Research and Planning: Film Magazine Analysis One

The genre of this magazine cover is film magazine. We can tell this through the conventions of a magazine which are used which are a masthead, barcode, date and issue number, main image, stories from inside the magazine and a specific film. In this case the film genre is obvious as a well known actor called 'Heath Ledger' who is part of a massive film franchise called 'Batman' is shown on the front and the part he plays 'The Joker' is a very famous one. Other parts of the the magazine show the genre such as the actors names used on cover lines such as 'Will Smith' and 'Clint Eastwood'.

The magazine has used a close up shot of the actor as a main feature of this character is the make up used as it establishes him e.g. the red lips and slits around his mouth, it also highlights the sinister side to the character. The magazine has used the three colour rule by using green, white and black, these colours contrast and help to make certain text stand out. The masthead stands out due to the boldness and the use of both green and black this is important to promote the product. The film that the cover is promoting is called 'The Dark Knight' the word dark suggests something sinister and creepy about the film which could be said to contain disturbing or horror like elements. This magazine has a house style  due to the layout of the cover, the masthead is positioned at the top of the cover as it is one of the most important features and an image is placed beneath which fills the entire cover as the man seems to blend into the background cover like he is coming out of the shadows. The barcode is placed at the right hand corner and is quite small when compared to the other features. The magazine has cover lines that promote the stories inside the magazine. 

I think that this magazine has a targeted audience of mainly males due to the colour scheme and the image used however females could potentially buy the magazine if they are already existing fans of the batman films. The age of the target audience may be between 15-28 years old as the image shown could be quite disturbing for a younger audience. 

The representation of this image suggests that the actor shown is the villain in the film, due to the makeup and the dark look and expression shown on his face. The narrative of this film on the magazine cover could be that the villain was once tortured when younger etc which has created a monster in society who turns to evil deeds in order to feel better and therefore he may need to be defeated or conquered by a hero to create a 'better' world/ 'safer' society.