Quite a big range of examples of the type of media you are going to be producing
magazine covers music video links?
must find existing material that could fulfill the criteria, links to websites.
long lists of different codes and conventions.
don't stop looking, really think about it, spend time researching.
get loads of research, ten or so examples of magazines and contents pages, use of cell lines lighting shot type font layout, what message are they conveying, do the same for websites, at least three of the websites should come from the magazines below. original product and website and how they are connected together, convergence.
These are some of the results that come up when you search for entertainment magazines, the actual magazine, Entertainment, as shown above, mainly focuses on film and TV as a form of entertainment however they include music too. almost all of these include direct mode of address suggesting that it is a generic convention for this type of magazine. Look at their website. A series of mini articles all displayed on one page, including a title or headline, a sentence description and a picture.
My next search was 'What is an entertainment magazine?'
I had pretty similar results except the topics branched out slightly into fashion and music.
I then did a search for 'Magazines about entertainment', the first result was a list of "entertainment magazines".
Entertainment Weekly.
US Weekly.
TV Guide.
Rolling Stone.
The Hollywood
Reporter
The New Yorker
Variety.
People
Billboard
After some consideration I decided that the Billboard cover looked like how I pictured my magazine to be, I decided to gather more front covers and contents pages from that magazine, in order to see how they correlate. as you can see below they often use the same celebrity as on the front cover, inside on the contents page.
https://www.allyoucanread.com/top-10-entertainment-magazines/
This is the website where I found a variety of entertainment magazines.
Generic conventions of a entertainment magazine:
- direct mode of address
- bright colours
- plethora of font styles and sizes
- lots of text
- loud
- quite a lot of half shadowed faces
- mainly medium close ups or close ups, always the top half of the body, rarely long-shots with all of them in frame.
- contents pages tend to use wider or longer shots compared to the front cover.
- they always include at least one 'celeb' name on the front cover, or a detail/ snippet, whether it be a quote or a title of an interview/article from inside the magazines.
- the actual contents are to one side of the picture, do not take up a lot of room on the page. Note: I particularly like Entertainment weekly's contents with Bella and Edward the contents is separated from the picture.
- the contents will include a page number for the article as well as a title and short description of the article.
- the title of the article will either be in bold, larger font, or a different colour to the short description of it.
- with the picture there is normally a photographers name along the edge - not obvious or obstructing.
- they all have a mast head which is usually in the same font but varies in size and colour depending on the issue.
- most will have a bar-code.
- most will have a date or issue number.
- some have puffs which are used to promote things within the magazines.
- there are always sell lines and cover lines, cover lines are bigger and the main attraction, usually the 'Celeb' name or small slogans - 'the heroes, the hits, the hair!' or 'bond gets his swagger back'
- contents pages center more around the image, but include multiple sub headings 'chapters'.
- the text in a context page is neat and to the side, very organised, unlike cell lines on the front which are put anywhere.
- the background the text is on is usually plain so the text can be seen clearly, the main image with a plain background or the image is separate from the text.
- contents pages have divisions on the page.
I am interested in using an issue with a boxer on the front cover, in order for this to still fill the entertainment criteria I could pose it as a film about this sport. I think my main inspiration will come from total film and entertainment weekly magazine.
