Magazine Front Cover - Textual Analysis by Fabian Barrett-Brooks

The chief narrative focus of the mise en scene is the movie magazine of terminator salvation, which is the fourth sequel of the terminator series. This magazine was released in 2009, the same time the film was distributed to the public, which is an ideal idea of making money while the 'buzz' is still being created.

'Terminator Salvation' is the title of the film and the theme of the magazine. The typography connotes caution and danger as the texts has a rusty metal effect that links in with the main image. San serif fonts have been used to create the masthead to connote prominence and attention, as this is not like any other masthead, making it become more unique and stylish, connoting a more modern feel. The masthead is situated on the right hand side of the magazine, as well as the main image, allowing space for the cover lines and its images that are linked to each over. The masthead has a mixture of colours containing blue, white and grey connoting a rough earthly feeling. This aspect then breaks the stereotype of magazine mastheads being red as it is quite a common feature, but this does make the masthead stand out from everything else. The masthead has a glowing black outline, creating a background and making the masthead more noticeable to see. ‘They’re back’ connotes the main coverline of the magazine, which is seen in a white bold sans serif font, connoting the new arrival of the robots and other characters featured in the film. Beneath this is a slogan saying ‘The Terminators verses mankind – with only one winner’, this is a short and sharp description of the magazine connoting gesture of which the target audience will understand.

The main image consists of a character from the film photographed at a extreme close up shot. This character must have some huge significance within the film as his face covers three quarters of the page. This character is a CGI, hence all the detail that has been used to emphasise the danger of the character. This use of technology would interest the target audience as it refrains from using the original idea of using actors for the front page. The character is using a direct mode of address, meaning that he is looking at the camera, connoting the need for attention as the red eyes will cause an interest from the target audience. The lighting of this shot is mainly low key as around the skull tends to be quiet dark, whereas the lighting on its face is high key, giving a chance to see its face properly and the detail of the metal. The main background of the magazine cover is a fiery red allowing the main image and other aspects on top of this to stand out on the page. Both the background and the red eyes are fairly the same colour making them become bolder and more eye-catching.
On the left hand side of the magazine, there is a load of information telling us about the content of what the magazine holds. The small text that is positioned at the rear end of the page vertically ‘Terminator Salvation – The Official Souvenir Magazine’ connotes that this could be a part of merchandise, of which the target audience can collect. This text is also positioned at the top of the page in a white bold sans serif font and layered on a red background, making it more noticeable to see. There are also images of the characters within the film that are linked to the coverline ‘cast interviews’, giving more insight on the film and the actors perspective on their whole experience creating it. As this film is a sequel, the magazine reveals the ‘Bad robots – secrets of the new machines’ as stated in one of the coverlines. The target audience would find this appealing as they will be able to see the new technologies that have formed these new ‘bad robots’. Also, two images are revealed showing the new models of different robots that may have been featured in the film, connoting a tease for the target audience to purchase this media product so that they can see the content inside. The coverline ‘Making the movie’ is in a yellow sans serif font with a black shadow which stands out from the rest of the coverlines connoting attention, giving an insight as to the creation of how this movie was put together. The barcode is situated at the bottom right hand side of the magazine where the price is also revealed in Australian & New Zealand Dollars, of where this magazine could have been sold. This would be purchased though it’s inheritance factor and the social classification of the target audience would be between C2-E as the magazine is targeted to lovers of action and science fiction movies, especially from those who have watched the previous sequels.

Film Poster - Photoshop, Part 2

Now that I had finished adjusting certain parts of the image, my main focus now were the titles and texts I was going to use. I wanted to find a text that would in a way relate to the synopsis of our project, since it is based in a educational enviroment. I came across the text 'Chalkduster' which I felt was relevant to use because it has that childish handwriting style to it which was something we were looking for, and by the styles and ideas we had in mind for the this text meant that we a selection of ideas to choose from in order to pick the correct one.




What I did to make this text my own was to change the colour and create the title of our project. I chose the colour red as it connotes blood, danger and awarness, which is one of the themes portrayed in our storyline.


