Starting The Magazine Cover

The first step of starting my magazine cover was to take photographs to use as the base of the image. As our protagonist (Toby Scott) was unavailable we decided we would make the cover about a directors special article, this also fits well as due to the social realism genre and our production team being a independent body the actors would be unknown where as the director could be famed for multiple hits in the genre.

Images
For the location I chose a, graffiti covered, metal door cover because it ties in well with the films style and the link to drug related crime. It also stood out to me as a location because the colouring and textures were what I felt would aid me to create text that would standout but at the same time suit the background.

Although the outfit was not our main concern we chose the money jumper to once again link into the story plot. As a photographer I kept to the rule of thirds, just like in the poster, to break up the image and help move the viewers eye through the image so they read the information in the write order as to better understand the film, the style also conforms to the average layout of Empires film magazine covers


Text
The main aspect of the cover, after the image, was the text. I used the basic and iconic 'EMPIRE' title, I chose Empire as the magazine since the large range of films the advertise, to explain why they put a social realism on the cover instead of a blockbuster I used the 'Winter Preview' and 'Director Special' to show it was a unique interview and in a somewhat slow time for blockbuster movie releases.


I reused the rusty metal style that was in the poster as it creates similarities and lets viewers see the connection between the products. The curvy handwritten text for Director Special and Free Tickets were chosen to link to each other and have reference to scripts and director notes.
For the side text on further articles inside the magazine I used basic and bold text as to not draw attention from the main article.

My use of Red, Grey and Green was to tie into both the magazines classic colours and to link with the film while appearing natural on the background.


Barcode


I used a basic and generic barcode on the cover to conform to the needs of a Magazine, but I placed the barcode on the bottom left corner to prevent the readers from become distracted from the cover itself.