Gbenga Oshun Textual Analysis of a Movie magazine Front Cover.

Textual Analysis of a Movie magazine Front Cover.

Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media a German publishing company based in Hamburg. Empire is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain, consistently outselling its competitors Total Film. Empire is published in Australia, Turkey and Russia. They also organize the annual Empire Awards which were sponsored by Sony Ericsson until 2009.
The movie magazine is based on the 2008 DC Comics hit film Batman Dark Knight. This was directed, produced and written by Christopher Nolan. This film stars various Actors such as Christian Bale and Micheal Caine.
The magazine cover is a long shot of Heath Ledger who plays the joker in Batman Dark Knight. It is a shot of him sitting behind a cell of some sort looking suspicious because that is what his role is in the movie to be suspicious and confident seeing as he is the villain.
The lighting in this magazine seems to be focussed because it is more radiant on him whereas the sides are blacked out showing a sense on importance and authority in this film. This is also known as high key lighting when the lighting visibility is at its best really outlining detail and features that we a supposed to see.
The non verbal communication on this movie magazine is his body language and facial expression. He is sitting in a more relaxed and calm way so this could portray that he is a calm and relaxed character because of the was he is sitting and his facial expression is more on the ‘smug’ look because he is smiling to one side and one eye is more opened that the other so it could also show his sarcasm and what kind of character he is because loyal fans of the batman series would know what the joker (Heath Ledger ) is all about. So to these fans this would not be a surprising shot of him behind bars not really bothered.
The sitting of this magazine is Heath Ledger behind bars which tell us already what kind of charter his is, because conventionally it is the bad guy who are in prisons. But this picture in a way also broke the conventions because most people in prison would have some sort of negative emotion to this but Heath Ledger is smiling looking devious sitting in the most nonchalant way which give us an incentive of his characteristics.
This costume Heath Ledger is where is a very unusual costume to be wearing in prison be wearing in prison he is dressed smartly but with inappropriate colours of purple and green, we would suppose that these are his traditional colours everyone knows him for because the editor choose these colours for his cover lines and puffs.
There not many visible props in this magazine because I can tell by the editors choice that they wanted to focus on the character.
The composition of this film is the combination of costume colours and cover lines colours because this shows good structuring in design and how to make the magazine look more official because it is a well known magazine so they need it to look as professional as possible.
The text used on this magazine is well laid out because they used a good combination of colours and text to compliment the image. First off the mast head is big and bold and is also red this is the name of the actual magazine which is labelled ’EMPIRE’ now they made this red because nothing else on the magazine is red so this would really stand out for their target audience to find I would assume this is their traditional mast head colour. The cover lines are identical colours to Heath Ledger costume colours so the editors knew what they where doing when picking these colours because it makes the magazine cover looks more appealing and can catch their target audience. The selling line of this magazine is ’Meet The Joker’ (serif fonts) which compliments the image in the centre of the magazine seeing as this is the joker also known as Heath Ledger, the selling line is the main line used to capture their audiences attention after the masthead. The datelines are not really visible and the barcode is in the conventional bottom left corner.

Gbenga Oshun Textual Analysis- Nightmare on Elm Street Poster

Textual analysis of nightmare on elm St Movie poster.



Nightmare on elm was released on April 30th 2010. This film was directed by Samuel Bayer and written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer. The film was produced by Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller. This film stars various actors such as Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallen, Rooney Mara, Kate Cassidy and many more. The origin of this film is that is precedes the hit film Jason vs. Freddy and was reborn from the 1984 version to make a more modern one. The production company for this film are Platinum Dunes and their budget for this film was 35 million and this film made $112,362,985. This film is briefly about a bunch of teenagers that are being stalked and murdered in their dreams by a malicious man named Freddy Krueger. This is happening because they all share the same link from childhood. This is what made them Freddy’s targets. This film is about a bunch of teenagers are being stalked and murdered in their dreams by a malicious man named Freddy Krueger. This is happening because they all share the same link from childhood. This is what made them Freddy’s targets.
This is a picture on a mysterious person in the dark with their claw out to almost hide their face. The lighting on this poster is very dark because it is supposed to portray who this person is. The conventional black and red colours really bring out the evil because it can be associated with hell and demons. This will give the audience taste of what the film will be like because the light balance was used in that way for a reason.
The non-verbal communication on this poster is hidden because we cannot actually see his face. What we see is the upper body structure and the facial area surrounded by darkness with a vicious metal claw in the central of the poster. His non verbal communication is mysterious because this is a good tactic to the target audience because they could imagine what sort of facial expression would be made by this character so they have been given a choice.
The setting in this poster is non-existent because the main character is more in the poster and the background cannot really be viewed plus he has his hand up like he’s just about to use it so this could get the audience thinking, what happens next? This was a good strategy to reel customers in.
The props used in this poster that can be seen are the metal claw and a hat. The hat could show a sense of mysteriousness upon evil because he could be hiding his identity. And the claw signifies the weapon he is using to attack his victims. But the poster does not give too much away.
The main image of the film could tell the audience something’s about the film because as i previously said this film is about a bunch of teenagers are being stalked and murdered in their dreams by a malicious man named Freddy Krueger. This is happening because they all share the same link from childhood. This is what made them Freddy’s targets. So by the poster this could be aimed at the target audience in a way because he is attacking people in their dreams so by him facing straight in the poster it could symbolise him coming from us if you are pragmatic about things because this could be a subliminal message about the film and who it is aimed at.
The composition of this film is that combination of the dark lighting and colours mixed with the main image to make a more advanced image. The poster denotes that the darkness is taking over which was a good idea.
Overall I believe the poster has achieved its aim of persuading its target audience into viewing this successful film because all the statistics are there to back it up. The film created a lot of hype filled with tension towards the first viewing date of the film. This film achieved this by having a disturbing image of the main killer witch most film posters will do, so they stuck to the conventions. One thing that broke the conventions was the fact that the poster does not have the name of the movie all it has is the year and the website. This is a good tactic because it may get some unsuspecting viewers thinking what is this film called? However the film production may already expect their target audience to know what this film is called so they felt there’s no need and it will catch more attentions taking away the conventional movie tag from the main film, making the film seem different. The poster may not show a lot going on, but they may be wondering why would they do this? And get the audience more involved.
This poster was a good idea in my opinion but i feel it could use a bit more text on it because most people would be interested to read why they should see this film instead of just looking at a picture. They could have included ratings from various critics and newspaper firms. Also the date or a coming soon sign would help but despite this their main film was a success, so they clearly knew what they were doing.