Ancillary product research: Magazine analysis (3)

Magazine information 

Total Film is a UK-based film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. It was first published in 1997, and offers cinema, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features; stereotypical features of a film based magazine. Total Film provides a range of features, from spotlight interviews with actors and directors, to making of and on-set pieces for new and future releases. Each issue always includes the Total Film Interview, which is a six-page in-depth chat with an actor or director, along with a critique of their body of work. The focus of the in depth interview is normally reflected as the main image on the front cover of the magazine. Total Film also publish their issues digitally, with interactive elements to engage the target audience.

Main image

The main image of this magazine is a mid shot of the character Iron Man from the film 'Iron Man 2'. Iron man is a well known superhero that comes from a popular franchise of Iron Man films and is a creation by Marvel Comics; an American comic book company. By including the character on the front cover of the magazine, Total Film are using him to attract a wider target audience, as fans of previous films will be attracted to the large recognisable image on the cover. Iron Man is commonly associated with playing the role of the protagonist in and films or magazine stories, and this role is represented in the front cover of the magazine; Iron Man is seen with his left hand out facing towards the audience, with what looks like a strong power being released from his palm. The light that is released from his hand is significant as it represents the fantasy of superheroes that is present in the film and will inform the audience about the genre of the film. 

The action of having his hand out connotes that he is trying to stop something from happening, or stop a person from doing something; this is a stereotypical role that superheroes (where they prevent danger) and so this also reflects the genre and role of the main character. The light coming from the eyes of Iron man is directed at the audience, which uses direct mode of address to attract the attention of the audience, and encouraging the audience to purchase the magazine; the light also reinforces the power behind the character, reinforcing the personality of the featured character. 

The stance that the character has taken represents strength and power, stereotypical features of the superhero that are shown in other products of the franchise; this body language that is displayed suggests that the character is defending, again representing the role of the character. 

The lighting used on the front cover shows a combination of high key and low key lighting, with the high key lighting most predominant on the top half of the cover, highlighting the top part of the torso of the character; this ensures that the characters face, the identity of the superhero, has attention drawn to it allowing it to be recognisable for the audience. Towards the lower third of the cover the lighting becomes darker and creates shadows; this is effective in portraying the element of the film that involves an antagonist and the darkness represents the dark and negative sections of the antagonist. 

The mid shot shows the costume that Iron Man is wearing, and it is the conventional superhero costumes that he wears in both the marvel comics and the previous Iron Man films. It conveys the identity of the character in a way that is recognisable to the audience, making it more engaging and will therefore encourage the audience to purchase the magazine. 

Colour scheme

The focal image is the inspiration for the colour scheme of the rest of the magazine cover; the costume worn by Iron Man acts as the base colour for the cover, and corresponding colours are included to tie int with the theme of the film. This is a stereotypical convention of most magazine covers, as they often base the colour palette of the cover on the film they are featuring to ensure that the theme of the film is reflected in the colours used in order to appeal to the target audience. The dark blue used in the background of the cover is a good base colour that allows the item overlaid to stand out and attract the most attention. The colour gradient of the blue gradually get darker from top to bottom, and has slight effects to make it look like the character is standing in an almost space like atmosphere; this may provide some insight as to the narrative of the film. The costume worm by the character is predominantly red, the only item of this colour included on the front cover; this allows the character to stand out from other features on the cover, often a main aim for the producers as they are trying to advertise an exclusive feature of an upcoming film. Red generally has strong connotations of danger and blood, both conventions of the action thriller genre, and therefore reflects the genre to the audience. White is also a recurring colour on the magazine, used for both the masthead and flashes of light, portrayed as being 'power' from the character; white has connotations of positivity and is associated with innocence and goodness - this may reflect the qualities of the protagonist and reflect and element of the genre. 

Text features

There are quite a lot of textual elements to this magazine front cover that help to explain the features that are inside the magazine. The majority of the font on the cover is a simple sans serif style that effectively delivers the message it is trying to convey. The size of the typography differs depending on the importance of the message, for example the introduction of the featuring film 'Iron Man 2' is large font as it wants to draw attention to it. 

Established, well known names have been used to draw attention to the content of the magazine, with mentions of 'Pattinson', which helps to widen the demographic of the magazines as fans of that particular celebrity may be drawn to buy the magazine and read the feature. Equally, well established names have been given an unconventional twist that will attract the target audience, for example 'The Dork Knight' takes an already known film title and uses the word 'dork' to change a masculine and physically strong word to a something that alters the intended feeling behind the title. Popular names such as 'Marvel' are used to allow the audience to associate themselves with the original creator of the character. 

The world 'more' and 'plus' suggest to the audience that there is a lot of content in the magazine, with feature that are exclusive to Total Film. 

Masthead

The masthead is one of the main features of a magazine cover as it informs the audience on the title of the magazine, creating a brand that is memorable for people to recognise. The word 'Total' is located inside the 'f' of 'film', and it uses the route of the eye by placing 'total' at the from on 'film' meaning the the audience will read the masthead as 'Total Film' instead of the other way round. The masthead is partially covered by the head of the main character in the focal image, which signifies the importance of this character in the film they are featuring. The magazine locates the masthead at the top of the page, just below the promotional banner; locating at the top of the page is a conventional feature of magazines as it is the first thing that the audience sees when looking at the cover. However the masthead doesn't have a tagline, which is very unconventional of magazines. Generally the colour of the masthead is white, as it is on other Total Film magazine covers, however is hasn't been changed as it relates to the colour scheme used on the cover, and the brightness of the white will draw attention to the cover.