3.02.2010

• This magazine is very Batman orientated as it shows 'the Joker' as being the main feature on the front cover. It displays quite a surreal effect to the front cover as it is just him sitting in what looks like a jail cell as there are metal bars behind him. He also has a very strange look on his face which people could interpret as him looking like he "isn't all there". This could make the audience feel uneasy about the nature of the film from this.
• The magazine title "EMPIRE" seems to be getting overlook to a certain extent as "meet the joker" is nearly the same size font wise and is not being overlapped like EMPIRE by the joker himself. But as this is such a well known magazine, everyone knows the title and the kind of layout it uses and therefore they don't have to solely rely all the letters being in full view.
• The colours used on the front cover vary and give a bit of a mixed look. The purples, greens and white all seem to coincide with the main theme of the magazine, the release of the new Batman film, The Dark Knight. However, the red is still used for the title which makes it look a tad mismatched.
  
• The strapline "meet the joker" has used an unusual font for a magazine front cover which gives off a representation that this is something very special and different so a big deal should be made out of it.
  
• Everything on the front cover is very focused on the Batman film and by using the joker as the key character from the film, it shows that this is an important character. Maybe due to the fact that Heath Ledger started off playing this role, but then unfortunately died and could not carry on filming which was viewed as a great loss to the film society.
  
• It could suggest that the target audience of this magazine or even film would be anyone who is interested in Batman but also people who like films and ones with bits of suggested surrealism as 'superheros' don't exist in the real world.
  
• There is a small amount of writing on the front cover which leaves the audience to concentrate on the feature of that particular issue. There is also nothing apart from the barcode in the bottom left hand corner which is unusual. However, the audience's attention has already been drawn to the strapline about meeting the joker along with the actual picture of the joker. There is no need for the whole of the A4 space to be filled as this would just overcrowd the front cover and leave nothing to stand out.
  

• This poster clearly shows that the film has a surreal side to it as there is a toy horse walking on clouds. It could suggest that either it may be a fantasy film or just something which people find very unusual.
• The horse seems to be the main focal point of the poster as the cloud it is walking on is a lot brighter than the others, plus with it being so unusual to see, it draws the attention of the audience even more so.
• Also the title of the film is displayed differently to conventional films as two colours have been used. The brown colour highlights the more 'interesting' words, whereas the white is just used for 'the' and 'of'.
• In addition, they have also made the title seem like it has got some sort of texture to it which adds to the unusual nature of the film.
• The colours used are very dull and unappealing to the audience which may seem strange as the point of the poster is to attract the audiences attention, however due to what the actual image is, this may be the USP and draw the audience in more so than bright colours.
  
• Also the writing at the top of the poster which includes names of producers and the distribution company etc, is written in a font a few shades lighter than the background colour which makes it not seem so important for the audience to see this or be drawn to it. It is also a small font which could again make reading it from a distance quite hard, yet it is not a key element to draw the audience in.
  
• The whole layout of the poster looks very minimalistic which may make it seem as though not a lot happens throughout the film. On the other hand this is probably done on purpose for people to wonder why there are two people riding on a horse on a cloud and that there is probably a lot more to happen within the film and they will have to watch it in order for them to understand the simplicity of the poster.
  
• The horse which is featured as the key point of the poster is clearly not realistic and looks similar to a rag doll type toy. This could lead the audience into thinking that parts of this film may not be realistic or that it may have child-like elements involved as it uses a childs toy to portray some of the story through the poster.