Background Information (Magazine Publisher)
*(Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media of Hamburg based Bauer Media Group. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008. It is the biggest selling film magazine in the United Kingdom and is also published in the United States, Australia, Turkey, Russia, Italy and Portugal. Empire organises the annual Empire Awards which were sponsored by Sony Ericsson, and from 2009 sponsored by Jameson.)
Plot
To control the oceans, Lord Cutler Beckett executes anyone associated with piracy by ordering Davy Jones to destroy all pirate ships in the seas. Condemned prisoners sing "Hoist the Colours" to compel the nine Pirate Lords to convene at Shipwreck Cove to hold the Brethren Court. Because Captain Jack Sparrow, one of the Pirate Lords, never named a successor before being killed, Captain Barbossa, along with Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, Tia Dalma, and the crew of the Black Pearl, plot to rescue Jack from Davy Jones's Locker. Traveling to Singapore, the crew meet Captain Sao Feng, who owns navigational charts to the Locker and quickly gains an unpredictable interest in Elizabeth. Beckett's soldiers invade, but the crew escape. Feng and Turner make a deal to give Jack to Feng, so he in turn can use the Pearl to rescue his father Bootstrap Bill from the Flying Dutchman. The crew travels to the locker and rescues the marooned Jack. They find themselves trapped, encountering dead souls, including Elizabeth's father Governor Swann. They learn the Dutchman must always have a captain.
Main Image(s)
The main image on the page is the screen shot from the film of the main character. The image seems to have had no effects added to it; this suggests that its purpose is to show what the film is like. I think therefore this screen shot was chosen to show some of the main actors in the film. This type of persuasion to engage the audience towards the article. This is because Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is a very popular actor. Therefore the fact that he is one of the characters thats covering half of the double spread indicates they tried to portray this in the magazine film review itself. The emotions that the main image of film shows is the fact that he is being help in a scarce position by the other character. Adding tension to the viewer as to why he is being held like that, potentially therefore engaging the viewer to watch the film due to the desire to find out why he is being help like that. The picture also provides an image to match what some of the articles was relating to; making it easier to follow through the chunk of text, as you have the security to be able to relate the text to an image. This will make it less confusing for the viewer if he/she doesn't understand part of the plot, or the opinions on the film when they haven't seen the film before. The images take up one of the A4 pages that make up this double page review spread. I think that the size of this image indicates that it is quite important to the spread, because it's the main focal point of the reader. The dress code of the characters in the picture will give a feel to what the film is like, maybe also giving in depth hints to how Jack Sparrow as a character is portrayed in the film. The high key lighting on the picture creates a very colourful and bright image. Showing that maybe the portagonist, being Jack Sparrow, is a funny character. The size of the image also means that it is very relevant to the article. The photo has a lighthearted caption that makes fun of the situation shown in the screen shot, and give humour to the article when being read. There are three smaller images on the left of the spread. These are small and are not directly related to the article. They provide extra information to the reader and therefore can be small and appear less important without taking away anything from the article. The focus being on the review itself.
Title
The feature header is 'Screen". The header is the largest and seemingly the most important. It allows people to flick through the magazine and still see this page easily. It is in a large bold font that automatically catches the eyes of the readers. The header relates to the section of the magazine. This section is related to new films and would be considered a unique selling point of the magazine. Customers would buy the magazine because they they would trust the reviews and opinions that this magazine usually has. There are two other smaller feature headers. The first one is “New Movies in Order of Merit” and the second is the title of the film. The title of the film is the more important of the two headers because it tells the reader what they reading about. It is used to let to reader know what film the article relates to and they then can therefore decide whether they want to read it. Both of these headers have their own kickers. These kickers are in a thinner font and therefore are seen as less important. They are there just to provide a little extra information about this section of the magazine and the article. The body text is written in three main columns. The columns contain a mixture of both bold and normal text, this means that certain sections can be highlighted as more important and are more eye-catching. The columns are interrupted by pull quotes and graphical furniture. The colour of most of the font is black. The other colours used do not have any specific meaning to the reader but they follow the colour scheme of the magazine. There is also a link to the magazine’s website on the bottom left of the page. This highlights the cross promotion of the magazine.
Graphical Furniture
The graphical furniture of the magazine is fairly standard to the magazine. The colours and fonts used in the graphical furniture are design in the house style and in the same colour scheme as the rest of this section of the magazine. The side bar to the right of the picture contains a special feature of the magazine. It gives the reader an idea of similar films which will help them make a more informed decision when it comes to deciding whether they would like to watch this film or not.The logo of the magazine doesn’t feature on this review page but the information bar at the top does however a logo that is associated with this section of the magazine. The logo is part of the style of the magazine and is regularly featured in the magazine. The page numbers are place on the bottom, outside corners of each page. There is also a logo used to indicate the web presence of the magazine. It is linked to the website address that is given below it. Other graphics used are stars which are used to act as a visual representation of the rating that is given by the magazine to this film.Tone?
The tone of the article suggest that it is written for people who are quite serious about film. The references to other well regarded films suggest that it is written for an audience that is likely to have a strong interest in film. It is written is quite a sophisticated but quite informal way. It presents well thought out opinions in a style that is more attractive that might broaden their target audience. This style means it might be targeted at a slightly older age group but might appeal to some younger people. This would likely be late twenties and beyond. It is for people have a good film knowledge which is not usually associated with young people. The review focuses on quite a combination of aspects. It doesn’t only deal with the actors or things that would be more popular in the main stream; it deals with more specific things like the writing and what crucial aspects of the film that they believe weren’t successful.
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