Little White Lies Magazine Research

For my magazine, I have been largely interested in the more arty, minimalist style such as Little White Lies or Sight and Sound, with the simple titles and clean layout of text. I particularly like the Little White Lies covers, which employ simplistic style through the illustration on the cover, and minimal text to create the overall minimalist style. The commonly employ an illustrator to create the covers, which is a concept I really like. The title itself sits in an variation of a Puff, with the white standing off the background making the title clear. The only text commonly viewable on the cover is the title of the featured movie, as seen above to be Attack the Block, and Drive. My favourite cover out of all three is the far right drive cover, and is something I will work closely with. The Sight and Sound magazines are not my favourite, however they employ a great technique allowing the text to sit on the page without being to distracting. The main central images are clear, and idea I might use in my cover, however I am thinking about merging the two styles to create an illustrated cover like Little White Lies, and laying minimalist, non varied colour text over the top in the style of Sight and Sound. In particular I like the Shame cover, where the text is all right alined and uses bold fonts and non bold fonts to create a form of sub headings and main text. This is something I want to use within my own cover. Noticeable things about all covers are that the title of the magazine is commonly at the top, a trope my magazine will conform to. As well as this, the title of the film the cover shows is at the bottom, something I will also follow. The text is commonly placed around the central image and rarely over it, which is again something I will do. As for the main image, the Little White Lies covers normally use colour and vary in colour, which is something I will use to help my cover stand out.

EL

Empire Magazine Research

As I'm targeting a mass market in my magazine, I researched Total Film and Empire. These two magazines are very similar in style and I will aim to adhere to these conventions. You can see many different conventions which are used throughout, notably the large title behind the central image and a tag line above the title. In these magazines, a lot of action is going on in the cover with a lot of different parts, given a cluttered but specific feel.

I extremely like the use of a bar to showcase other films, this gives the cover a professional feel that I hope to replicate. The title of the film is also shown centrally, and covers the whole page. I also hope to include a puff to showcase another film along with a bar at the bottom, giving a brief teaser to what's inside the magazine. 

AF

Sight and Sound Magazine Research

When researching into current magazines, I found the ways in which they present their content to the audience greatly varied. Magazines such as Empire and Total Film cater for a mass audience, making content easily visible on the front cover so the potential consumer is aware of the best features. Magazines such as these, vastly advertise their content, selling the magazine on the content rather than the name. Despite this, it could be suggested that film fanatics are also interested in these mainstream magazines, as the advertisement content at the back includes fan paraphernalia. 

In contrast, magazines such as Clash and Little White Lies aim at a niche audience, primarily featuring arthouse and indie films. As people buy these types of magazines for the name and reputation, minimal advertising is present on the front cover giving it a very professional and minimalist feel. Sight and Sound magazine strikes a contrast between mass audience and indie magazines, showing interest in both areas. For my own work, even though I prefer the design of magazines such as Clash, I want to create a cross between Sight and Sound and Empire. I believe that this will strike a balance between stylised design and practicality, testing my abilities to  produce a convincing magazine.

EJ 

Institutional Analysis - Empire

AF

Institutional Analysis - Little White Lies

EL

Institutional Analysis - Empire

EJ

1st Audience Feedback

We showed a very rough draft to several people in order to get a grasp of how our trailer was shaping up. At this point our trailer had all the shots from the shot list put in with the correct length, along with a 1st draft of the music. We had only put in black spaces in place of the titles/graphics.

After showing them our trailer we asked for tips on what needed to be improved:

• Soundtrack needs more drama, and crescendo
• As a trailer needs to be more thrilling, with the montage being quicker
• Sound/dialogue needs to come in much tighter as they speak
• Layering of sound
• Too much posing in the shots
• Opening and closing with the same shot??? Cut one
• Fit quick shots to sound, maybe longer
• Doorbell replaced with a knock
• Longer black after the graphics
• Cut tighter on the opening of the door
• Spade in Act 1 shown too early, makes the job appear to be something that it's not
• Shot of house needed, ESSENTIAL
• Remove echo
• Bag thrown down too slow
• Too long on cocking of gun
• Everything is too placed
• Split audio 'lets go' over establishing shot of house
• Music: Needs more drama
• Some shot needed of them breaking into the hosue
• 'We're done here' needs to be far quicker
• Noise of door, doesn't work
• Act 2/3 needs more danger, faster cuts, more happening, quicker, tighter montage
• 'What are we going to do with her 'could come earlier, soundbridge + split audio edit
• Pull out to the three shot later???
• Start with single line 'What are we going to do with her' perhaps???
• 'We can't kill her' in the montage???

Overall the main pointers are the music needs to be faster and every shot needs to be far tighter. These are both areas that we know need to be improved and we are already working on, as the music is only currently in it's first draft and we've only just begun editing the whole piece together. We also received plenty of praise, particularly surrounding the stylised nature of the shots and the overall feel of the trailer

AF
EJ
EL