Analysis of magazine front cover

Examples of comedy magazine covers

Analysis of my chosen magazine cover

Empire magazine front cover of the film Anchorman

Masthead

The masthead is been covered by the picture of Will Ferrell, this is showing us that Empire film are not afraid to cover the masthead with the main picture, in fact most of the magazine front covers show the masthead been covered by the picture. This automatically draws our attention to the main picture.

Main Picture

The main picture is of Will Ferrell and the first thing we notice about him is that he is facing away from the camera as if he is not bothered about everyone else and the fact that he is looking in the mirror and his hand touching his moustache indicates that he is more bothered in caring for himself and the audience that might be looking at him. This is a great picture of the character and the film suggests the same, within the film he loves himself and the way he looks, this echo's on the picture on this magazine. Not facing the camera and looking at a mirror.
The facial expression on his face shows us that his loving what he sees and what he is seeing is himself through the mirror. Telling the audience he is self loving, his face is a type of smug look as if he knows that he looks good.
The colour and lighting doesn't exactly come off the page but their are some good examples on the front cover. The back ground of the magazine is a dull grey colour, but as we go closer to the center of the magazine the colour brighten up, around the outsides of the magazine is dark grey and gets brighter the closer the magazine gets to Will Ferrell. This can show that the brightness in the dark around the magazine is what this character portray's as in being the 'spark within the dark'. This shows the character Ron Burgundy is the bright light and everything/one around him is dark/ unimportant to him. So the fact that he is the only thing on the cover that is lit can tell us that his only looking at him self and not anything or one around him is in the dark to his views. This is a clever way in portraying the colour in a way that Ron is loving himself for being the the lighter side of the page, so he is in the lime light.