by the trailer and ancillary texts and the light side being the truth at the end of the film.
• Our film strip we designed underneath the main image was used as a visual bridge to Ben as signifyers of them being the victims hes killed as they're underneath him, of which helps further anchor the genre of horror.