This was my first idea of how the text should look like on the poster. The text positioned on the right hand side vertically at the size of 250pt with no effects added. Looking back on what I did, I wasnt pleased with my original idea as the title looked flat and didnt stand out from the rest of the other texts around it, so this made me move over to my second idea.

With this idea now, I posistioned the text nearer to the bottom of the poster in the centre at a slightly smaller size of 200pt with a bevel and emboss effect added. I was pleased with the outcome of this idea as gives you a chance to see the whole of the image. i had made text title of the poster more bolder which gives off a 3D effect with the light shining on different areas of the text. Also, the Chalkduster font with the bevel and emboss effect creates a dry blood effect around the text, which is something I tried to endorse.

For the slogan 'Nothing Like an 'A' Star Killer', I had used the Chalkduster font again positioned in the upper left hand corner at the size of 50pt. On second throughts, I didnt like the way it looked so I changed the font into Lithos Pro, which was positioned above the main title. I had also changed the colour from red to grey, as I felt that it would complement the title and it also gives the poster a authentic touch. I also added the date 'October 2011' in my second idea to try and give as much information to the target audience.

Lastly for the credits, I used the Lithos Pro font again positioned at the bottom of the poster at 35pt. I thourght I had used the colour red too much, so I changed it into grey and at a slightly smaller font size. The reason why I chose to use the Lithos Pro font was because I was trying to find a font that looked similar to Steeltongs font, which is the font used in most film posters. This particualr font was quite difficult to get hold of, hence why I chose a slightly similar font that did the same job.

Film Poster - Photoshop (TBC)

For our project, we used Abobe Photoshop CS3 to contruct and alter our image into one of our finalised media products. Photoshop allows you to edit and change the way your image looks to make it look more eye catching and more applealing to the audience. This software gives you the chance to create the most dullest image into the most attractive image yet. As A2 Media students, this was our second time using this software for our project so we were quite familiar with its content and functions.




From the results from the photoshoot, we had decided to use this image as we felt that we could do a lot more with it than the others, and also because it was at a specific angle that showed the weapon and the 'bloody' hand. I felt that the lighting in this image was excellent as it highlights the most important features that is needed to be shown in this image.

We went through different processes in order to create our final media product by using the tools that helped us to do our job. First of all, towards the bottom of the image, we can see that the grey floor is runing the image. So in order to remove this fault, we tackled this by using the clone stamp tool, which allows you to copy a the closest focal, which will eventually erase or get rid of anything you may not like. For example:



On the tool bar, I have clicked onto the Clone Stamp tool where I can now start doing my work. As you can see, the floor is still visible ...



As you can see, I am now cloning with the tool which almost looks like as if I am erasing the grey floor. I had to press the ALT button and click the area I wanted to clone, hence why it gives that erasing effect.



The grey floor is now 'erased' due to the cloning tool and now blends is well with the rest of the background.

I also used this tool to cover up the dry blood that is seen on the end of the shirt. I felt that this did spoil the rest of the 'bloody' effect, and luckily the clone tool didnt help me to conqour this. The same strategy was used, but only to cover up the dry blood into making look more moist. This is how it was done:





Lastly, another thing that had to be done was the darkness of the screwdriver. I believe that the screwdriver was too dark and was not appealing enough as I wanted this to be the main focal point of the image, however, this time round the clone stamp tool was not needed as I had to go about solving this using another process. I had to use the Lasso Tool, which helped me outline the shape of the screwdriver. Once this was done, I used the brightness/contrast tool to lighten the screwdriver so it will look just about more than realistic as possible. I finally used another tool called the Blur tool, which I simply used to soften the outline of the weapon, blending it in with the background.

Titanium Productions - Film Poster Photoshoot

For my groups film poster, I wanted to take a image that would relate to the film trailer as well as the magazine, but also to connote the theme of darkness and mystery, that would leave to audience confused and interested and making them want to know more.

