We decided that we wanted our film magazine to stand out from any other similar magazines that may be on the same shelf as our product. After doing some research in to other magazines we found that a lot of them used quite dark colours, with a brighter colour for the title of the magazine. We however wanted to contrast this, and decided to use the primary colours, as the main colours for our magazine. This worked very well for us, as blue and yellow are the main colours of the Topaz Spectre, as this is what the costume is made of. We decided that the red would be the primary colour for the magazine, so this is what we put the title in. We noticed that when looking at film magazines, for example this one, that if the background was quite plain, it contained some gradient so it wasn't' completely solid. As the first slide shows, we started off with a radial gradient of blue and white underneath the character. We used the image of Bella that Tayler had 'cartoonized' for the introducing sequences of each character. To remove the background which you can see in the trailer, we simply used the magnetic lasso tool, and deleted the background. Also, to get the black line around our character, we double clicked on the layer and then selected the 'stroke' option and customised it until we were satisfied. This outline exaggerated the comic strip feel we wanted to achieve with our trailer. We positioned her to the right side to go against the normal conventions of a centralised character so that we could fit more information around to her left side. On the next slide you can see that we changed the gradient so it is more of a diamond shape. I personally like this a lot better because it looks like the light is coming from the character, which enhances the superhero theme. We also added the title of the magazine in along the top of the cover in a thick red font, so as to draw the attention to it. Following the conventions of other film magazine covers, such as this one we covered up some of the magazine title with the head of the protagonist. Tayler also had a good idea to place a film strip along the bottom of the cover, which will later be filled with some images from other movies which we are advertising in our magazine. This also helps to continue the comic strip theme, but also links back in to film as it is a film strip. The next thing we had to do was to add some text in to the cover. So as to link the writing about our film into the picture we decided we would use the same outline effect that we used on the picture, just with different colours. For the title we used a simple black and white contrast which we thought would stand out from the rest of the primary colours used on the cover. Then for the description of the link inside we used the signature colours of Topaz Spectre, with the outline included, then flipped over the colours for the actresses name, so as this might influence an audience member to buy it as Bella McCrimmon may be their favourite actress. We also included a link of what page it could be found on. On the following slide, we have added in the normal details on a magazine cover, such as the barcode and issue number, along with the website. I have also added in a puff for a freebie which will be inside the magazine, as a free mask, with an image of one that looks very alike to the mask that Topaz is wearing. This also helps to attract an audience as people are always drawn to things for free, and especially for major fans of the movie as they may want to feel like they are inclusive in the movie, as they will have the same mask as her. On the final slide, you can see that we simply added the finishing touches to our magazine cover. We filled in the areas in the film strip with pictures advertising other films. We had a slight issue because we didn't realise that any other images on our magazine had to be our own, so we couldn't simply add in pictures of films such as Harry Potter. For one of the images it was based on a fellow classmates movie, so we had easy access to that. For the other images we simply went around and took some pictures of things we thought could be advertising other movies. Then we added the page numbers on the signature colour of the magazine over the pictures. We also added the magazine website in the top left corner, and the price in the bottom right. Finally, we decided we wanted another puff to persuade people to buy our magazine, and we put this on in the form of an arrow. We wanted to break away from the constricting colours of the Topaz Spectre theme, as this puff wasn't anything to do with our film, and we found that the pale green worked quite well. We chose the font because it reminded us both of the typical action adventures, which we decided would be the main genre of the magazine.
Overall I am very pleased with our film magazine. I think that it looks very professional and I could see it on the shelf alongside other magazines.
