Magazine Analysis - Total Film

Total Film

Total Film is a UK-based film magazine published every four weeks by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 offering Cinema DVD, Blu-ray news, reviews and features. This magazine is both printed to be available in shops but it is also available in digital format so it can be bought on-line and viewed on an electronic device.

The layout of the magazine is in an olf-fashioned comic book view as the main interest of this specific edition of the magazine is a Comic-Book Movie preview, making the layout interesting to the reader. For example, screen-shots of the different films are presented with an old fashioned film border which goes across and off of the page on both sides. The bold masthead is two words, the first word 'TOTAL' is embedded in to the second word 'Film' and is positioned in the top left corner of the F which makes it easy to read as the word 'FILM' is in a very large font but it is also misleading as many people may not be able to see it in the F as it blends in slightly. Despite the cover looking visually noisy, it is still laid out in a easy to read way and the colours keep the magazine looking professional and thematic.

Having the model, Spider-Man, positioned in front of the masthead shows that he is important to the magazine and the institutional context. The main image also works with the comic book theme as Spider-Man was originally a Stan Lee/ Marvel comic before it was made in to films. The old and bright colours of red and yewllow represent the comic theme and also help all of the main parts to stand out against the background while also diverting the eyes to different sections of the cover; these colours also represent the emotion of the character who's expression is serious, showing that he is in full character. This magazine focuses on the actual film rather then behind the scenes of it.

The selling-line 'The worlds best movie reviews' makes the magazine appealing to the audience and critiques to see if the reviews they provide are actually the 'best. This selling-line is circled with stars, which could be the ratings that the films get as they are mainly rated with stars 0-5.

The text on this magazine cover includes parts that are bold, defined and colourful which shows the importance and popularity of the things that are emphasized making it stand out and appeal to a wider audience.