Research & Planning: Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Empire - The Shining

You can tell that this is a magazine due to the masthead 'Empire' which is a well known film magazine and there is also the main article title 'The Shining'. A barcode, date and price is also included to show that is a professional magazine. This is a special edition magazine as it doesn't include its usual slug line. Instead it says 'The 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time.' Other articles are included too to show that it is a professional magazine. '100 Covers To Choose From' is an example of this. These grab the readers attention and make them want to read the magazine. 

The genre is seen as clear because we can see that it is a horror film being shown on the front cover. The Shining is a well known horror film too so people will know the genre when they see the image. The colours are kept to the three colour theme like most professional magazines do and this makes this magazine looks professional as the three colours are black, brown and pink. They are dark colours too to represent the horror genre.

The narrative could be assumed by the audience that the main character shown on the cover could be a murderer as his facial expression is showing some amusement about what he has done. 

There is only one character shown on the cover so this could be showing the protagonist to the audience. The character on the front is representing the villain character type and the audience can see this due to his facial expression where he is looking evil but happy that perhaps he has found his victims. The setting cannot be fully seen but the audience can see that he has his head through a door that looks as if it has been broken into. This shows to the audience that the character is representing the villain and it also gives a clue that the genre is a horror.

The target audience will be people around the ages 25-40 or anyone out of that age loop who may be interested in this magazine could be horror fans or big film fans. People who are interested in older horror films may also take an interest in this magazine because The Shining is the image on the cover and that is a well known older horror film. 

The image on the front cover is the same as the image on the DVD cover for The Shining. This could have been done as the image will be recognisable to the audience and would attract them to the magazine. A close up has been used to show the protagonists face and highlight his amusement. "I'm not gonna hurt ya, I'm just gonna bash your brains in!" This is something added onto the magazine which is a line from the film itself. People who have seen the film will know what that is about but even if people haven't seen the film then they can easily assume that the line is taken from the film. This line also again shows the horror genre and gives an idea of the narrative.