Avatar Magazine Cover...

The film magazine cover for 'Avatar' doesn't tell the audience anything about the actual story/plot of the film, but instead signifies the coming release of a film thats been anticipated for over ten years. Unlike the previous two magazine covers i've looked at, this cover really says more through what is written than it does through the picture. The picture shows a medium length shot of the main characters avatar looking at the camera. While giving no hints of the storyline, it does emphasise that the film is based more around the Avatars than the humans controlling them. The picture also leaves no question on what film this character is from, as the avatars and the navi are completely unique looking from characters in any other films. With the anticipation around the film, people will want to read this magazine as soon as they set eys on the cover, which is probably why a medium shot has been used, so people will know what film is being advertised on the cover even by looking from a distance. The background is a blue picture of something, but is blurred to the point where there is no way of knowing what the picture shows, leaving peoples focus to lie completely on the avatar. The picture also covers up part of the magazines name, something which is used quite often on magazine covers to ensure that all the focus remains on the content of the cover. The writing underneath the picture is what really will sell the magazine. The title of the film, 'AVATAR' is shown in big font, coloured white to stand out clearly infront of the blue avatar. Along with this, in small writing just above the title, it says 'intergalactic exclusive!'. Being in small writing, this is probably something that the magazine hopes to be the tip of the iceberg for people who don't know whether they want to buy it or not at first glance, may be swayed into doing so once seeing that the information on the film cannot be read anywhere else. The subtitle underneath the name of the film reads...
'A Decade in the Making'...'But how long will we feel the force of James Cameron's sci-fi epic?'.
These short phrases will attract anyone who has been looking forward to the release of James Camerons new film, his first since the hugely successful 'Titanic'. People who don't know much in detail about the film will be interested to find out more. Having the decade in the making phrase slightly bigger than the rest of the subtitles around the cover means it will be one of the first things a person will read when picking up the magazine. Even for a person who isn't aware of all the hype around Camerons latest film, will be intrigue by a film which has been worked on for over ten years, and therefore is likely to buy the magazine to find out more. Mentioning James Cameron's name at the bottom will also be something that may persuade people to buy the magazine, as there are few people who don't know who James Cameron is, and many people will be sold just at the mention of his name.

Overall, the magazine cover for Avatar, rather than giving people a little clue at the plot or the background of the film, it is, much like the teaser trailer, used to build further hype around the release of the film, and make people even more eager to see the film as soon as it is released, a tactic which we now know was a very successful one.