Media Studies 09-11

This first shot is the setting of our first sene after the establishing shot, where we first see the main character.

This next shot is of the scene where we meet our second character in his bedroom. To get across the different lifestyles of the characters, different bedrooms were key.

This next shot is of the scene where our first character walks from the bedroom to the bathroom mirror and we have a shot from the point of few of the mirror as if that is the camera.

The next shot is the scene of where our second character walks from his bedroom to his bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.

This next image would be of the establishing shot we would use for the first scene, to show that the characters live in the same building, however later we show how they have never met.

The film begins with the opening logo for, “Universal Studios” along with their advertising of “www. universalstudios.com”, the next logo we see is from,”Studio Canal” and then that is followed by “Working Title”.

After this the film then starts, during the filming of people at the airport, the titles are appearing around the screen, starting with perhaps the most important ones such as, ‘Universal Pictures and Studio Canal present’ followed by the next title ‘A Working title Production’ and the next title ’In Association with DNA films’. After the three main titles the main if the film starts to do a voice over and playing in the background of the scene is some peaceful digetic music that gives the basic feel of the movie, the words of the voice over then comes up on the screen “Love actually is all around” then the ‘is all around’ fades and then you are left with the title “Love Actually”.

The next scene starts where the titles re-start with the name of the actors (Alan Rickman, Bill Nighly, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Martine McCutcheon), the list starts in alphabetical order of all the main characters. The next scene starts and the credits continue with the names of the actors with the smaller parts (Andrew Lincoln, Chiwetel Elloiter, Gregor Fisher, Heike Makatsch, Keira Knightley, Kris Marshall, Lucia Moniz, Martin Freeman, Rodrigo Santoro, Thomas Sangster and Rowan Atkinson), Still all in alphabetical order apart from Rowan Atkinson who guest stared and the ones who guess star are always last to be read. The next shot starts and the names of the crew start, (Casting by Mary Selway, Fiona Weir, Music supervisor Nick Angel, Music by Craig Armstrong, Co-Producers Debra Hayward, Liza Chasm, Costume Designer Joanna Johnston, Line Production Chris Thompson, Production Designer Jim Clay, Photographer Michael Coulter, Editor Nick Moore, Produced by Duncan Kenworthy, Tim Benvan, and Eric Feliner, Written and Directed by Richard Curtis). After this all of the titles fade and the main storyline of the film starts.

Love Actually – Film Opening Analysis

The titles for this film and others in the genre usually start during the first sequence, when the characters and storyline are being set up and introduced. The first shot in this film was a medium close-up of a crowd, which the narration then set as the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport. The camera kept zooming in and out and cutting to different people’s facial expressions, quite a lot of the shots blurred into focus.

The main title of the film was introduced by the voice over narration and writing on the screen, the two things both said the words, ‘Love Actually is all round’, then after a few seconds the last three words faded to only leave the final title, ‘Love Actually’, and the next shot sequence started.

The film carries on in mid shots and medium close-ups as the characters start to appear, in the first seen comedy effect is made by using funny facial expressions, costume and comical singing + dancing. Throughout the first 3 sequences in the film the titles keep appearing and fading in different places around the screen, displaying actors’ names and people involved in the making of the film.

From the beginning of the film until the 3rd sequence there is music over the top of any dialogue, this stops suddenly when one of the characters suddenly swears really comically and the titles stop appearing. After this there is an establishing shot of London and the words, ‘5 Weeks to Christmas’, are on the bottom of the screen, there is then a sequence of wide shots and mid shots to show the time of year and the location, showing things such as ice skating rinks and shopping centres.

The action then cuts to a mid shot of someone rummaging through draws and moving to reveal another character sat behind them, this makes the sequence flow well and look good. After some dialogue between these two characters the camera then switches to a wide shot of the house where the action is taking place, this sets up the location and tells us something about the status of the character. The action then cuts across to introduce some of the other major characters in the film.

This sequence was made to show us the basic requirements of what is meant to be in our preliminary exercise. Mistakes have been made to show us where things can go wrong and help us learn how to get around them and not include them in our own exercise. However the sequence did include a variation of different shots, including all the ones that were mentioned in the brief for the exercise, the lighting was good and stayed the same throughout which was good for continuity. The sound levels were one of the mistakes made because it was sometimes hard to hear what was being said. The exercise was a good thing to use to help us with our own work.

I think we did quite a good job on our Preliminary Exercise because it was our first filming task. The first shot was of someone running across the hall and up to the drama studio door, this shot was quite smooth with the camera however we had too much headroom. To make this shot more interesting we could of split it into a few different shots to show all the angles of the person running.

The next shot was a close-up of the hand on the door, this shot was good as the hand was framed well however in the editing stage we realised it was too slow and should have been a lot quicker.
The next shot, of the character walking into the room, was done by already having the camera waiting at the other side of the door at a distance, she looked into a mirror and at that point we cut to a shot where the character was looking into the camera as though it was the mirror. I felt that this was the most effective part of the exercise and the whole group were pleased with it.

For the next shot we jumped back out to see the person sorting out their hair and picking up a brief case before walking forward to a door, however at that point we didn’t have enough film so there was a big jump of about 2 metres, this was the least successful part of our exercise. This shot was also a problem because in order to take the mirror shot we moved a couple of bags and coats off a bookshelf, then when zooming back out we had to make sure they were all in the exact same place so that we didn’t ruin the continuity in the sequence. Also during this shot there is a section of the soundtrack missing, because we realised there was a radio playing in the background so we had to cut that out, but it is not that long and not too noticeable.

After the person had reached the door and gone into the room, we cut to a sign on the door which said, ‘Office’, this was a good cut and gave a good effect however we thought after filming that the office sign should of been before the character when in the door so that the audience knew what was happening and could follow the story easier.

We then had a shot where the character was inside the room and we had an over the shoulder shot of her walking, sitting down and putting the case on the table, this shot was good put is another one that could have been made into a few more shots with different angles.

When we did the part where the character had dialogue we set the sound levels to make sure we had really good sound so that they could be heard clearly. Unfortunately we missed out part of the brief which was to include a shot/reverse shot and this was quite an important part of the exercise.  Some of the shots run too long, like the hall shot. We are also missing a shot reverse shot. In all the shots we had great lighting even when the person walked through the door in the room. Throughout filming we had to make sure that the person acting came in the same clothes every time to keep with continuity.

Overall I think our Preliminary exercise could of gone better as there were a few parts which didn’t work for whatever reason, however most of it went as planned and for a first attempt the group was quite pleased.

There are two different ways of creating titles for a film in Adobe Premiere, either by using Premiere’s built-in Title Designer or creating titles in another program such as Photoshop and then putting them into Premiere. The simplest method is using the built-in designer because it is quicker and has helpful tools like the ability to see video frames underneath the title as it is being created. However the second way it allows you to use all the power of your favourite program for creating advanced titles. When the text for the titles has been entered, it can be moved and repositioned in the sequence. Once the file has been saved it will appear in the project window as a new item.

An editing log is a record of all the shots that were taken making a film, and kept on the tape. It can be done during filming or after filming finishes. It is a good way to make sure everyone gets the right information needed to edit the film correctly.

Below is an example of how an editing log can be made.