Codes and Conventions of magazine front covers - Research

Before making my magazine front cover I decided that I should look at the codes and conventions of a magazine and what is covered on the front, although we had already done this earlier in the year and when creating our copy of the Total Film poster I thought that by looking at these again would give me better ideas for when making mine. 

These are some codes and conventions I believe should be on a magazine to ultimately create a successful magazine and eye catching front cover:

- The masthead, this is the title for the magazine and usually the main thing that will attract the reader.
- Strapline, this is subheading normally underneath the title which gives an insight to what may be inside the magazine.
- Heading, this is normally in the middle of the magazine front cover explaining what the main story of the magazine is about.
- Tag, very important on the front of the magazine as this invites the audience by using words such as plus, exclusive, new and special. 
- Pugs, these are used to grab the readers attention and usually placed in the corners of the magazines. Things like the prices, barcodes and logos are placed here.  

What makes us scared?

During many lessons we studied the code and conventions of thriller plus some horror trailers to help us understand what these imply and suggest to an audience. We started by noting and listing certain aspects of what make a thriller film, things such as the setting would normally be at night so it would be dark, raining, urban areas or quite places. Their would also be quite alot of non diegetic music throughout the film to create suspense while alongside this being fast paced editing. The narrative would be based around the investigation of an enigma which would create the sense of confusion for the audience while it also being realistic to keep the viewers on edge because they know in the back of their mind that something like whats happening in the film could potentially happen to them. It also stays in their thoughts after watching the film which leads them to tell friends and family what happened in it eventually leading them too to watch the film. The plot would normally have a hero (male) which is usually the only one to solve the mystery and reveal the truth while also having a damsel in distress type victim. 

Adding to this we listed common fears of people in the lesson, these fears ranged from the dark, the unknown, heights, small confined spaces and ultimately dying. These fears are always put into thrillers to directly affect the audience and get into their head.  

Thriller coventions of a film/trailer - Research