Screenplay

Lost in Love and War Screenplay

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Evaluation

Our film starts off with our production logo, which is not specific to one specific genre, like Working title fading into black, the are production company name fading into the screen in white Edwardian handwriting script font. This font denotes and helps identify that it is in a different time period as the font is an old style that we do not use in present day. We used this handwriting script as it ties in with the letter, to look like someone has written it.The non-diegetic music comes on shortly after our production logo comes on, the music also helps denote the time period of the film as it is very melancholy, slow piano music and fits in well with the pace of the film. It then pans the peaceful, tranquil garden, this signifies that nothing is wrong, the weather also helps signify this, calm and sunny. The opening scene we wanted to be a long shot as it helps establish the surroundings and also the time period so the audience would know straight away. It then goes into a high angle shot we symbolises that she is weak and vulnerable as stereotypically the woman is the weaker one and the man is the strong and protective one. We wanted the audience to think that she is just another stereotypical woman but if we were going to film the rest of it you would find out that it is her story of coping on her own in war, doing things that a man would have to do and she actually isn’t as weak and vulnerable as you first thought.

It then goes into a medium-long shot from a crossover transition, in the medium-long shot the audience get to see the woman’s face clearly for the first time, this is so you can identify her emotions. When she turns her head towards the camera and looks at something in the distance her expression on her face changes, this signifies something is wrong and what she is looking at is important. We have deliberately not shown the audience what she is looking at straight away, a narrative enigma, this helps build up tension.
In the medium-long shot, where the audience can identify a new character, a man in an army uniform holding a letter and a wallet in his hand which denotes that he has something important. He is looking down at the floor, avoiding looking up which signifies he is uncomfortable and with the music in the background, signifying he is bringing bad news.

When it goes into an over the shoulder shot from the mans perspective we see the woman walking in the centre of the frame in front of big glass white doors which are also central in the frame, this could help signify that she is the central protagonist. The medium long shot of her back walking towards him we didn't originally plan but we thought on the day we filmed it would like quite effective. The slow passing of the letter also signifies that it is important, the over the shoulder shot afterwards is used to see the woman’s expression, and she is staring at it which again is another signifier of the letters importance. The gate which separates the two characters could help signify a binary opposition but only a general one between differences in gender.The close up of the photo signifies that it is her and her husband; this is also made clearer when she strokes the photo, tying down anchorage to the audience

We put the monologue in, so when threes the shot of the letter, the audience can understand what she’s reading and if the audience are finding out the news at the same time she is, it helps the audience relate to the character more.

The close up of her face shows her emotions, but she raises her head slowly to look at the camera, this adds to the dramatic effect and could also signify her slowly realisation of whets happened.

I believe if this were a real film it would be generally a moderate budget film, as you would need the money for the correct costumes, mise-en-scenes and locations to create a film in a different time period such as Working titles, Atonement, Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapur 1998) and Pride and Prejudice (Joe Wright 2005). Working title do not specify in one type of genre and also try to attract international appeal by either using an American star such as Renee Zellweger in BJD (Sharon Maguire 2001) or using a stereotypical British setting. Another big film corporation that does not specify in one particular genre is New Line Cinema which created films such as The Notebook (Nick Cassavetes 2004) and the Lord of the rings trilogy (Peter Jackson 2001-03). Also another film production company that could be likely to produce our film is BBC films as it partnerships with major international and UK distributors such as Miramax, Fox and Sony. They aim to make strong British films with 'range and ambition' which would be suitable for ours as it is about the effects of WW2; it is from a British perspective of the war. Examples of BBC films are The Duchess (Saul Dibb 2008), The Other Boleyn Girl (Justin Chadwick 2008) and The Edge of Love (John Maybury 2008).

I believe that the most similar to our film is Working Titles Atonement (Joe Wright 2007) as it is all about British talent, as the two main characters are both British and is based on the effects of war and is also from a female’s perspective. It took an estimated £15 million to make Atonement and in the UK opening weekend took in around £1.6 million.
Also possible distributors for our film could be Studio Canal which distributed Working titles Atonement and Pride and Prejudice or the BBC which is also a distributor as well as a production company which produced and distributed films such as I Capture the Castle.
This film cost around £4 million to make and took in the UK opening weekend around £138,000. Working Titles Atonement made around $800,000 in the US opening weekend compared to BBC's I Capture the Castle which only took in $50,000.
Both working title and BBC both have experience in dramas set in the past so any one of these would be suitable to produce our film but because of larger distribution and American appeal, Working title would be a suitable film production company. As our film is set in WW2, this is a worldwide topic and would be easy for international audiences to understand. I also believe that our film would be in the budget area of around £10 million as it does not have as many war scenes in as Atonement does but mise-en-scene has to be considered in great detail in our film.
Our film is not a social-realist film, so would not be produced by production companies such as Warpx or WT2 which created films such as Donkey punch and Billy Elliot which were low budget films.

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I think in some ways it does challenge conventions of War Romances as it is all based on a female perspective of war, how women coped and coped well in the war and just because they weren't in the battlefield doesn't mean it wasn't just as hard, similar to Angelina Jolies character in the film Changeling (Clint Eastwood 2008). But in other ways it does follow the codes and conventions, as our female protagonist does get re-united with her husband and a happy ending is common in romance films, Atonement in this way does not follow this convention as both the main characters die before they get re-united.
From all these examples, even though we don’t want to limit out audience I would say that our target market is the ABC1 social class, upper middle class, middle class and lower middle class as these are the target audiences for Atonement, The Notebook and The Duchess. And also these would all have cross-over appeal to an older generation audience due to the time period.

The setting for our film, Lost in Love & war I feel was a very good choice as it fitted into the style and genre and most importantly, the time period of our film. It has a lot of foliage in the background which helped suggest a run-down feel to it and also signify the time of year as well. We had to be very careful, as it is set in 1944, that we didn't get any modern day items in the shots such as the burglar alarm on the front of the house which is why we did not pan the front of the house. I feel we achieved this, as I think our mise-en-scene was very good, for example the writing on the Man's jacket in the Over-the-shoulder shot, as we paid close attention to detail. I also think our costume choices fitted well to the character and the time period, for example the dress showed a hint of higher class but still did not signify one specific class.
I have photos of the Locations, on Locations, mise-en-scene, Costumes and Props, http://bethansmediablog.blogspot.com/2009/03/locations-mise-en-scene-costumes-and.html

The setting I feel was the correct size for the narrative as if it was too big it would suggest a lot of wealth which would be moving away from the preferred reading to the oppositional reading.
I feel we did film it quite well, we used a tripod for the majority of the shots but there is one particular shot that is a little bit shaky, the medium-long shot of the woman sitting down. This is because we did not use a tripod for this shot and if we were re-shooting we would redo this shot. Also if we were re-shooting, we would bring a tripod that would work as the one we took was broken and would not attach the video camera to the tripod properly.

But generally I think that the shots are still and contain good mise-en-scene. I also feel that it is coherent from shot to shot and the transitions are subtle and work well with the pace of the film for example the overlap transition. We managed to place the camera in the correct place and angle to fit in the whole body, for example, near the beginning of the first 2 minutes, there is a medium-long shot where the protagonist gets up and the whole body is still in frame when stood up. We also managed to get a range of angles and shot in our film such as, high angle, low angle, close-up, long shot, medium shot, Over the shoulder shot and medium-long shot.

Unused shaky clip, medium-long shot of protagonist.

If we got the chance to re-film the changes I would make is that we would include a long shot of the man at the gate from near where the protagonist was sitting as I feel it establishes the character better. We were actually thinking of doing this but unfortunately due to costume difficulties we could only shots from waist upwards.

This clip we didn't use, but it shows Tom's jeans which is an example of why we couldn't use several shots or shot the long s

We made the decision to make our film black and white to help tie down anchorage that it was set in the 1940's. I feel it is effective and works well with the black and white titles.
We did not include the OTS shot of her reading the letter as intended as we already had an OTS shot of her looking at the photo, also all the shots we had of the letter were shaky so we felt we couldn't use them so we decided to go for a close-up instead so the audience could see the most important words ' Missing presumed dead.'
We first began our film, basing it on Atonement, as it was around the same time period and set during the same war. It also started with a black screen fading into a shot, this also happens in Pride and Prejudice and I capture the Castle, which all link into, drama, romance and are set in the past. The black screen gradually fading into black seems to be a convention of drama, as all these drama that I have analysed start of gradually, slow paced. You can find these, which I have analysed on Common codes and Conventions of film openings, http://bethansmediablog.blogspot.com/2009/02/common-codes-and-conventions-of-film.html

Our idea, initially was that she got a letter saying her husband was dead but then we had the idea of saying he was missing, presumed dead as this adds much more dramatic effect. This also lead us on to the idea of flashbacks, such as in 'I capture the castle' (Tim Fywell 2003) where the character is introduced first then fades into a shot of when she was younger then her older talking over it and Titanic (James Cameron 1997) where it starts with the older woman. We did want to do something like this, we did have the idea of at the start an older woman in her 60's/70s' reading the letter but we couldn't find anyone to do this so instead we got a woman of around 40 to read the letter and we put it in near the end when she’s reading the letter. This way I feel still works but the flashback I feel would of been more effective.

From my research I found that our target audience is generally the ABC1 class, the music and setting fit into this. Our opening shot of a garden and piano music is similar to the opening of Pride and Prejudice which has the same target audience even though its BBFC rating is a U, but this is because it has no strong language as it was set in the 19th century. I know that our actors are quite young, 17 year olds playing characters in their early 20's but I feel we chose the right costumes and tried to disguise it quite well. As both are characters are Caucasian it could signify that are target audience is only Caucasian as in the 1940's there was a low non-Caucasian popularity but I don't feel this would affect our audience appeal to ethnic groups as Atonements main characters were both Caucasian and the film took in around £1.6 million in its UK opening weekend.

Our actors in our film don't actually speak but the woman we got to read the letter has no distinct answer so doesn't discriminate or represent any particular regional identity. The voice over is suitable as our film is set in London and the Woman who read our monologue has a well-spoken voice which is clear and easier to understand, epically for the American audiences which helps create cross-over appeal. There is more a target audience on Target audience and BBFC rating, http://bethansmediablog.blogspot.com/2009/03/target-audience-and-bbfc.html

Keria Knightley and James Mcavy in Atonement

When we filmed our first rough cut, we found that most of the shot types we wanted did work effectively, we added some more shot types in, for example a low angle of our protagonist.
The narrative of our film did generally stay the same through out the whole process, a woman finding out that her husband was missing, presumed dead, the genre again stayed the same but the BBFC rating we did change a lot. At first it was a PG, then we turned it into a 12 but then after the idea of the flashbacks we thought of including flashback through out the whole film, if we ere to film it. We also needed love complications in our storyline to add to the drama so eventually, like Atonement we chose the BBFC rating of 15. Our location always remained the same as we felt it worked very well with the genre and the narrative so we didn't change the location and also because we had a lot of variety in our location also, there were many areas of the garden we could of shot in. Props wise we created the letter ourselves, by staining it with a teabag, we used a very aged book, which we found right at the start of the research process. On the first day of filming we did find the photo and the wallet, so we added it in and also had to add in extra shot and also take some shots out such as the OTS of the letter.




For the female character, there were many options for her costumes; we had many dresses to use, and many blouses but not many skirts to use. We ended up choosing a floral dress as it matches with the make-up, hair and shoes and also the class of the character. The costume for the guy also remained the same, it was an army cadet uniform we borrowed from air cadets. Unfortunately we didn’t have any trousers to fit the time period of the film so we could only shoot him from the waist upwards which is why we couldn't shot the long shot of him.

Floral dress

When we screened it the first time, the audience feedback we got was that the costumes were good just the shots towards the end were too long. This did influence our final cut as we did try and edit it so the shots weren't too long and we even added a low-angle shot to break it up.
We then screened it again and many people of different age ranges said the music was very fitting and that it fitted the editing. Everyone we screened it to understood the narrative of the film. After we filmed our rough cut we started filming straight away and on some shots we didn’t use a tripod. The shots that we didn’t use the tripod were shaky, so the second time we filmed we always, when possible used the tripod.

From doing the prelim task it helped me understand the editing in imovie, I learnt how to add transitions and Titles and adjust volume levels so when editing out film I found it quite easy to edit. The cutting of clips didn’t actually take that long it was the timing that was the issue, we did have quite a lot of material to chose from, we had extra shots which to took, such as a low angle of the man passing the letter. Putting the fading and overlapping transitions was again quite easy; we jus had to make adjustments to how long these transitions took as some of them were too fast.
From my Prelim task I have learnt how to shoot the 180 degree rule and a match-on-action shot but we didn't included these two aspects in our film but we did learnt to use a close-up shot straight after action has happened to help identify the characters reactions.
It would have been helpful to have better panning equipment as it was quite hard to pan a long shot as the tripod was a bit stiff and when we put it on imovie found that the shot was not coherent and jerked a bit.Filming, we did use auto-focus and did not go on manual-focus at all. Aspects of lighting, we didn't use any extra, the sun was our source of light, but if it were a big budget film it would of been useful to have extra lightening, for example spotlighting when she's lying on the rug or lighting on the close-up of the woman's face to create shadows.

A unused clip of a low angle shot.

Another unused clip is on Cinematography and editing

From doing the prelim task I used music that was already available on imovie but for our final piece we found our music, 'melancholy piano' from freeplay.com, a copyright free website. From doing my prelim task I found it easy it adjust the volume levels, so we added our monologue we still wanted the music playing but just quieter and this was very easy to do. To get our monologue onto our film all we did was use the video recorder and filmed someone saying it then imported it onto imovie and extracted the audio. In our film there is a noticeable hiss in the background and it is made clearer because we of the editing of the sound. We have tried to turn the audio down so the background noise isn't as noticeable as before but unfortunately you still can hear it.What I found unhelpful on imovie was when going back to edit our film, is was much harder to edit due to all the transitions in and the music in sync with all the transitions, when we wanted to re-edit, all the transitions got lost. It was however, easy to add titles in different fonts and add the fade to black transition in, which was a key transition for our movie due to it being in many films we looked at, Brief Encounter, Atonement and Pride and Prejudice

DVD Cover

We also designed a DVD cover, taking big influence from the cover of Atonment. The top image is one I took, the second I just found from google.

Spotlighted Productions logo

For our logo we decided to use a city landscape with a spotlight to link with 'spotlighted'.

We use photoshop elements 2.0 to edit it.

We realize that this logo is modern and does not fit into the genre of our film but if this were a real film company then it would be similar to working title, in that we wouldn't be specific to one genre, unlike Merchant ivory.

Lost in Love & War - Final cut 1

Here we need to change the font of the titles into one that is more relevant to suit the style of the 1940's. We also need to add our production logo in at the beginning. We also need to sort out the audio at the beginning, there are still some of our voices in at the background, and there is a lot a slight hiss in the audio at the end. We also need to add in the subtitle ' June 1944, London' at the beginning, in the panning shot. We also need to edit the panning shot so the shot ends with the woman in the centre of the frame.

Rough final cut

This is not edited fully yet. We still have to turn down all the audio of us speaking in the background. We also need to sort of the timing of the music. We need to add in our production company name in at the beginning and add in transitions to make the transition from shot to shot less sharp and more subtle, for example the long shot to high angle shot. We also need to take out the medium panning shot and edit the shots towards the end when she has the letter as at the moment they are a bit too long, as we found out from our audience feedback.

Cinematography and Editing

We chose to use a long panning shot right at the start as it identifies the setting straight away. We then go straight into a high angle, from an cross dissolve transition, so to make the transition appear more subtle, as it identifies the character and what she is doing. We then go into a medium shot of her so we can still see what she is doing and also get to see her facial expressions which is key as she looks up and her face changes once she sees someone in the distance. From high angle to the medium shot there is also another, but slower overlap transition, as we found without it the transition looked quite sharp and the overlap softened it. We were going to do a low angle here but we thought firstly this would give off the wrong message if deconstructing it. In this point in the film she is not suppose to look strong and in control, she is just about to receive some terrible news and also a low angle wouldn’t give us a strong enough view of her facial expressions. We had to reshoot the medium shot as on the first shot we didn’t film that shot on a tripod so it was shaky. 

In the Medium shot when she stands up, she drops the book which emphasizes that something is wrong.We then went to a medium shot of a man, an army officer holding the letter, we were going to have a long shot but unfortunately we couldn’t find any 1940's style trousers so we could only film him from the waist up. We then go to an OTS shot from the man’s shoulder to see the woman walking towards him and we get the writing on his uniform in the shoot which helps symbolises his role, then quickly into a medium/close up of her face to see her facial expression. We used this as it was suppose to be from the man's perspective and also to get the doorstep in the shot as it will be used later.We then have a medium-long shot from behind the woman to identify that it’s 'her story' and it’s in her eyes again and also to see more of the army officer. It then goes into a close up of their hands, him passing her the letter, we chose it has a close up to signify that what is in the letter is important. We then went to an OTS shot again to see the woman’s expression once she has got the letter which is key to the film as it sets the mood for the film.We then go to a medium-long shot of her walking back up the garden path to the doorstep which we realised we had to put in after filming the first time. It then goes to a medium shot of her sitting on the doorstep and then an OTS shot of her looking at a photo which we weren’t going to have originally but we found the photo at last minute. We then go into a close up of the photo so the audience have a clearer view of what she’s seeing. When she strokes the photo this symbolises that it is very important to her and that the person in the photo is someone she loves. We then go out again to a medium shot to identify that she is now opening the letter then to a close up panning of the letter. We also edited in a voice over, dialogue of the letter so it’s easier for the audience to understand and creates a dramatic effect.It then goes into a close up of her face so the audience can read her facial expressions which create a reaction with the audience. It then goes into a medium-long shot of her getting up and walking out of the shot. We ended it like this because if we were doing the whole film then it would of leapt ahead into the future and leaving it just a still image with no-one in it is dramatic and signifies that she is now alone.We managed to put a lot of old objects so our mise-en-scene is fairly strong. For example the Book, and photo are both very old and we made the letter look old by staining it with a teabag.

The Letter

We wrote this letter by using an original letter from world war II with a similar purpose (see link below).http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/images/133image04.jpg



For filming we used an original envelope from the 1940's sent from the war and we used a letter holder and a wedding picture that were taken to war by a soldier.

This is the letter we composed...

The Letter

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Sound and Music

These are just a couple of websites where you can find copyright free music:http://www.freeplaymusic.com/http://www.akmmusic.co.uk/http://www.soundzabound.com/To record the dialogue we needed we simply filmed someone saying it and then on imovie extracted the audio and allowed us to cut bits out we didn’t want and extract it on the clip we wanted. This would help provide anchorage, as it helps the audience understand. The music was also easy to upload onto our movie. After a week of searching we found the right one, copyright free from http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ called 'Melancholy Piano.' We originally wanted 1940's music but couldn't find the right ones, they were all too fast-paced. We just downloaded it onto iTunes then dragged it in to imovie. The music is just a piano playing softly but dramatically, it is not quick paced which fits into the editing and the context of the situation. It helps create the dramatic tension and helps the audience react. It also fits well with the scenes and dramatises and the right points in the film for example when the woman pulls out the photograph.This music because it could be described as a classical piece, appeals to the ABC1 social class, upper-middle class, middle class and lower middle class.

Production schedule and production notes

Production Schedule and Notes

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Genre research

Films similar to ours:









The War Bride is about a woman who marries a Canadian Soldier and then he goes to war. She has his baby then has to go and live with his family. This is similar to our film as it looks at the affects of the women left behind and the effects and emotions when the man returns from war.

The film starts with an elderly man reading a love story from a notebook to a fellow female patient. It then goes to flashbacks of a relationship between a man and a woman. Our film follows the same themes of having love, loosing it then discovering it again.

From researching I have found that the common conventions for a romance is that they couple that are in love get together in the end and it ends happily, like the audience are hoping, or in other cases such as Atonement, they don't end up together.
Many dramas such as Pride and Prejudice and I capture the Castle and Atonement all start with a black screen and gradually fade in and then music gradually comes on as well, from these three that I have analysed it seems that this is a common convention when using slow-paced editing.
All these films are dramas and all have well-known British casts as they were created by Working Title and BBC films. Also another thing that these films have in common is that they were all books before they got turned into films.

Hardware

We used the school video camcorders, Canon digital video camcorder MD101 which were easy to use, we just had to make sure that we rewound the DV tape properly so we didn’t recorded over anything before we put it on the computer. Before we shoot each scene we put a blank piece of white paper in front of the camcorder to make sure each shot had the same white balance. It was also easy to put the footage from the camcorder to imovie, all we had to do was get the correct cable and connect it to the camcorder and the computer and put it on the right setting on imovie and press import. We made sure we had rewound the DV tape before we did this.From using the camcorder I found it was better not to use the zoom option as the quality of the image was not as good so instead we just moved the camera further. For example when we wanted a close up of the photo on our first shooting we used the Zoom tool on the camcorder but it was a little bit blurry so on out second filming session we just put the camera closer, but zoomed out.We also used a school tripod so our shots weren’t shaky.

Software

When Editing are film we noticed a lot of advantages with using imovie 06. We were able to use the fading into black transition as it was already set up for us and all we had to was highlight the clip we wanted and click apply. We were also able to turn our entire film into black and white as this device was already on imovie as well and was very simple to use. It turned our whole film into black and white in only a couple of minutes. We were able to cut out the bits we didn’t want very quickly but we had to open a new imovie account if we wanted to save the existing clip.It was also very easy to extract audio, all we had to do was film someone speaking, then click 'extract audio' and then all we had to do was drag the sound were we wanted.What we couldn't do was turn the clips into sepia as imovie 06 doesn't have that tool. What imovie 06 doesn't have which would be useful is to be able to cut into the frames, like Photoshop, if you didn’t want something in the scene.But it is very easy to add sound; all we had to do was drag it from iTunes into imovie and is also very easy to remove sound and to vary the levels in each clip.The software was suitable for what we wanted, as all our clips had to be steady and had to flow so the editing was fairly simple and was easy to see which ones were shaky and which ones weren't.

Casting

For are female we used our friend Brooke Shipley who does A level Drama. In our rough cut her acting fitted the part perfectly and she really understood what we wanted and her facial expressions were great. We made her look older by putting on lots of make-up and bright red lipstick on by doing her hair up in a 1940's style. This also made her look older as we wanted the female protagonist to be in her early twenties. Having a central female protagonist would attract alot of female viewers, having a young actress would attract the younger generation. For example Keria Knightly in 'Pride and Prejudice' which attracted a lot of older female viewers as it was a well known book and TV series as well as the younger viewers who are fans of Keria Knightly as she is a well-known actress. The fact that it is set in WW2 would attract many of the older generation.There is a man in our film but only for a few seconds, signifying that he is not an important character in the play. However the letter he is holding is important and we have shown this by shooting a close-up of the letter.We used Tom to play the role of the army officer as in the 1940's there was only a small population of non-Caucasian and so we felt that a Caucasian actor would of been better fitting for the role. We also had to hide Tom's hair in the hat as stereotypically in the army; the men have short hair as they have to cut it off.

Film synopsis

Our WW2, 1940's themed movie can be summed up in these short words:

Atonement meets the Notebook.

Auidence feedback

We showed a few people our film but we told them it was unedited and it needed some work:

Charlotte, Abi and Emily (17 yrs old) - that it looks 1940's but there are too many shots of the letter towards the end and abit too long. The setting was really good, as were the costumes.

Tina-(40) setting and costumes were excellent and the actress had a good 1940's face. The shots from frame to frame were nice and smooth with little jerky camera work.
Chris - (40)liked the camera work and also the use of objects to tell the story and how we didnt need dialogue and also the music is very effective.

We also put our film on Facebook and got a few comments:

'it was really impressive. Loved it. Music is really fitting'

'Looks very professional, wouldn't change a thing!!'

'Like how the music makes it more dramatic'

Because are auidence has a wide age range we tried to get as much feeback from different ages as possible.

Because some people said that some of the shots were too long towards the end we did try and edited as much out as possible but still also considering the pace of the film as well.

We then showed it again, to the same people and generally they all really liked it but they did suggest that we needed a logo at the beginning. So we then went back and created a logo which we put into our film.

Katy Perry's 'Thinking of you video'

This is roughly what are idea is based on. This video came out around the time we were coming up with ideas and this is what influenced us in making our film. We took influences from this music video such as the telegram she gets saying her husband is dead.

Microdrama and narrative theory

In our micro drama we used Propps character types, the villain, the magical helper, the princess and the hero. Other 3 characters that we did not include are the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero. In this task we dressed Helena up in boy’s clothes and put her in the role of the 'stable boy' whose in love with the princess. He rescues the princess when the evil witch kidnaps her. When we were shooting this we were not really concentrating on camera angles but we did managed to get some varied shots for example a close up of the hero when he’s looking at the princess and an over the shoulder shot when the princess is looking in the mirror. A high angle show when the witch is dead, lying on the floor to make her look weak and vulnerable. We did not apply Propps narrative theory into our main film ' Lost in Love and War' as we only have one main character in the first two minutes.Todorov's narrative theory is that stories should begin with equilibrium, where opposing forces are in balance until they are disrupted by an event, setting up a chain of events.You could say we briefly incorporated this theory, as in our film, at the start things are fine until she gets this letter which sets of her great unhappiness.

Target audience and BBFC

The age range for our film is 15 - 35 females based on the actors ages and also because it is a war romance which in general is appealing to women. It is appealing to a range of ages because firstly because it’s set in war times this would be appealing to the older generation and the fact that it is a romance appeals to females of all ages. But there is cross-over appeal to an older generation due to the period, music and setting. The main protagonist is a young woman which would appeal to the younger generation. The BBFC which stands for, The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body, which has classified cinema films since it was set up in 1912 and videos since the passing of the Video Recordings Act in 1984. We have decided to put our film at a BBFC rating of 15, which means 'Suitable only for 15 years and over. No-one younger than 15 may see a '15' film in a cinema.' If we were going to do flashbacks of her husband in war then it would contain moderate to strong violence and not be suitable for viewers younger than 15. Because the main character is early 20's then there might 'contain strong language choices' and also 'moderate sex references'. Atonement (Joe Wright 2007) which influenced our film is at a BBFC rating of 15 because of the sex references and the war scenes.In the first two minutes of our film the only characters are both Caucasian but I don’t think that this would affect the appeal to a non-Caucasian audience, Atonements central characters were both Caucasian and in their opening weekend in the UK they took over 1.5 million pounds. It is also due to the time period our film was set in, it was not as common as it is now to have a multi-ethnic society.Our main target audience are females because our film is a war romance which is seen as a female film. Our main protagonist is a young woman which means you could apply the male-gaze theory which would be appealing to males. Also woman would take their boyfriends and husbands to see this movie as a romance is a typical date movie. Another factor is that we have incorporated the theme of war which is a stereotypical male theme, for example war films such as’ Saving Private Ryan' (Steven Spielsperg 1998) and 'Apocalypse Now' (Francis Ford Coppola 1979).

We have tried not to restrict our audience so we tried to avoid stereotyping, we don’t have anything that suggests it’s centred around one region. Because our film is set in the 1940's the majority of our audience wont of been around at that time so Our film, in this first 2 minutes the characters do not speak as such but we do have dialogue, whilst the woman is reading the letter we have dialogue of the letter been spoken by her in the future. The woman who is reading it is older and has a clear, well-spoken accent with no regional content so it has a larger UK-wide audience as it does not discriminate against any regions. It also would be recognisable for foreign audiences and the American audience, as it is easy to understand. We have also set our film in London so again it is easier for the American and Foreign audiences to understand. Working title often set their films in London, such as Bridget Jones's Diary (Sharon Maguire 2001) as it is familiar and more understandable to an international audience. Either that or WT set it in a rural countryside location, such as Wild Child, (Nick Moore 2008) which is stereotypical British.

In our film we've tried to leave the borders of class differences blurred but because of the period and the setting and also the music at the beginning I would say this helps attract the ABC1 market, the upper, and middle class. . Mise-en-scene along with costume seems to suggest that the characters within the first two minutes are of upper middle class, though this isn't exactly that clear. Research shows that most period/wartime drama's appeal to the upper class but the incorporation of the actual war scenes would hopefully attract other classes as well.Are film is similar to Atonement, the Notebook (Nick Cassavetes 2004), Pride and Prejudice (Joe Wright 2005), so we already have a fan base of people who enjoy period films. It also has the appeal of a romance which has a wide audience appeal.If we were to do the whole film then to create some tension between some characters then a gay character would be used as at that time period it was not greatly accepted and would create some dramatic devices and would also draw in the 'pink pound' appeal. The main protagonist is in love with her husband but as she thinks he’s dead, she would have an affair with another man, so where sexuality is concerned it has a wide-audience appeal.

rough cut

Our rough cut was 80% filmed on my phone camera as the battery ran out on our video camera. We edited it in black and white to make it look aged as it is set in WW2. We are still deciding on our music, old 1940s music, radio announcements etc. Because we were restricted with the amount of filming we could do as it is shorter than we hoped and we didnt get all the camera angles we wanted, for example, the panning at the beginning.

Locations, Mise-en-scene, costumes and props.

Costume ideas for our female protagonist who has to wear clothes in the style of the 1940's.
These are just a couple of options for the female protagonist to wear which we found in the costume cupboard in school.
We also have a costume for the army officer which we borrowed from air cadets.



But we finally decided on a blue and red floral knee length dress which fitted the critera of what we wanted, 1940's but not too posh. It co-ordinates with the hair and make-up as well as fitting into the setting. It is similar to the style and dress of what Keria Knightley wears in the Edge of Love (John Maybury 2008).




Keria Knightley and Sienna Miller in the 2008 'The Edge of Love.'

We checked out many locations for our film but we decided on this one as it fitted perfectly into the whole genre and time period that we want our film to be. The house itself is very dated and was built around the time of the 1850's. The garden is run-down but has a tranquil feel to it. There is a stone arch which will look great in the background. The gate, which is very important in our film, fits well as the design and colour is dated and not at all modern. Also the gate is a barrier bewtween the Man and the Women to signify the contrast. Because the house is looks like it could be in a WW2 film then it does not matter too much if we catch the house in our shots. The doorstep is going to be included towards the end of the 2 mins but there is nothing that symbolises modern day.

Hair Ideas

Keria Knightley in The Edge Of Love,

• Loose natural looking


• Clipped to the side to show actress's face.


• Natural hair to show that shes in a comfortable, relaxed and natural situation and cant afford to have it styled.
  
  
  
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2QyEWv4WDo

We also managed to get a very old photo taken in the 1940's and a very old, aged book which also would help identify the time period.

Names for films

Possible names for our films, 'engaged in war', 'make war', 'take the field against', 'warfare', ' give up arms' ' war valentine', 'my wartime love', 'Cost of war', 'Lost in war'.
We finally decided on 'Lost in Love and War.'

Storyboard

The establishing shot is going to be a long shot of a tranquil garden, peaceful.

It then moves into a high angle focusing on a woman lying down reading a book, front view.

We then move to a side view of a medium shot of her turning her face towards the camera. It then goes into a medium shot her leaning up, still looking at something in the distance.

The camera then goes into a long shot of a man waiting at a gate, then goes quickly into a medium-close up shot so we can see some emotion and identify the new character.

We then go to an OTS shot from the man (army officer) looking at the woman walking towards her

When she is nearer we are in a new shot, a medium-close up of her face.

There is then a close up shot of hands passing the letter, then quickly an over the shoulder shot from the man to see the woman's emotions.

Then there is a medium-long shot of her walking to the doorstep.

There is then a medium long shot of her sitting down an the doorstep, then going to an OTS shot of her looking at a photo and a close-up of the photo.

Then it goes to a medium-long shot of her opening a letter

Then a low angle

Then a OTS shot of the letter

We then go to an extreme close-up of her face, to show her emotion.

It then ends with a medium-long shot, while the woman walks out of the shot but the camera does not track her.

This is what is on out storyboard so a couple of the camera angles might change depending on when we film, what we feel works better.

spotlighted - production company

We have decided on the name of our production company, 'Spotlighted'. We initially wanted to use 'spotlight' but from our research on Google we found out that this has already been used.
We also thought of another name, 'scripted' from scriptwriting but we preferred spotlighted.
Our logo we have designed is going to be of a city e.g. New York at night time and on Photoshop apply a spotlight through the middle and in the middle have the words 'Spotlighted Productions.'

Other ideas for our film

For our film we have discussed the possible idea of a flashback at the beginning, of an old woman reading the same letter, now old, that will be shown later on. This idea was influenced by the film 'Titanic' (James Cameron 1997).This letter would include the words 'august 1943' and the surroundings would have to signify that this is now the present day, this flashback will help break up the present from the past. - We were going to have a few fade into black transitions but instead we would use these flashbacks to help break it up.
There is hardly any speech in our film; it’s going to be a slow-paced film so we need the correct music in it. Another possible idea is that we could have the radio on in the background, playing old 1940's music and this would die down when she sees the man and/or the music would change.
We also discussed the idea of having a child, who would be the woman’s son or daughter. They would be in the long shot at the beginning only to identify she is a mother right at the beginning. When the woman has read the letter the child would say' mummy where daddy' to get an emotional response from the audience as they audience are now informed of the situation.
We have also decided to change the storyline of the film slightly. Instead of the letter saying her husband was killed in an accident it is going to say that he is 'Missing and presumed dead'. This gives the audience hope that there will be a happy ending, which if we were going to film the whole film then there would of been, her husband still would be alive.
We also have decided not to have all those fade in, fade out transitions in-between each shot as we didn’t think it would help the coherency of the film and have just decided to have the black fade transition and the beginning and the end.
We also had the idea of having a voice over when she is reading the letter so the audience can know what it says on the letter so it’s easier to understand and adds to dramatic effect. It could be the main character or an older woman, her in the future reading it or it could be a man who wrote the letter. This would help provide anchorage to the reader.

final group idea for film

Genre: Drama
Setting: England during World War II
Target audience: 15-35+ Women
Rating: 15
Music: Slow paced piano music.
Throughout shots - sad, slow tempo
Location: In a cottage garden
Casting: Early twenties woman and man.

Starts with black screen which fades into production logo and then fades into a long shot of a garden with a woman sitting down, reading on a rug. It then goes into a high angle shot of her reading and then quickly into a medium shot where she looks up and sees something in the distance. It then goes into a medium-long shot of her standing up, pausing and walking out of the shot.It then goes into a medium shot of a man in an army uniform at a gate holding his hat in his hand and a letter in the other.It then goes into an OTS shot from the man’s perspective and we see the woman walking towards him.We then go into a close up of them passing the letters.
It then goes into a long shot of her walking and sitting down.A medium shot of her sitting down opening the letter.An OTS shot of her reading the letter.Close up tracking shot of writing on a letter 'inform you that your husband is missing presumed dead.' with a tear dropping onto it - exaggerated diegetic noise then the ink running.The shot will then fade into a close up of the woman's face with tears falling down her face.The shot will then switch to a long shot of the woman getting up and walking out of the shot.

Prelim task - soulja to cry on

Prelim task - overview

Me, Holly, Helena, Megan and Saskia all helped film and create our prelim task - 'A soulja to cry on'. Generally I feel that the finished product fulfils what we wanted but there are several areas we could have improved on. We had to rush the storyboard a bit so we could have spent more time on discussing camera angles and shots. From this the quality could of been a bit better, at the start the camera work is a bit shaky. I do believe we incorporated the 180 degree rule and it is easy for the audience to understand what is going on. I feel even though we had a very short time to prepare it, we did quite well and we got a successful film. We filmed it at school, in one lunch time; we chose to film it at school because it was easy to access. I feel that the transition between some shots could have been a bit smoother but I feel the music went well with it. There could have been more fluidity between certain scenes to make the whole thing more coherent.
Next time I will have a more detailed storyboard and plan, with more time working out camera angles etc.
It goes against the convention that the girl is always the weak and venerable one whereas here it is the guy and the girl is being the stronger one. It represents the social group of young adults; teenagers as all the characters are 17/18 and it is set in school which is a signifier that it is about youths. Because of this the audience would be teenagers, females and males.
What I've learnt from this experience is that unless you are doing a social-realism film you really need a tripod as some of the camera work is shaky and you want your audience to think it is realistic.

Common codes and conventions of film openings

There are no fixed rules in film openings, they all differ.Titles are often used in the first 2 minutes, actors/actresses names, directors, producers etc. Some have them all in the first couple of minutes where as others spread the titles out or don’t have any until a couple of minutes in, such as the 2008 film ' Twilight.

Brief Encounter - (David Lean 1945)

''Brief Encounter' starts with a Black and White image of New York with the words 'GFC' in Big white lettering and then fades into the production logo. Are film is going to be similar to this, our logo is even similar. Our opening clip is going to fade out from black into a long shot which is the same as Brief Encounter; it fades from Black into a long shot of a train pulling away. When the train pulls away then the title of the film comes on in big white serif lettering along with the director’s name, followed by actors and actresses names, still on the same clip. For the majority of the first 2 minutes it is just titles which are in contrast to ours, as ours is moving image. Another similarity is that Brief Encounter is in black and white, as is ours and they have non-diegetic piano music playing as do we. In the first two minutes of Brief Encounter there really is no anchorage into what the films going to be about as it is still focusing on the same image and we only got brief introduction into one character.Brief Encounter - The opening 2 minutesIt starts with a black and white scene of New York with 'G.F.C' in big white lettering then fades into production logo whilst non-diegetic music, big brass band, old music comes on. It fades from black into a long shot of a steam train pulling out of the station and moving away from the camera. Lots of smoke covers half of the shot which could signify mystery. The platform is deserted and is dimly lit by 2 overhanging lights but is backlit and there is still an after smoke in the air.When the train moves away into the distance, the Title of the films fades into the shot along with the director’s name above it in smaller writing. This is not common nowadays; the directors name is normally separated from the Title. Non-diegetic piano music starts playing. It remains on the same shot whilst the actors and actresses names come on screen, the font gets smaller as it goes along signifying they aren't as important as the ones at the beginning. The music changes into an orchestra, string music, more titles come on, composers, editors etc.After the last titles, a train comes into the platform, towards the camera and the music dies out.It then goes into a high angle shot of the train and then a medium -long shot of the a man who appears to be dressed as the conductor at his looks as his pocket watch when the train pulls in and his clothing, black blazer and waistcoat with a hat signifies he works at the station. It then goes into a long shot of the back of the train. The man then walks across the railway lines to get to the other side would could signify his position, that he’s allowed to do that and the time era, that it was more acceptable then than it is now.There is then a match-on-action shot where he walks through a door and then there is a medium shot of him on the other side and in the station cafe.

Opening 2 minutes of Romeo and Juliet - Baz Luhrmann 1997

InstitutionDirector: Baz LuhrmannRelease Date: 28 March 1997 (UK)Production Companies: Bazmark Films and Twentieth CenturyFox Film Corporation. Bazmark films have also produced Moulin Rouge and Australia.Music: Nellee HooperThe budget was $14,500,000 and in the opening weekend it made $11,133,231 in the USA on 1,276 ScreensNot filmed in Verona, Filmed in California and Mexico

Beginning of the clipPlain blank screen, small old fashioned T.V in the middle, the production companies are presented on the television screen like television programs, this is signified by the “clicking” sound which sounds like the channel is being changed.The prologue is shown as a news broadcast, this is denoted by the style of program that is shown, for example the news presenter and the picture in the right corner.The women starts taking in the Shakespearean language, this signifies that the film is set in the past.The language is in binary opposition to the modern day T.V. screen and news broadcast.The style in which the prologue is shown as a news broadcast could signify the film to be a docu-drama style.The prologue denotes that there will be “civil blood, which make civil hands un-clean” this connotes that there will be some violence in the film.The news broadcast finishes with the news reader saying “ is now the 2 hour traffic of our stage”. This quote could be anchorage that this film is based on a play and the word stage signifies this.The picture of Juliet's ring broken in the corner signifies broken bonds (in love)Second part of the clipThere is sudden non diegetic music when the camera moves closer into the TV, this makes the viewer feel like their going into the story. It could also be like a tape is fast forwarding.There is an extreme long shot showing the statue of Jesus Christ which is in the middle of the Montague and Capulet high rise buildings. This statue is a binary opposite to the modern building surrounding it. This opposition signifies that this film is trying to bring the religion from the original Shakespeare play and put it with the modern day world. This is also shown later when lines from the prologue are used as newspaper headlines.The cameras movement through the different “clips” of Verona is shaky, which suggests that it was filmed on a helicopter because most of the shots are Arial shots. This is further anchorage that the film is a docu-drama style.The monologue is the Priest repeating the prologue which is voiced over the clips of Verona and newspaper headlines.The family tree is shown and a blazing fire is shown after it, this could signify anger and death in the two families.Binary opposition between the words “fair Verona” and how Verona is being represented.Non diegetic music builds up to create tension and drama.Close up shots of some of the characters and the character names which also signifies a docu-drama style.Various clips are then shown in a montage which is narrative enigma because it creates mystery and makes the viewer want to know what is going to happen.


Some openings, especially nowadays use intertextual references to help identify the genre of their film. Others use post modernism, such as Romeo and Juliet which uses the T.V. to present the production companies.
Some openings are very fast-paced such as the opening to the 2008 James Bond film 'Quantum of Solace where as other are very slow-paced like Pride and Prejudice and Brief Encounter.

Atonement - (Joe Wright 2007)

It starts off with a black screen with the production company in small white lettering in a typewriter font, there is a diegetic typewriter noise in the background. When the Title 'Atonement' comes on letter by letter and the typewriter noise becomes more exaggerated.
It then jumps straight to a medium-close up shot of a model-doll house and the words 'England 1935' come on at the bottom of the screen in small white lettering. The typewriting noise is still going on. The camera then pans the room; it follows a line of toy, plastic animals which signifies it is a child's room. The camera then identifies the typewriter is a young girl, still typing, the camera moves slowly in, the typing gets louder and quicker, signifying that maybe she is mad. It then goes quickly into a high angle of the back of her head and the camera then pans to the side of her head then quickly goes into an extreme-close up of her eyes, so you can see her facial expression. The camera is still panning and non-diegetic soft, piano music starts playing.
The camera then goes into a close up of her hands typing, the camera then pans to the top of the typewriter and onto the paper, stopping on the words ' The end' which is a contrast to th film itself as it is the beginning of the film. The girl then rips the paper out of the paper dramatically and aggressively, again signifying that she is mad or in a rush, and places it on top of other papers. She then places another piece on top and the camera zooms onto it and identifies the girls name, it is then taken quickly away followed by the camera quickly going into a medium shot of her walking quickly towards the door, The camera zooms out at the same time turning into a long shot.
Our film is similar to this opening as ours starts with a Black screen with the production name on it and also has subtitles informing the audience what year its set it.

Pride and Prejudice - (Joe Wright 2005) Working title.

Starts with a Black screen, similar to our film 'Lost in Love and War', with a diegetic bird noise in the background. We did actually have a bird noise in the background but because of problems with audio we had to turn it down. It then fades into shot; again like ours into a long shot of a peaceful field, similar to ours, it is morning as there is a sunrise in the background as dew glistening on the grass. The Production company name fades in slowly into the shot in small serif font lettering, central in the frame. The sun gets brighter and slowly non-diegetic piano music gradually starts playing, as it gets louder and faster the sun gets brighter. The title 'Pride and Prejudice' fades into screen in bigger lettering, same font, and centre of the frame. There is still the diegetic bird noise in the background.
It then goes into a medium shot of a female reading a book, the camera is facing her, tracking her as she walks, it then goes into an over the shoulder shot of the book, which is similar to ours except it is a letter and she’s not walking. It then goes into an extreme long shot to identify the surrounding, a house with cloths hanging on the washing line, farm animals everywhere which signifies their class and that they are not that wealthy. The female is walking through the washing lines and all the clothes that are hanging are all white which could connote innocence and purity. The camera tracks her until it gets to an open door and the female walks out of the shot, again this is similar to ours as our female character walks out of a shot.
This opening, in many ways is quite similar to ours, as it is slow paced, subtle editing and melancholy piano music is playing in the background. It also has many similar shots types such as opening with a tranquil, peaceful environment and the over the shoulder shot of her reading the book.

I capture the castle -(Tim Fywell 2003)

Starts off with the company logo then fades into a black screen, very similar to our film, with the company name in typewriter font, in white small lettering in the corner of the screen. Quiet piano non-diegetic music starts playing. A source of light appears gradually and gets brighter until we can identify that it is fire from a matchstick, there is a face faded into the background. The camera is focused on the matchstick until the character removes it from shot and the character comes into focus. It is a young female, 17/18 years old with short blonde hair, an extreme close-up. There is then an overlap transition into a blue, sunny sky, and then into another overlap transition into a high-angle medium shot of a young girl about 7/8. This is similar to ours as we use an overlap transition into a medium shot. We can identify that this little girls was the teenage girl at the start. It then goes into another overlap transition to a low angle of the girls hand blocking out the sun, as her fingers moves in and out of the way of the sun, the actors and actresses names fade in and out of shot in the same typewriter font. It then goes into a high angle panning shot of fields and the Title comes on in the same font just bigger, then a monologue starts and it is a young girl’s voice, about 17/18, signifying it is the girl at the beginning. On screen it is a flashback of when she was younger.