Finished front Cover

FINAL IMAGE

When taking my final image I removed the studio lights as I didn't feel as if they were doing very much and I used the flash on the camera. This picture came out a lot clearer and her face was lit up a lot more. Also in this picture you could see the gun where as on the first photo I took it wasn't very clear. Also she is looking directly into the camera which engaged with the audience and gave the impression that she was looking at whoever was reading the front cover.

FRONT COVER CONTENT

On the front cover of already existing Empire magazines there are many different titles which mention different articles that you will find in the magazine, a bar code, promotions for merchandise and they are in different sized fonts. In order for me to make my front cover look as similar to existing ones as possible I needed to make sure I included these features as well. As my magazine was focused on horror films I had to make sure the features related to this and also mentioned my article.

This is what my front cover looked like when I had added all the features. 'Carrie strikes again' was referring to an article about the new remake of the film Carrie which linked in as that was one of the films that I had spoke about in my timeline article. 'Going back in time to 1960 horrors' linked directly to my article and so did the banner which included 'the final girl'. The circle down the bottom was referring to the new film that I created which was about a young boy being influenced by violent video games. I also made sure I had the bar code on there and also above the 'M' in the Empire logo all of the magazines had the month that issue was published, the cost and the website 'empireonline.com' and therefore I made sure I included this also.

FINISHED PIECE

Once I had finished the features for the cover the only thing I had left to do was to put the main image in which I had to cut out my model and make sure I positioned her in front of the Empire logo and also put a background behind her which suited the 'violent' representation. Below is what the finished piece looked like once I had put the image in. I chose to have fire behind her as it connotes danger.



Front cover planning

MAIN IMAGE

Looking at the main images on the front cover of empire magazines, there is always a main character filling up the whole page and covering part of the 'Empire' title. This was something I had to ensure I kept the same when creating my front cover. Here is the first

example that I looked at when researching the Empire front cover and as you can see, Will Smith who is the main character of 'I am legend' is on the front, covering the 'P' of the empire logo and taking up the whole page. The magazine clearly has information on this film as the title is in big bold letters across the front. The second example I looked at again was very similar as there was the main character of the film that the magazine was focused on and again it covered part of the Empire title however not as much as the first one. The character on this magazine is looking directly into the camera which compares to the first one which shows the camera angle positioned below Will perhaps reflecting his dominance.
By having the character looking directly into the camera it engages and interacts with the audience and people who recognise the character and who are fans of the Spiderman films are likely to pick it up.

With that in mind I wanted to recreate something like this and have my model looking into the camera but also as I wanted her to have dominance I knew I needed to position the camera below her.

MODEL

The model that I used for my main image was a female friend of 18 years old. I wanted my model to be a female as the focus of this magazine is to look at horror films and how women and children are represented usually as the victims. My article focused on the children and therefore I wanted my front cover to represent females. My model was going to be the main character out of a new horror film who is not a victim but a hero and a survivor. Therefore I needed to make her look as if she had injuries such as cuts and bruises on her face. To do this I used makeup to give her black eyes and bruises with black eye shadow, purple lipstick and red blusher.

TEST SHOTS

This was the first picture I took using one studio light and without the flash on the camera. This image was good in the way that the camera was positioned below my model giving her power and you can clearly see the makeup on her face however it wasn't very clear and it still looked slightly too dark. I chose a leather skirt as women are often sexualised in films to attract the male audience and therefore I wanted to show this representation on my front cover. Also in this image she was looking slightly over the top of the camera rather than right into the lens which I would have preferred as it engages with the audience more. I then took a few more photos using just the studio light however I felt that they were still all a little too dark and her face looked dull which did not work as that is one of the most important features.



Article main image

FINAL IMAGE

 

Having planned what I wanted my main image to look like, I knew that I needed to take the pictures in a bedroom which looked fairly masculine and which showed the TV whilst a boy was playing a violent video game. My brother was my model and therefore taking the pictures was easily done in my own house. I wanted to make sure that you could tell the person playing the game was a boy however not show his whole face to create a sense of enigma. I also wanted the room to be dark so that the TV image really stood out and was the main focus. Initially I was going to have a light shining behind my models head so you could see the outline of him however when I started to take the pictures I realised I did not need this.

This first picture was the first image I took which was without the light behind and without the camera flash on. This was similar to the type of image I was looking for as it is clearly focused on what is on the screen which is the main focus of the image. The problem with this image was that it was a little too dark as you cannot really see the outline of my model and you cannot tell that it is a boy which is an important feature in the image.

After this I then tried with the flash on the camera which I thought would work as it would highlight my model more however as you can see from the image below it was way too light and it took the focus off of the image on the screen and lit up the whole room which I didn't want. Also as the room is not stereotypically masculine like you would expect with items such as a football or cars or even the colour blue, it did not really fit my article. I wanted to then take a picture which would have the same look as the first one which has the TV as it's main focus but also be able to see the outline of my model.

 

For the third image I slightly changed my camera angle so I was more forward and I went to the right of my model so you could see the face slightly better. This image came out a lot better and rather than using an extra light, from the side you could see my brothers face slightly better as it was lit up from the television screen. This image was perfect as again the TV was very clear and you could see that the game was violent as you see the gun on the screen. This was the picture that I chose to put on my article and it was put in the top left hand corner of the double page spread with the title 'are children still as innocent as they are made out to be in horror films?'. This further anchored the meaning of the text and suggested that the video game was going to influence the person playing it.