Textual Analysis: Film Magazine Cover (Rasheda Miah)

The chosen magazine of choice is the Total Film Inception movie edition. Total Film is a British based film magazine which publishes 13 times a year. The magazine has an extensive range of news, film reviews and all the upcoming films to be released during the year.

The film is directed by Christopher Nolan main star being Leonardo Dicaprio. The inception is a science fiction film and is about a spy which has an objective and that is to handle valuable commercial information from the targets when they are said to be asleep or via there subconscious minds. The film is known to have twists to it in order to get the audiences, to think about what actions they may possible see.

The magazine front cover is dominated by Leonardo Dicaprio the main character in the film, the character is in motion and I believe it is a snapshot taken from the actual movie scene. Leonardo Dicaprio is clothed in a black suit and tie with a white shirt on. He is carrying a gun and this gives the impression that the film contains actions scenes. The magazine cover is mainly focussing on Leonardo Dicaprio as he is the centre of attraction. The magazine designer has not given a full close up shot of Leonardo’s face but given the full mid-length to the knee shot, this is done to include the gun which is seen to be in the hands. The use of non-verbal communication shows, Leonardo Dicaprio’s facial expression as if he is horrified and does look as though he is in motion. The face is mainly covered with low key lighting, this connotates the whole shot is from the actual movie scene and creates a mysterious mood to the audience, furthermore Leonardo is looking away from the camera and not directly into the camera.

The whole front cover is dominated in neutral light colours but with a twist of red involved. This red can symbolise blood perhaps. The film cover is in neutral colours so signify a tense feel to it. The hollow feel to it is seen throughout the movie and is now used in the magazine. There is a level of consistency involved in the magazine; this is because they do not want to mislead the film and how it is seen by approach. There are atleast 4 significant colours which can be seen across the magazine cover and they are colours such as black, White, red and blue. The colours all coincidently work well together and give a mysterious feel.

The typography used in the mast heading is kept to the original style of the magazine but given a makeover in the style of the film. The typography is a birds-eye view of the city but it reads out ‘FILM’ with the word ‘Total within the letters ‘F’ from the word FILM. The designer has done a very good job in keeping to the film’s original styling and incorporated it with the usual magazines font. To add more detail to the typography the designer has included what would typically be seen on top a rooftop of a building such as ventilation, Satellite dishes and stairways.

The background image is split into two and the top half shows a bird’s eye view and the bottom half shows a more of landscape image of buildings, trees and some parked cars. This too has been taken from the film’s original poster which has got images of a street with buildings and cars, towards the top half of the poster a unimaginable curvature of the road going upwards. The image is made to make the person think more about what kind of film is this and what would they be expecting this is a technique the designer has used to give a bit more depth of the film is about.

In addition to the images used the fonts of the wordings are in a red, this too is taken from the original poster and is sticking to the consistency which has been kept within the front cover. The words which are highlighted in red relate to the film such as the sentences above the magazine title reads ‘THE MIND-BLOWING ISSUE’ the sentence annotates to the actual inception film as the film is said to mind blow the viewer due to the fact the film being a science fiction film and as usual a science fiction film usually makes the viewers think a lot. The surrounding wordings are also in a bold uppercase font, this is to give the striking look and the designer has done it in a way to appeal to the reader. The film title ‘Inception’ too is in bold and uppercase, it dominates the other small wordings which can be found in the surroundings of the magazine cover. It is the films title and there is a hierarchical structure being included with the title being placed in the centre of the cover and the less important words in smaller font.

Moving onto the conclusion, I believe the Total Film Inception edition has been designed well with the same characteristics from the original film poster. The consistency is clearly an addition to make it appeal to the readers. The images have a strong point of layout as the whole concept of the magazine is still kept to its level with clear structures in terms of it being visible and not having the wordings all jumbled up and close together.