A2 Media Horror Unit

1. Photo Manipulation

2. •We decided to turn the eye black to
enhance the demon look of our villain
• This would work well with the SFX makeup
on the left hand side of her face.
• We then darkened the whole image ,
making the sfx makeup much darker and the
plain side lighter
•Which linked to Strauss’s theory of binary
opposition

3. •We used another image of blue eyes , and to
enhance the look of the eye, we added veins to
the white of the eyes to make it look believable

4. •We made the blue a lot darker to make
it stand out more
•The pattern within the iris will show
through the image placed within the eye

5. •We decided to make the pupils
smaller to make them look dilated
relating to Sydney’s character
• The large pupil would distract the
audience from the image

6. Masthead and Font Decisions

7. •When looking into ‘Empire’ magazine the
original masthead is red
•The masthead colour for empire usually
changes depending on the featured film
and what works best
• We decided to try the red and find
colours from the image and found a grey

8. •We added ‘2016’s most anticipated
movies’ to intrigue my readers.
•Having the ‘epic issue’ will make
the reader want to find out more
this was a convention that ‘EMPIRE’
uses
•We tried blue to see how it would
look against the background, this
did not look good
•We put a red shape behind text so
it is more readable and clear
•We added the name of our film
towards the bottom of the page and
also the tagline

9. •We changed the opacity of the image to
increase the intensity of the image
•We tried to change all the text white on
top of the red shape this made it more
readable
•However the white on the red didn't look
right so we decided to resort back to the
red, black and white text
•We changed the levels of the image again
as it looked a bit too dark
•We also enlarged the image so the eye
took up more of the magazine cover

10. •We tested and tried the colour of the masthead to see what would give our magazine cover a better
appearance against the background
•The white text made the overall layout look flat

11. •We added a royalty free forest pattern to the
image of the eye In black and white
•We used a forest scene within our trailer so
we incorporated that within our magazine
cover
•The forest image was covering the eye, So we
cut out the eye and left the forest pattern on
the top of cover.

12. •The main image was placed behind the
masthead as it looked better
•Using drop shadow and bevel and emboss to
make it look 3D

13. •We used the suicide squad issue of
empire as the main guideline/influence
• This would make our issue look more
believable as if it was an existing
product
•We changed the layout of the featured
films as it looked cluttered

14. Adding text
We added tag lines and anchors to attract our audience

15. •The red ‘EMPIRE’
stands out against the
background.
•The same font was
used from the existing
magazines.
•The trailer also has the
same font and style as
the poster and
magazine to link them
together
•The tagline font was a sans
serif font as it was a
convention for horror films,
to give it a creepy a look
• The font used for the
exclusive is in the usual font
for empire, which gives the
modern look of the magazine
cover
•The dried blood connotes
the genre of the film on
empire

16. Front Cover Features

17. •The contrasting colours of the lights
and shadow creates the chilling
image
•There is a strong angle of gaze
between the image and the
audience, and also suggests the
dominance within women
•The use of Mrs Chapel within
Sydney’s eyes shows the perception
which links to our narrative
•The image being directly in the
centre follows the empire
convention
•The text being placed on the top
and bottom to cover less of the
image, this also declutters the
magazine cover
•The skyline includes exclusives
which is another convention of
empire
•We changed the tone of red within
the empire, by matching it to the
bloody parts of the wound which
worked with the image and layout
well and stands out
•We chose this image as it showed
clearly both sides of the villain, due to
the use of dark and light shadows which
stands out and connotes the genre of our
film
•The exclusive film s mentioned fit the
age rating of our target audience
•We followed the conventions of empire
and put the date of the issue between
the ‘M’
•We ensured the name of our film was
bugger than the text around it
•The font and pattern is used on the
poster which links the two
•The font style also promotes our trailer
as the same text is used
•The text with a dark red outline on it
makes it stand out on the page
•After the “Plus” we used a well known
celebrity that is a character within the
film as she is known with our target
audience which would attract the
audience
•This film is set to be released later within
the year again attracting the target
audience
•The film is also in the mix of current film
news