Critical approaches 2

Grace kennedy

Heat mag

Heat (front cover)

Layout The cover is pretty cluttered. There are 5 different stories surrounding the front cover: a story about Calvin and Taylor, Kylie minogue, great British bake off, the bang theory’s couple and victoria and David Beckham. They is also a section on the cover about fashion coats on the bottom right hand side.Despite the cluttered layout each part of the cover is easily readable. I think this cluttered layout is designed to show the audience that the magazine is packed with information the audience will want to know; it makes it look interesting and appealing.

MastheadThe masthead of the magazine is ‘heat'. It is in low case letters and uses a heavy weighted serif font. I think that the masthead is of heavy weight to bring draw attention to it, they want to make the audience aware of the names so they can buy it again. The serif font makes the masthead look appealing because it is different and looks more interesting than using san serif fonts. The lower case letter make it softer because it is a womens magazines. Also I feel like the masthead doesn’t need any captials because the font is heavy enough and the font is different. The leading of the text is very small. The colour of the masthead is red; I think the red makes it noticeable as red is a nice bold colour. Also I think the colour red is symbolic to the name of the masthead because when I think of heat i think of fire and the colour red. Heat also spreads quickly if you think of it in terms of fire, just like the gossip in the magazine.

Heat (front cover)Colors

The cover uses bright colors like yellow, red and a neon pink/orange. I think these colours will grabs the audiences attention when they see the magazine, in a shop for example.There is also white and black featured on the cover. I think they have used white and black for the reason that they fit in with the magazines colours scheme.Secondly using white and black in the text and the graphic will not attract attention from the bright colours already on the page. Thirdly white and black are opposing colours so they create contrast in the text on the cover. For example there is a black box behind the white text which says ‘Taylor & Calvin’. This makes the text stand out; the white looks brighter against the black background because they are contrasting colors.

Pictures The pictures used on the front cover are mainly papparazzi pictures as celebrities are featured on the cover. This means the pictures aren’t always the highest quality. For example the picture of Taylor is clearly a paparazzi shot because she doesn’t look like she wants the picture to be taken; she has her mouth open slightly and her hand towards the camera. This picture of Taylor isn’t the most flattering either; paparazzi normally don’t take the best pictures of celebrities.Also David and Posh appear to be avoiding the camera by looking down or a different way so this looks like a paparazzi picture.

Pictures

The magazines uses a lot of candid photography and paparazzi of celebrities as that is what audience want to know what stars are up to. For example the magazine tyga and kylie were photographed on ‘a boring date’. These type of pictures aren’t normally high quality as the photograph may have to zoom in or hide to get the image they need for a story. An example of this is on page 43, which is a article about whether Jon snow is dead in Game of thrones and there is a picture of kit Harington (the actor who plays john snow) filming new scenes on the 25 of september.

Some pictures are directly taken from the celebrities social media accounts like twitter and Instagram to use it to back up a story and say something about it.

Pictures

It also features photographers pictures at events. For example emily rata was photographed at an event. Usually the magazine do this because they want to praise or critique their fashion or talking about the event. I think the magazine include this because most women have an interest in fashion and usually pass comment and take notice of what other women are wearing.

It also features professional photography images for the advertising segments of the magazine , however the magazine does not create this ,it Is create by the brand. I feel this is good because it makes the audience aware of new products or existing products. This issue features advertisements from McDonalds, Philips, boots, silm fast and sally hanson.

Colour scheme of magazineThe color scheme in the magazine is not as bright as the front cover. I think this as because the front has to grab the audiences attention. As I have mentioned it uses bright yellow, red and neon orange on the cover. Inside the magazine it has appeared to use more bold colors in the text of the graphics instead of harsh bright colors. The colors used are hot pink, deep pinky/red, light turquoise, orangy/yellow,yellow gold etc. I find these much more appealing as they are still eye catching but in your face like the ones on the covers.

inside

The cover

Writing style The way the magazine write is pretty informal but some parts are more formal. The magazine makes jokes like ‘we’ll wait and see if there’s a Big Bang in their future’ which is a pun because it referring to a story (page 30) about Big Bang Thoery actress Kaley Cuoco. The joke could have been made in a sexual term, which is clearly informal. Also it uses the abbreviation ‘we’ll’ ,meaning ‘we will’ so it directly speaking to the audience.

I feel like the magazine uses informal language to make the audience feel more comfortable because it is likely the women who read are not going to be formal all the time. I think the informality makes the text more interesting because it is boring if the audience can’t have a laugh, they will engage more with the text. Another example is the magazine comparing kylies suede dress with a car cloth.

