Pearl harbour.

Pearl harbour begins with the shot of a sunset that is slowly fading into the forest below, this shows the audience that there is more than likely going to be a love scene, this prediction is also enforced by the music as it is a slow and loving song that back in the time that it was made would have been considered very romantic. There is then a shot of a plane interrupting the sunset and flying towards the camera at an angle.

After this there is a close up of the plane with the sunset placed behind it, the sound of the music becomes a little louder during this close up. The plane is then faded out and a blurry sunset is placed there instead with the title ‘Pearl Harbour’ slowly appearing in front of it. The whole scene upto yet is a very orange like colour that is tinted with brown.

The slow music continues and the audience sees the plane beginning to land, whilst the camera is pointed at a worms eye view from the ground. There is then a pan of the plane landing from the side and the grass blurred in at the front of the camera. The audience then see’s the plane flying again but this time it is from a birds eye view and the whole of the plane can be seen. A white title is placed at the bottom reading ‘Tennessee, 1923.’ This gives the audience an indication of the date and why the plane looks so old fashioned.

There is then another worms eye view of the plane flying over an old fashioned barn that looks very derelict and destroyed, there is also a windmill and a working tractor. The state of the barn shows the destruction the war has done and how the farmers had to keep on working for their families, even though they had little money and supplies. The camera then zooms in on the barn where the audience can see a small amount of movement.

The camera is then placed in front of a man pedaling a bike that has two playing cards attached to the back of it, the audience however can only see his feet and shoes, which are very well polished. The camera then zooms on the two playing cards flickering against the bike, the sound of the cards can also be heard.

The camera then pans upwards from a propeller towards two children sat in the seat of an old, ruined airplane, wearing hats and goggles on their heads. They are making shooting noises, this again shows the audience that there is a war happening and how it is affecting the children. The camera then quickly focus’s back onto the field where the plane that is flying swoops down low and the children can be heard wowing it.

Evaluation.

Our trailer is about a olden day family that is split because of the war. The young girl is made to stay at home whilst her husband is forced away to war. We decided to follow this storyline as it would capture audiences of all different age ranges and follow a very basic storyline that many of the older generation would be able to empathise with.

We began our story by filming the grass swaying in the breeze and showing how over powering and destructive the war was by playing a loud plane noise over the top of the slow music. We got this idea from a film called ‘Cold Mountain’, which began by showing the audience that was watching the setting before revealing the main plot line. We took ideas from this movie as it was based on the same genre and was a large inspiration to us throughout our piece.

We then looked at what we wanted our film to say to the audience. We looked at the different representations that we could use and saw that it strongly reflected the differences between genders and how the men were seen as the protectors. This was our original idea. We also showed the love that many families during that time had for each other and how desperate they was to be with each other yet again.

Our main target audience for this piece was the older generation as we thought they would be the group that would mostly connect to it. Many of the older people we had spoken to had been in some kind of a similar situation and we thought that it would reflect the way they felt and how badly they needed their loved ones. However, after asking many people that were younger we discovered that the film would in fact attract many people of this age range as many of the female candidates said that they loved a romance film no matter what time it was set in.

We chose our setting as a small olden times town that was located nearby. This turned out to be the perfect setting as it was quiet and had the red letterbox that we required for the shoot. We found a quiet little field to film the shots under the tree, that we had previously decided would be their ‘special place’.

Overall, I believe our piece was very professional looking and delivered what the audience was looking for. We did this by our editing in Adobe Premier and the amount of preparation that was given by all of us before the filming.

What we each did.

Our story board.

Our final letter.

Our idea's for the letter between Jenny and William.

Camera map.

Editing part 3.

In the next media lesson that we had I watched over our piece and realised that the voice over was far to quiet and desperately needed recording again. We asked Eve and she recorded it again for us. This time we recorded it as one big piece instead of separating the letter and recording it in different parts. I cut the whole recording down and we ended up adding a few extra parts which were:
“'I've sent these rose petals to remind you of our deep and everlasting love.”
And “You make my heart content and I wont be complete until I'm back in your arms once more.” We thought these fit the character Jenny very well and showed her need to be with William and the love she has for him.

Editing part 2.

During this lesson we recorded our voice over and re-wrote the letter that we had recently posted during our filming. We all sat around a table and timed how long the voice over had to be. After this we all sat and contributed to the letter and what we thought Jenny should have said and what she would of wanted to have said to William. After reading it through and timing it we realised it was far too long and we realised we needed to cut it down in order for it to fit.
We started with a simple yet old fashioned opening, ‘Dearest William’ this fitted in well and it is a soft and subtle start to a letter. We then started by saying how lonely Jenny felt and how much she misses her loved one and how desperately she wants him back home. The next paragraph is about when they first got engaged and fell in love, this shows she is thinking of happy times that they spent together. We then wrote about how Jenny has lost all colour in her life because of William being sent away to war. We also reflected this in the colour being dimmed throughout the movie and felt it described her well. We ended it by saying that she will always love him as we felt that she is obviously so deeply in love with him that she would always tell him that she’d be his forever. After we had recorded this I placed it into our piece and tried to move it so it would be in the right position.