We used a Cannon EOS 7D Camera to photograph our images, as this is the most up to date and most suitable camera to use for our project as its 18 megapixel picture quality and other technological functions were of great use.

For my image, I wanted to capture something that represented or even symbolised our project, and since our project was based on a slasher horror, I had thought that it would make sense for me to photograph our main character with this weapon used in the trailer, in his hand. I also emphasised this ideas by applying a vast amount of fake blood dripping from his hand onto the weapon.

What inspired me to come across such an idea was through the research I did on slasher horror film posters. I had noticed a trend of different tools used as weapons being photographed, and that the weapon was revealed in some way, connoting the basis of their project, so this made me continue the stereotype.




Out of the many photographs we had taken, I had decised to choose this particular one (above)because I believe the picture quality was suitable for what I needed, it was different from the rest and I felt that with a few alterations, this photograph will be the correct image of our poster.


The main actor was used to pose with the tool and was photographed with a close up shot at a canted angle which creates more emphasise on the tool, making it the main focal point of the image. We then altered our image to create our media product on Aboble Photoshop CS3.

A2 Media Textual Analysis by Miles Grant

A2 Media Studies Textual Analysis of Movie Poster


Hostel is a 2005 horror film written, produced and directed by Eli Roth. Due to the graphic nature of this film, its showing has been restricted in certain countries. Film posters are advertisements prominently on billboards, films theatres, in magazines, the Internet, and most commonly the side of buses. The motive of a poster essentially is to sell the film to make an audience want to go see it. In addition to this certain devises are used in order of persuasion. There is a variation of both high and low key lighting in this poster as the poster fades and blends from one side to the other. This goes against most conventional horror movie posters as they often only focus on dark mysterious low key lighting which predominately connotes a horror themed synopsis. One of the focal colours in this poster is black, which includes the characteristics of death, sense of space creating mystery, fear and emptiness, all in which links to the genre and plot of the film. In contrast, grey and blue is also used to highlight the character in the poster. Grey can symbolize a variety of topics such as decay, mourning, or the connection between good and evil which may have deliberately been used in association of the plot of innocent people making being caught up in awful situations and in return are punished. In comparison to the colours used in this poster and the newer sequel The Hostel Part 2 poster, the colours used in this poster contrast between the black and grey previously used, which I believe connotes a different tone of violence and death. This may be due to this film being the original to a sequel film. The colours scheme shows the main props used in this poster. The severed head is in the mans left hand and is clearly highlighted by the use of high key lighting in the shot. This shows and connotes to us this man is a killer and plays upon the stereotype of victimizing young women as they are seen as easy pray. It follows the stereotype that plays upon this statement in most horror movies. Also on the low light side of the of the poster you can see the killers weapon of choice. The choice of weapon shows the persona the poster might be trying to represent. The use of a knife shows that the killer like close combat and may describe that their will be a lot of blood as possible graphic and violent murders are in the movie. Fans of Hostel and Eli Roth will know that his movies involve a lot of blood, guts and gore so the image of a knife backs up that point and gives the audience some insight into what the movie initials. The killer top half is cut off. This is to create confusion and mystery to the audience and will leave a few things to their Imagination. The killer’s attire is also very important in recognizing his character and giving the audience some clue into what’s going on in the movie. The killer has distinctively hairy arm which plays on the stereotype that the killer is a real ‘man’s man’ who is very masculine. The worker jeans he’s wearing also implies he’s use to hard manual labour and could imply that his methods of killing are some what brutal and gruesome. As for the text in the poster the writing at the bottom is written in red which represents things like blood, murder, and gore. This gives the audiences and indication into what the film initials. The main masthead is shown in gloomy eerie kind of font that has a spooky theme about it that further indicates that this is a horror movie poster. Overall I believe this poster accomplishes the main purpose of persuading and audience to want to watch the film. This id done through various techniques such as the anonymous actor featured in the poster, the extent of torture shown through the women’s severed head, and the use and fade of low to high key lighting to create imagery.

By Miles Grant