Despite the informality of the some language, the magazine still has formality. The audience won’t take the information given seriously if the magazine joke all the time.

Text The font inside the magazine is a mix of serif and sans serif font. Some articles use sans serif fonts in their heading and subheading but other have a mix of sans serif and serif. The text of the article appears to be all serif font.I think having both sans serif and serif on a page is a good idea. Sans serif fonts tend to read more clearly but aren’t very exciting to look at, whereas serif sometimes may not be as easy to read as sans serif font but it is different and more visually appealing. The mix of the two different fonts provides a good balance for the audience.

Page 39 use a both sans serif and serif in the headings. The heading writes ‘Kate hooks up with a jonas brother!’ in serif text but the subheading in sans serif font says ‘she’s ditched rock stars for a disney kid’.

Text The image to text ratio is varies sometimes there 60% image and 40% text; there always appear to be more text. I think the magazine uses more image than text because images are obviously more visually appealing than looking at a paragraph of text. Also I feel like, the majority of the time the text is describing a image. Both text and image are really important parts of the magazine. Using pictures is almost like giving truth or evidence to a story.

Total film

Total film cover

The masthead ‘total film’ is at the top of the page like most other magazines. The colour of the masthead is white so it stands out against the blue coloured background. The font of the picture is sans serif so it is very clear and bold. The weight of the masthead is very heavy but I feel that this makes it stand out more. Also, people will instantly know what the magazine is about because it is called ‘total film’ and I think the heavy weight of text makes it visually clear to the audience.

Layout The layout is tidy because there isnt really a lot of elements on the page. There is only two coverlines, which are ‘avatar’ and ‘a decade in the making…’ .I think they have kept the cover simple because they dont want to give much away. Avatar was a well anticipated film anyway, due to it being so expensive to produce; the film cost costing over 1 billion,due to CGI.Also, I think that they have used minimal cover lines because they wanted the audience to focus on the image. I feel this cover symbolises the significance of films moving image and the high quality of it.

Total film cover ColoursAll the colour on this magazine cover fit well together. The colour of the image is mainly blue. ‘total film’ is written in white, which contrasts against the deep blue colour but still looks good together. The coverline ‘avatar’ is also in white. The white makes the coverlines stand out on the page because it is very different from the blue background image. The cover line ‘a decade in the making…’ is in sliver so like the white, it fits in with the page but it doesn’t stand out as much as white coverlines. I think using the colour may symbolises the long amount of time it has taken to make the film ,which was a decade (ten years).

HierachyWhen I look at this front of this magazine the first thing I see is the avatar image. The image is very large and is situated in the centre of the page so it grabs the readers attention instantly. I think they wanted it to be the focal point of the cover because it is a blockbuster film, which is very famous for its motion picture.it also the main article of the magazine so it is very important that it is the focus of the cover. The next element I see is the masthead due its large scale, weight and position towards the top of the page. I think the magazine has made it one of the main focuses of the cover because it is the brand name; the magazine will want the brand name to be reckgonisable so the audience can purchase the magazine again.

PicturesThere are lots of movie screen shots in total film magazine because this will give the audience sneak peak of what the film looks like. This may persuade the audience to watch a film ,if a film visually appeals to them. For example, page 74 to 80 contains many screenshots of the film avatar. This will hopefully make the audience excited to see avatar and then go the cinema and see the film.

The magazine also contains behind the scenes images ,which show how the film was created. This could give the audience more of the understanding of the film its self and the work which has gone in to the film. For example in the avatar spread, there are picture of the actor sam Worthington and the dircector.

Colour scheme.The colour scheme of the magazine is pretty bright and bold. In this issue, yellow, red ,blue, black and white. The colours stand out well so they attract attention easily ,without being too bright or in your face. I’ve noticed that the magazine adapts it colour scheme to fit the movies colour scheme to fit the movies colour scheme ,which makes it all fits together nicely.

Comparison

Content: Film VS Gossip

The magazines are different topics because is gossip and the other is film. Heat predominantly focuses on the life of celebrities where's total film focuses primarily on films. When comparing these magazines they will be instant difference but they are likely to be similaries because they are part of same media type (magazines).

Despite the magazines having different topics, they both have purposes to entertain the audience. Films give the audience entertainment and heat have an entertainment section , including films reviews.

Also both magazines features celebrities in their magazines. Heat features celebrities from all kinds of industries however total film features celebrities from the film industries like actors/actresses and film directors.

Colour schemeI think both use bright and bold colours to grabs the audiences attention. However, I have noticed a big difference in the covers of the magazines.

