Issue 286 of Fangoria that was published in September 2009
presents a horrific image of the actor, Megan Fox on its front cover. The name
of this magazine has many words within it that relate to horror and film. The
first word that jumps out of the masthead is ‘Fang’, the second is ‘Goria’ and
then overall it reflects that the target audience of this magazine are ‘Fans of
gore’. The word ‘Goria’ is the definition of films that contain an extravagant
amount of blood, violence and fighting in them; which fans of Gothic/Slasher
horror films would appreciate.
The font used for the
masthead is very effective as it mimics the shape of fangs. This particular
font is used to reinforce that the Empire is predominately a magazine about
Gothic/Vampire films that feature gore, terror and violence. The masthead like many is red, which happens
to be the colour used for my film title magazine mastheads such as Empire. The
colour red has connotations of danger, violence and pain/blood which all
feature within each sub-genre of horror. In addition to this the appearance of
the colour is not just plain; it has a 3D effect to it with white shading, this
is shown so that the masthead symbolises fangs that are camouflaged and almost
dressed with blood; just like ‘Jennifer’s’ fangs that are shown in the main
image. The masthead is large and fills the width of the page therefore
following conventions. Each Fangoria magazine uses of one of 3 fonts for their
masthead, this maintains brand identity and reveals a symbiotic link throughout
each piece of media texts that are created to advertise individual films. For
example the film title (and its appearances) used for Paranormal activity
features all promotional media texts that are created to advertise the film
e.g. on the film poster, DVD cover and the commercial which is shown on the
television. The three main fonts that are used are depicted below.
This collage of three images depicting the contrasting Fangoria mastheads was put together by myself on the image editing progamme 'Fotoflexer'.
The main sell-line on the Fangoria front cover, featuring Megan Fox is ‘Jennifer’s Body’. This sell-line is situated at the bottom of page in the centre. The phrase suggests that the character of Jennifer in the film of Halloween will be discovered however it will be disturbing. The phrase is surrounded by a white spray of colour which looks like mist which would appear in the sky on a dark winter’s night. Moreover, the font used is a DISPLAY/SANS SERIF font which gives it the look of text that is usually featured on educational books or magazines. The font is therefore used to signify the fact that this film is set and filmed in a school.
‘Megan Fox will eat you alive!’ is the strap-line that
accompanies the main sell-line on the front cover. This strap-line lets the
audience know that the actor Megan Fox will be playing the character of
Jennifer in the comedy horror film. This strap line along with the main image
will no doubt attract fans of Megan Fox and further encourage them to view the
film. The strap-line is mainly in lowercase therefore it neatly sits below the
main sell-line and does not steal our attention.
Moreover, there are other main sell-lines within the block
of text that is placed on the left hand side of the page. It is presented in
the form of 7 short lines. The two bold eye catching words within the block of
text are ‘Pandorium’ and ‘District 9’. The word ‘Pandorum’ (Action, horror,
Sci-Fi and Thriller film) is the name of an American horror film that was also
released in 2009; the date being September 25th. The title ‘District
9’ (Action, Sci-Fi and Thriller film) also features on the Fangoria magazine
front cover. It t is an American horror film that was directed by Neill
Blomkamp, that was released on August 14th 2009. Both of the words
mentioned are depicted in different fonts most likely because the fonts used
are the ones known to the film to signify and maintain the films titles brand
identity. White is the colour used for the film’s title as it allows them both
to stand out and therefore be visible to its readership. The colours presented
on this magazine film poster follow the general convention of magazine front
covers as they are all primary colours.
The Fangoria front cover of issue 289 is an example of the conventional layout and text to image ratio that most magazine front covers
follow. The text is the main focus of the page and the text is presented in
small chunks so that it does discourage the target audience to read the
sell-lines. There is no SPX or specific lighting used for the main image as her
figure is on a plain black background. On the front cover the medium close up
shot of Megan Fox shows that her appearance has been created very effectively
with the use of make-up and a effects from an image editing programme. We as an
audience see her hair looking wet, her skin looking frozen and her lower face
covered in blood with her unhuman eyes glass like as if their screaming for
help, signifying to us as an audience that she is in danger.
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