Sight and Sound magazine cover analysis

Sight and sound is a british film magazine that was published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handled to the BFI, which still publishes the magazine today. This issue was published in April 2013 and uses Danny Boyle as the main image. During the release of this issue Danny Boyle was promoting his new film Trance. 

Danny Boyle has directed an impressive list of films that have been critically and commercially successful, these films include Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, 28 days later and 127 hours ago. His name will be recognised by film fans and this helps the magazine to capitalise on the readers positive attitude towards familiarity, showing how the main cover line works well to capture the readers attention. However for those who are not familiar with Danny Boyle's films will most likely not be impressed by his name. Sight and Sound relies on the reader to have prior knowledge of who Danny Boyle is demonstrating the magazine's intended audience; film movie goers with a wide scope of cinema knowledge. The absence of buzz words (e.g.'Exclusive') demonstrates that Sight and Sound's target audience is different from Total Film (who target a younger audience and frequently use buzz words) and will focus more on the director, indicating that Sight and Sound's intended audience will have a more critical perspective on films in contrast to Total Film's intended audience who will be more interested in the stars of the movie.

Danny Boyle is looking straight ahead making eye contact with the reader, this attracts attention because there is some interaction between the magazine and the reader. His head is composed in the centre of the cover and symmetrically this is aesthetically pleasing for the reader, the lighting has also been used to make Danny Boyle appear pleasing to the reader. The professional photography lets readers know that Sight and Sound is an established film magazine with a high level of professionalism and quality.

The Masthead for Sight and Sound is consistently the same font and colour and it doesn't change unlike Empire or Total film that changes the style of their Masthead, after a couple issues, in concordance to the main image. This masthead is original but nothing too eye grabbing, a younger audience would not be gravitated towards this magazine cover because to me this masthead is too simplistic and boring however an older audience probably wouldn't care about the aesthetics of the magazine cover because their attention is focused more on the content of the magazine. Making my magazine cover too simplistic will not capture my target audiences attention because they want a magazine cover that engages and visually simulates them with buzz words along with bright colours and eye candy. However I do think that my audience will appreciate the high level of photography used in this cover because it offers the allure of professionalism and prestige.