Total film magazine seems to alter their magazine colour scheme to fit the films style. For example, the avatar version has used white so it doesn’t clash with the blue.However, heat uses a range of bright colours which clash to grab the attention of the audience, they have used pink and yellow.

Audience

profiles

Gender

Heat readers are 86% females and 14% males; this tells me that heats primary audience is women. The magazines will include female interest and appeal to women.The magazine usually focuses on gossip about female celebrities or celebrity couple and womens fashion. These topics will usually appeal to women as they can empathize with the women featured in the magazine and women will buy womens fashion.

14% of the men who read may want to know all the gossip about women or a big interest in fashion.

This magazine is a womens magazine.

Ages 69% of the readers are aged 15-34;39% are aged 15-24 and 32% are aged 25-34. The average age of a heat reader is 30 years old. This shows me that heat magazine have quite broad age range from teenagers to mid 30’s.However,they may have older readers because the other 31% are not aged 15-34. The magazine features celebrities, the vast majority being women, so the audience can identify and relate to them. For example the magazine features caroline (37),posh (42),kate (42) and Michelle (29).

Some of audience are as young as 15years old so it would make sense for the magazine to features younger celebrities, however to appeal to a broad age range of women ,there a range of ages featured.

Social grade

The majority of heats audience are ABC1;56% are in this category. This means most of heats audience have a decent paid jobs so will be able to buy the magazine and the products featured within in it,like fashion and make up. However the other 44% who read heat may be in higher or lower social grades. The magazine’s is 1.99 but is cheaper on subscription so it not a massive amount of money to spend. Most social grades could afford this magazine but there are cheaper magazines options available to them. I would say, despite this the other 44%, this magazines is more suited to upper to middle class people to its price and content.

Content and themesThe content of the magazine includes ‘the famous’, beauty and fashion and entertainment. The content of heat magazines is really important when appealing to your audience because it has to be what your audience will like. Women are target audience of the magazine because women like to know the gossip about celebrities and relate to the other women featured in the magazine. Also beauty and fashion are important parts of magazine to appeal to women as they buy these products to keep up their image and appearance. Furthermore entertainment is part of the magazine to attract the audience ,like films,comedy,music and tv guides, a this is what the audience may watch or buy in their spare time to entertain themselves.

Total film audience

Gender

The audience of total film is 75% male, meaning that the majority of the audience is male. I think males are more likely to buy this magazine as the films features usually have a predominantly male audience too. Also male actors are frequently featured on the cover and inside the magazine, so the male reader can identify and relate to them. This means that less females read this magazine.

Ages The average age of the reader is 26 years old ,which tells me that most readers are young adults. I think this is because the magazine focuses on block busters ,where the audience are also young adults. Most readers are male and female aged 18-35. I feel like it appeals to this younger age range because younger actors are featured inside and may be the audience of the films featured. Also 35 year olds are old enough to have kids which for old enough to take to the cinema with them.For example, they have featured harry potter on the cover. Harry potter has been a franchise since before the 2000’s so different ages will view it throughout the years. Also the actor ,who plays harry potter, is 27 years old now . This means people of 18-35 can identify with him because he is a similar age.

Social grade The magazine features blockbuster films ,which are either featured in cinemas or are coming out in cinema; this would mean that the people would need to pay a certain amount to watch these films. I think that the audience will be abc1 as they will have the income to spend on trips to the cinema, to see the films which are featured. Also the magazine costs about £4 ,so Abc1 social status are more likely to pay this amount of money for a magazine, rather than lower social grades, as they have more money to spend. Subscriptions are also available of the magazine at an overall cheaper price. They can could cost over 30 pound for a yearly subscription. Lower social grades may not have the money to spend that amount on magazines.

Content and themesTotal is published every month but there is another issue released between July and August; it is publish 13 times a year.The magazine itself featured new and future films, which are usually blockbuster movies. It gives reviews on featured films, to help the audience decide whether to watch the film or not. Also it follows up on actors, actresses, directors etc, by interviewing them about current or upcoming movies. Furthermore, total film features a film on their cover, and this film will have a larger section of coverage than the other films featured, as it is the ‘main’ film. For example avatar was featured on the cover on total film ,therefore there is 6 pages dedicated to that movie in the magazine-most reviews of other films are kept to only a page. The magazine is entertaining because the way the interviewing are written are interesting and listening to interviews with actors/actresses/directors,which may be humourous.The magazine is also informative because it lets you know what movies are out/coming out and their opinion of them, usually in the form of reviews.