Textual Analysis: Film Magazine Cover. (Olympia Amoo)

Empire is released every month. It is a magazine that promotes and writes about films of all genres. It is a very popular magazine that makes a lot of money each month.
To the left you can see an example of one of the magazines released; it is promoting 'Harry Potter and the half blood price'. Here you can see how the character 'Harry' is the focus of the whole magazine. It is quite dark in the background and you can see a light focussed on one side of his face, this emphasises the expression on his face. This is good because it uses good non-verbal communication which is a part of mise en scene. The lighting is also a part of mise en scene. It is very important to use mise en scene when doing a magazine front cover because it makes is much more attractive and that is what people look for in a magazine.
Looking at the image you can straight away get attracted to this magazine because Harry Potter fans will be curious as to why Harry is bleeding and if they have read the book they would want to read more about reviews on the film and etc. The use of blood on 'Harrys' face is very effective and because it says in bold white writing next to the photo 'BLOODY HELL!' that also connect with the picture because he is 'bloody' and also in the previous film Harry is know for say those words. Underneath the sub heading it also refers to the picture 'Harry comes out fighting' these words make the audience think 'comes out of what fighting' so that intrigues them to read more.
Moving on to the masthead, EMPIRE is already such a strong title because it means power and the fact that it is red makes it stand out even more. This magazine uses this masthead on every magazine, it is always red and very big. The fact that the image in not over lapping the masthead also makes the masthead stand out a lot because it is on top of a very dark background.
This magazine uses more than 3 fonts, this makes it more exciting for the audience because it look exciting. The makers haven't made this cover too cramped but has also given enough information to get attention. ''MASSIVE PREVIEW SPECIAL'' is written in capitals and is white against a darker background and that catches your eye almost instantly; directly underneath that is '45 new movies you need to know about now' this lets off a sense of urgency the word 'now' does this all on it's on. Then underneath that is a list of films and then on the last line it say 'and many more' this makes the reader wanna find out what other films then need to know about. The barcode is visible but does not take a big part of the cover up, it is very subtly.
In conclusion, this magazine cover is very effective in informing the audience about films without cramping everything on the front cover. Here less is defiantly more.