Textual Analysis of a ‘MOVIE MAGAZINE FRONT COVER’
Fangoria was first planned in 1978 under the name Fantastica as a companion to the science fiction media magazine Starlog just as Starlog covered science fiction films for a primarily teenaged audience; Fantastica was intended to cover fantasy films for a similar audience. Its first issue was in 1979 and is produced monthly; 10 issues annually.
This textual analysis will concentrate on the movie magazine front cover of film fan magazine Fangoria, which specialises in the genres of horror. The editor of the magazine is Chris Alexander and its company is The Brooklyn Company Inc.
The magazine cover consists of a colour photograph of a man looking directly at the camera. It is a medium close-up shot revealing his head and a bit of his shoulders. In front of the man is the Fangoria Masthead. A bar code is visible in the bottom left corner. The main thing seen when looking at this magazine is the masthead and the main coverline. The masthead is at the top were majority of magazine title’s are. It’s written in a dark red, (which may symbolise dry blood) with a white out line and a dim black shadow behind. Its’ font style resembles fangs which is ironic as the beginning of the magazine name is “FANG”. The last two letters of Fangoria are inverted like fangs. The ‘f’ on the left side inverts in like a fang on the left side of a mouth, and the ‘a’ inverts like the right side of a fang in a mouth. The ‘Fangoria’ text is on top of the background picture and above the character’s forehead. It’s centred and stretched out so that the title fits across the page, with not much room left and the sides. The masthead is not positioned at the top of the magazine, but a bit lower as the selling line is along the top. On the left side of the masthead, the issue number of the magazine, is written in small writing.
The coverline is written in red too, but a brighter red which may connote blood. The style of writing is unusual as it’s not one that is always seen in magazines; the style of writing seems to be a stencil font. The second word is much bigger than the first word which draws people’s attention as to wonder what ‘crazies’ the magazine is talking about. The word ‘the’ sits on top of the word ‘crazies’ in between the letters ‘c’ and ‘r’. The coverline also has a yellow/gold shadow which enhances the chances of grabbing the reader’s attention.
The Cover photograph is the background of the magazine; it is also of a white man up close. He is also seen from his neck upwards and is plastered with scabbed wounds, along the side of his face and has red eyes with one green pupil and one blue/grey pupil. He has a long blonde moustache which comes down to his face, although the initial length is not seen due to the text and picture size. He has a small grin which just about shows his teeth, which are off-white and a little yellow. The scary look which the magazine was going for is has definitely been achieved as the photo is quite scary. You can see that the man in the photo is wearing a khaki shirt as the colour and a little bit of the shoulder is revealed in the shot. Obviously the make-up and costume has been chosen carefully to appeal to the target audience of the magazine, who are most likely to be teenagers.
Above the masthead reveals to readers that the magazine doesn’t focus on the cover story, it also names other films featured in the magazine as well. It has ‘Bloody remakes!’ on the top left-hand corner in yellow, which may mean remakes of the films listed which consist of a lot of blood. The yellow font also makes it stand out from the rest of the magazine as the colour theme of the magazine consists of red and a light shade of gold. It is also written in an unusual font which has a crack in the letter ‘k’. To me, the crack represents fear and danger, which is a bonus effect to add to a horror magazine. Four films are then listed along vertically, with white circle dots to separate them.
Towards the bottom of the front cover, a small dark yellow/gold nonagon is draw on top of the picture. It’s highlighted with a glow in order to grab the attention of the readers. Inside the nonagon has text which promotes another film. In bold capitals it says ‘SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD’ in yellow, this is written in the middle of the text, so capture the reader’s attention, so that the film title subliminally stays in their mind.
Below the nonagon, is the barcode which has the price and where the magazine was made. The barcode is turned anti-clockwise and is portrait. Underneath the barcode has the website of the Fangoria magazine written in really tiny font, this is also written in white.
Above the ‘s’ on the coverline which reads ‘The Crazies’ has the text ‘It’s a mad world’ written in capital letters with a cream/yellow colour. The word ‘world’ is written behind the letter ‘s’ on the coverline. It has also been formatted so that it gets smaller by each word and droops down.
When considering all of these points, I realise that making a movie magazine, is not going to be as simple as easy as I’d like it to be. The position of the character in the magazine plays a big element of how the magazine turns out, as it’s about space on the magazine, making sure that everything that I want on the magazine is able to fit. When shooting, I have to take into account lighting, positioning, camera angle etc as it’s not just a regular photo I’m taking; it’s to be published on a magazine, so the quality needs to be good. Another aspect I need to consider is my font style, size, arrangement and text for the magazine. The way the ‘Fangoria’ magazine was put together appeals to their genre and target audience, so I need to make sure that when I have my final product, my target audience should also appeal and to my target audience.
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