Photoshop experiment for magazine cover

After deciding that we want to use similar effects as 'Little White Lies' do, I got home and played around with some effects to achieve a similar effect. I used different effects such as changing the contrast and saturation, then using the filter, artistic, dry brush and poster edges effects. So here is my little creation on Photoshop!

Portrait Styles

In terms of developing our magazine cover we decided to look at different portraits in order to find one that is best suited for our actor/character and the film itself.

We looked at portraits from iconic photographers such as Mario Testino and David Bailey

Mario Testino

David Bailey

We also explored the idea of using two characters in the magazine cover such as Scott and Layla in order to promote the romantic side of the film as well as the action/thriller of the storyline. We feel that this could broaden our audience with the use of both genders. 

Magazine Cover Ideas

We were experimenting with magazine covers and looked at creating our own magazine in order for it to be appropriate for our genre/film as we felt that the magazines researched were not tailored enough for our film.

We decided to take inspiration from the Little White Lies magazine cover, in particular the Drive/Ryan Gosling cover due to the similarities in character/genre of our film and Drive. We also liked the artistic/creative approach to each magazine cover but didn't like the Little White Lies logo as it takes our attention off of the image itself and the logo could be experimented with in order to suit our film and the "mainstream" magazine covers.

Trailer Feedback

Magazine research

We began by looking at a popular film magazine commenting on the conventions that it used: 

There are a variety of different types of magazine covers for us to choose from, before making a decision we thought that the best starting point would be to research the types of magazines and chooses the one which would be most appropriate for our film.

Mainstream

The mainstream magazines are mainly used for large well-known blockbuster films starring well-known actors. The images used are the actors in character, including costume and props. The editors assume that the audience will know the actors which is why their names have not been placed on the magazine cover. The Empire magazine is more of a males magazine as it usually features more action films, such as 007, Batman and Captain America.

Art House

Art House magazines are usually feature films which are more creative and usually less mainstream than other films. The images used are usually just of one person- actor or director.  The Little White Lies magazine cover is more minimalistic and uses an image which is more artistic, with a painterly effect which portrays the more artistic sorts of films.

Specialist Audience

Specialist magazines are focused on a particular target audience. Studio is the UK's first film magazine and the only one of its kind. This can be used when there is a specific target audience for our film, such as a female audience in terms of Studio. The images used for the magazine are mostly portraits of the actors themselves as opposed to as a character they are playing however this particular magazine cover does look classy/character like due to the positioning of the actor.

Genre

  

Genre Magazines focuses on a specific genre for example SFX focuses on science fiction whilst Fangoria focuses on horror films. The images used are in character including costume/make up etc. this is to make the genre evident and especially for Fangoria it is to attract the target audience, because if someone from the target audience saw a gruesome character on the cover of the magazine it may influence them into buying it.

Final poster

After all our hard work we have finally finished our final film poster as below:

Process of producing the poster..