Empire Cover Analysis

 

This issue of Empire focuses on "The A Team." Self-titled as, "The Ultimate Action Special," this edition has two alternate covers , allowing audiences to choose between this cover and The Expendables cover.

The background again reflects the theme of the film. Fire lines the background behind the masthead, appearing as though an explosion has taken place behind the four characters of the A-Team. This emphasises the action theme of the issue. The props used in the main image also highlight this theme, the guns, cigar and of course the dog tags all add to the effect of their action hero personas.
The colour scheme used includes red,gold,white and black. All strong colours, they ensure that sell lines appear clearly to the viewers.  Above "The A-Team" sell line, we can also observe the line "We love it when a plan comes together." This of course is a popular quotation from the franchise, which readers will immediately recognise, and the A-Team already has a large fan base, meaning that the issue is bound to attract attention.

Subsidiary images are positioned along the bottom of the cover in a way that appears like a film reel, fitting in with the theme of the film magazine. The four images also all seem to display action film characters and images. These are placed at the bottom of the cover , and no other sell lines are placed around the main image. This is fairly uncommon, but allows the image to be the centre of attraction , and the bar code is placed nearer the middle of the cover to allow the other features to line the bottom of the cover.

The font used above the masthead also corresponds with the action movie genre, as it is made to appear like stamp lettering, used for official documents and files in films such as these.
The "world exclusive" sell line at the bottom also features "Captain America, the planet's first interview." Again making it seem as though the reader will be accessing exclusive information, which no other magazine could offer them. The "Captain America" aspect may also entice super hero and comic fans, so the issue is aimed at a wide market.
As film magazines are generally aimed at males, action/super hero film articles are likely to interest a predominantly male readership , so the magazine clearly knows it's target market, and how best to sell their product to it.

Film Magazines

I have started looking at and analysing film magazine covers, to give myself a better idea of how I should construct my own magazine cover. Last year in AS we researched, analysed, and created our own music magazines. This concept is similar, but this year the magazine cover should be in relation to our film trailers, and we will not be creating articles or contents pages. Film magazine covers do vary to music magazines, from what I have already researched, it seems that film magazines use a broader range of colours and styles, always in relation to the feature film which they are promoting in the issue. Whereas music magazines often had set colour schemes in relation to their genre, and the models poses were often very similar.
The most popular film magazines are "Empire" and "Total Film", which are successful both in print and digital form. Characters from the feature film of the issue are placed as the main image, and often the font in the cover lines or even masthead fit in with the chosen theme of the film, or reflect the colours which the character(s) are wearing. Sometimes multiple characters from the film are even featured on the cover, rather than just one.

I will use my research to understand the popular conventions used by film magazines, so that I can use them when constructing my own cover. 

Props Used

Prop List

We tried to use props for the animatic just as we would for filming the real trailer. Although we did not use as many as we wanted, and have not quite had time to buy any unusual props, we still managed to use a few to set the scene. Here is a list of props we used:

-Nurses tray
-Nurse hat
-Water Jug
-Tablets
-Pens/paper for psychiatrists work
-Religious necklace
-Scary mask
-Saw
-Bench (in patients' room)
-Costumes
-Baby doll

Using props helped to make our photographs look more realistic, and allowed us to represent what was happening in each scene more effectively.
I plan to upload the finished animatic to my blog in the next week. This will give a far clearer overview of our trailer plot, and will hopefully give an idea of what the real thing will look like.

Shooting the animatic

For the last few weeks our group has been working on creating an animatic, in this we have been putting together photographs to represent each different shot we plan to use in our real trailer. We have also been editing, to add the transitions we plan to use, as well as soundtracks and inter titles. Doing this has given us a better idea of how realistic our storyboards are, and whether the shots we drew out on our storyboards are achievable for the real thing.

