Final Magazine Front Cover

It's been a mission and a half, but I've finally finished my magazine front cover :D!

This being an awards special issue, it does not follow the conventions of Sight & Sounds usual style of featuring a new film release on the front cover. Apart from this helping my magazine to stand out from the 'regular' issues, this allowed me more freedom to do what I wanted with my front cover.

The front cover features the two main actors in the film, Mel Higgs and Chrisfa Georgiou. They appear to be standing in front of a 'press board', which actors and actresses would be photographed and interviewed infront of at movie premiers and the like. This is infact is a repeated image that I created myself and then photoshopped the two characters onto it, creating the illusion that they were actually pictured infront of this.

The typical Sight & Sound yellow header features on this front cover. The '2009 Awards Special' font is bold and jumps out at you against Chrisfa's black clothing. The font could also be seen to look like the letters are lit up.

The red font on Mel's grey dress matches the red on the 'Film 4' logo in the background. This colour stands out well and helps to emphasise the 'Faces Of Evil' logo. The font used for this logo is the 'official' font used in the trailer and on the film poster; the outline has been made thicker to put an even bigger emphasis on the film title, which should catch the eye of the reader.

Sight & Sound Magazine - Research

First off I haven't blogged in ages coz I've had tonnes of other things going on, and the group's main focus has been finishing our filming.

I've almost completed my magazine front cover, and thought a brief insight into Sight & Sound magazine might help me to express why I chose to use this magazine and whether or not my front cover follows or goes against the conventions of Sight & Sound.

* Published by the BFI, Sight & Sound magazine was first published in 1932. It didn't start getting published monthly until 1991 when it started to feature the 'Mothly Film Bulletin'.

* Sight & Sound has a more 'highbrow' reputation than other film magazines. It says it reviews all film releases each month, including those with a narrow art house release, as opposed to the more mainstream focus of its competitors.

* Sight & Sound also currently features a full cast and crew credit list for each reviewed film.

* Sight & Sound has in the past been the subject of criticism, and accused of "elitism, puritanism and upper-middle-class snobbery" by some.

* Every decade, Sight & Sound asks an international group of film professionals to vote for their greatest film of all time. Critics are asked to provide a top ten list; in 1992, directors were invited to participate in a separate poll. The individual results are eclectic; in the most recent poll, 885 different films received at least one mention from one voter.

* The Sight & Sound accolade has come to be regarded as one of the most important of the "greatest ever film" lists. Roger Ebert (American film critic and screen writer) described it as "by far the most respected of the countless polls of great movies--the only one most serious movie people take seriously."

* The first poll, in 1952, was topped by Bicycle Thieves (1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica).