Poster for Lost in Love & War

Our main influence for our poster came from the Atonement poster. We wanted to show the contrast between the two locations - war and home. Although we still wanted the harshness of both environments to be portrayed that's why we chose to keep both pictures in black and white to signify the struggle of the woman as well as the man.

Overall analysis of Lost in Love & War

Our film begins with our production company logo. The logo doesn't exactly fit with our genre of war romance but if our production company did produce it would produce films of all genres similar to Working Title instead of Merchant Ivory who only produced Costume dramas.

The logo then fades into "spotlight productions presents" and then the title "Lost in Love & War." The slow transition signifies the genre of romance and the possible style of music. The font also provides anchorage that the genre is romance.

The film begins with an establishing panning shot of the garden. This gives anchorage to the peaceful location although the writing on the shot "June 1944, London" contradicts the peaceful location as the prior knowledge of the viewer informs them that it is the time of world war II and the city location of London which is stereotypically a hectic location.

The high angle shot of the woman signifies her vulnerability and her reading gives anchorage of her innocence. It also helps to make the situation to be natural and nothing out of the norm. The medium shot of the woman standing with a look of shock and walking out of the shot creates a narrative enigma for the audience - what has she seen? Th woman dropping the book also gives anchorage that something has changed in the circumstances and may never be the same again.

The shot of the army officer signifies a now formal environment, the man is also holding a letter which from prior knowledge the audience may establish the situation. The over the shoulder shot shows the army badge which again gives anchorage to his position in the film.

The close up of the letter being handed over signifies that there is an exchange of important information and the over the shoulder shot shows the seriousness of what the woman is expecting the letter to say.

The slow pace of the non diegetic music and the slow pace of her walking gives anchorage that the woman is distressed by what news she is expecting. The shot of her sat on the step starring at the letter signifies her want to avoid what news is the follow, the wind blowing her hair also gives a feel of eeriness. 

The wedding photograph gives anchorage to the viewer that the news may be about her husband. How she strokes the photograph also signifies that she has fond memories of that day and remembering these memories gives her the courage to face the truth the letter may bring.

The woman opens the letter quite quickly this signifies that she cannot stand the suspense and that she still feels some hope of positive news. The low angle shot of her reading the letter signifies that she is the only person who is control of her future without her husband. 

The close up of the letter and the non diegetic voice gives solid anchorage to the news the woman has just received. The "missing presumed dead" extract signifies that there could be a twist in the story.   

The extreme close up of the woman's face shows her true emotions although she still seems to control her emotions. This signifies that she is a mentally strong character. The way she composes herself and walks away from the situation also gives anchorage to this.

Storyboard

Final piece - class feedback

Strengths

• Strong mise-en-scene and costume - army uniform badge shown in over the shoulder shot which provides anchorage
• Strong framing - eg woman standing up and her head still being in shot
• Slow pace music fits well with slow pace editing
• Mise-en-scene of trees and greenery fits well with the style of melancholy non diagetic music
• Affective signifier of emotion when the woman strokes the photograph
• Well chosen shot variety
• Black and white tittles appropriate for genre of film

Areas that could be improved...and how...

• The first panning shot - stop panning and move to high angle shot when the camera reaches the woman
• Camera shakes when filming the envelope - potentially re-shoot
• Tone down the voice over, also there is background noise
• Maybe include extracts of voice over throughout the clip, with an elderly woman looking back

Lost in Love & War - Transcript

Media, Lost in Love & War, Transcript

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Evaluation:Looking back on you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I have learnt a lot producing my project. One main factor I have learnt is the importance of planning efficiently. For the pre-lim task we began filming with not much planning, we then discovered our first idea wouldn't work so had to come up with another plan. This cost us time although we realised we couldn't afford to make this mistake with our final film. I also found it is important to schedule time to re-shoot shots that don' fit in with the overall feel of the film's genre.

With our film we needed to take great care with mise-en-scene and costume where as in the pre-lim task it wasn't that important. With Lost in Love & War being set in the 1940's wee needed to ensure the costume of the woman and the army uniform was correct. We did this by doing extensive research and studying films also set in this time such as Atonement and The War Bride. The mise-en-scen was also vital as we had to ensure that it had nothing that signified today's era. This made finding a location even harder. We also had to choose carefully where abouts we filmed in our location to make sure we avoided modern day objects such as a trampoline and an alarm box on the house.

In the pre-lim task I jumped the shot so that the main protagonist was in the corridor before the viewer saw her walk out of the door. This made me realise how important it is not to jump shots. So for example we had to ensure hat the main protagonist in Lost in Love & War didn't move positions without smooth transition which the audience would understand.

I also realised the importance of appealing to your target audience and the aim to appeal to other audiences to keep the market open. An example of this is that originally we chose to have the setting of our film in Leeds. But then after looking at settings of other similar films such as Atonement we realised that they were filmed in London. This is a stereotypical location that worldwide audiences would recognise so if our film were to go global our market wouldn't be limited. We also incorporated a young protagonist to attract the younger audience and the theme of war to attract the male audience.

Evaluation:What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Our first use of technology came when filming our first two minutes. This involved working the cam-corder and getting the best results from it. From experience we decided not to use the zoom on the cam-corder as it was not clear enough so therefore we moved the camera closer to the object in question.

We also found it more affective to use the tri-pod than hold the cam-corder by hand. Using the cam-corder by hand caused some of our shots to be shaky meaning we had to re-shoot some. One problem with our final piece is that when there is the low angle looking up at the woman the shot is shaky this is due to us filming it without the tri-pod. It was not viable to use the tri-pod for this shot though as it was the angle was too low.

We used imovie to edit our film. For our establishing shots we used fading so the transition was smoother, one problem we had to address with this is that the shot transition did jump but we managed to resolve this issue. We also imported sound effectively and with ease to our film. One feature that would have been useful on imovie would be a sepia affect instead of just colour or black and white.