We have been using our chosen location (The Mulberry House Conference Centre) in our free-time after school for doing photo shoots, and also had to take photographs at the train station for one of our flashback scenes. Once of all our photographs were taken we began editing them together. We have used soundtracks underneath the photos, representing where they would begin playing under our real trailer. We found copyright-free music and sound effects online, which worked well with our horror film. For the majority of the trailer we have used an eerie , subtle piece of music using piano. This works especially well in the beginning, where the psychiatrist is first looking around the asylum. There is a piece of more dramatic music accompanying the implied sexual assault scene, and a more fast paced soundtrack as the montage of shots begin. 

Here are some initial photos of our location from the first time we went looking for ideas for our animatic:

I plan to upload more of the photos we've taken for our animatic soon, we've taken around 60-70 photographs all together, and have chosen the best quality images for our animatic.

Character Profiles

Cecilia:
She has just turned sixteen and has begun working as a nurse at "Mulberry House Lunatic Asylum," she has gained the job through her father who is the owner of the establishment. She is portrayed as innocent and the aim is for the audience to side with and feel sympathy for her. This is caused early on through the attack which she becomes victim to. She walks into a patients room to administer their medication and he sexually assaults her, resulting in a pregnancy. When the pregnancy becomes obvious, her father refuses to believe that she was raped, and is convinced that Cecilia became pregnant through her relationship outside of the asylum (a sin as she is not married.) It is ambiguous as to whether he really disbelieves her behaviour, or whether he cannot face the fact that his daughter was attacked in the asylum which he is responsible for, and he ultimately failed at being responsible for her safety. She is consequently sent away to a nunnery after the baby is born, forced to leave her father to raise the child.

Sean:
Begins life raised by his grandfather (Cecilia's father&head of the asylum.) The head of the asylum soon becomes obsessive however, their residence is in a slightly separate building but on the main site next to Mulberry House so that he can always be on hand for emergencies. His Grandfather begins to question Sean's sanity, and insists on him becoming home schooled. Sean regularly wanders over to the wards as his Grandfather is often absent. The Head of the Asylum begins to contemplate that if Sean really was conceived out of rape, then he was borne out of evil. If this is the case Sean may also have the same mental illness that his father suffered, and so The Head of the Asylum becomes convinced after witnessing what he perceives to be "evil behaviour" that Sean is mentally ill, and begins to treat him as a patient. After Sean spends time in the same environment as the patients he becomes unstable, although he is not actually a bad person. The audience also see good and likeable traits in him.


Head of the Asylum:
The Head is an inherently evil character from the start. His dominating character seems to have an obsession with control and his treatment to patients in the Asylum is appalling. He is presented as a sinister character whom is the cause for Sean's mentality and is heartless for sending his own daughter away after she was raped. He is fiercely invested in Catholicism , and uses the Bible to justify his warped view of how people should behave. He believes that he is actually helping the patients by keeping them from committing crimes.




War Veteran Patient:
This title refers to the patient in the wheelchair wearing the gas mask. His story is that he has been affected by post traumatic stress disorder after the second world war. He wears the gas mask continuously as a "safety" mechanism, as he still has flashbacks to being in the war and often is convinced that its still happening. When the psychiatrist reveals to Sean that he has found his mother, and reveals that his father is unknown because he attacked her, Sean becomes obsessed with tracking down who it is, convinced that his father is still somewhere in the asylum. The War Veteran patient is one of Sean's key suspects, hence why he eventually murders him.

Psychiatrist:
The character of the psychiatrist is the "hero" of the story. He genuinely has good intentions and is shocked by the treatment of the patients at Mulberry House, his disgust is evident through the trailer and there is a clear portrayal of concern in his expression. He is paired to work with Sean as the head of the asylum fears that his behaviour is worsening , its a desperate attempt to try and get Sean to integrate normally. The psychiatrist disobeys the head of the asylum by looking into his patient history , discovering that Sean's mother is actually known to the establishment. This causes a major conflict as the psychiatrist feels that it is key for Sean to reunite with his real mother, and that this is the only way to save him. The Head of the asylum however fears that the psychiatrist is willing to release his mistreatment of patients to the outside world and so soon identifies him as a threat. Consequently , there are numerous arguments which arise, eventually resorting to physical violence. In the trailer montage, the audience is shown a gun being picked up, but it is not revealed who plans to use it.