Editing.

On Wednesday the 25th of February we started to edit our piece. I did most of the editing and started by cropping and cutting all the scenes into a perfect manner. This took us quiet a while as we had 5 minutes of footage and we needed to cut it down to 2 minutes, after a hour of so I managed to cut it down to 2 minutes and 26 seconds which was a huge achievement.
After this I changed the footage to black and white and this made it seem more like the piece of text that we all wanted. In the next lesson I added titles to the piece, which proved to be incredibly difficult as I had to time them in a certain way and divide this time by the number of titles we needed. It took me a very long time but when it was finished I felt very proud of my achievement.
Our next problem was the changing of the colour of the rose petals and the letter box. We found out that in order to do this we would have to take every single frame and colour each flower petal and the letter box red by ourselves, this would take a huge amount of time and effort and would not look very professional at the end of it. After a long discussion with Hayley we decided that we should fade the colour instead of using black and white and have bright vibrant colours for the flashbacks as this would signify her being happy as she remembers them, however, we decided to put the final flashback so it would fade as William was going to war. This would show her going from being happy with him to her feeling sorrowful of him leaving her.
I then added the music we have chosen (Beethoven- moonlight sonata) and the copyright free plane sound that we found off the internet. The piece was finally coming together and starting to look very professional. The only thing we needed to do was to ask Eve to record the voice over. The reason we chose Eve was because she has a soft and gentle voice that reflected well upon Jenny.

Friday the 20th of February.

Today we finally got around to filming our opening. The lead male (Jon) came over to my house and I dressed him in a yellow chequered shirt and black trousers and combed his hair over in a comb over. I then set on making myself look old fashioned, I curled my hair in loose curls and put some very basic make up on and the yellow dress that me and Hayley had brought a few weeks back. We set off in the car and met Rob and Hayley at our location. We managed to film the entire piece within two hours and get all the shots to match perfectly which helped with our continuity. Although all of us were very cold and tired we all felt that we had done it very well and was all very pleased.

Wednesday the 12th of February.

During our lesson today we looked at font styles for our titles in our editing process. We thought that by doing this it would save us time when we was editing and make us more prepared when editing. These are the fonts we had to chose from…

After a long hard think we decide to chose the font called Vladimir script (number 17) as this was the most delicate and beautiful, which describes the love that Jenny has for William.

Another thing we managed to do in lesson is to draw out a neat copy of our camera map that made it easier for us during filming. This is shown below…

Wednesday the 11th of February

Our initial plan was to film on the 11th of February, however, due to terrible weather we had to cancel. Late in the night 5 inches of snow fell and we wasn’t able to get to school in order to collect a camera as it was shut. After along discussion we decided to plan to film another day and all picked a suitable day for us all.
Due to the bad weather we all worked on our script and storyboard. We wrote up the letter in neat writing and put everything we needed in a bag ready for the day we was going to film. Myself and Hayley decided to walk into our local shopping centre and look to see if we could find anything to make our outfits for the characters look any more authentic and original. We found a black tie and yet another dress for Jenny as we figured she shouldn’t be wearing the same one all the time. So overall we got a lot done in what was meant to of been our day off.

Cast and Crew ...
Cast/Crew
- Lady in waiting - Emily.
- William - Jon.
- Camera man - Hayley/Rob.
- Location Scout - Hayley/ Emily.

Locations
- Teversal
-Under a tree.
-Village.
-Postbox.



Hair arrangements.
- Curlers and hair gel (My hair- curled loosly. Jon's- combed over in a side parting.)


Expences/ Equipment.
- 2 outfits for the lady in waiting. (old fashioned dresses.)
- Williams outfit. (black trousers, short sleeved shirt, long sleeved shirt and tie.)
- 2 Fake roses
- Old fashioned pen
- Basic notepad
- Envelope.

Treatment storyboard.
This is the most important and best bits of the entire movie.

Shooting schedule.

Camera shots.

Shot1 #:
Duration:3 seconds
Notes: Opening shot of sky.
Sounds of planes going by.
Black and white.
Cast: N/A
Camera Angle:
Wide shot, worms eye
Camera Moves:
N/A

Shot2 #:
Duration:10 seconds
Notes: tilt to grass blowing in wind.
Music and handwritten titles appear
(slow music begins)
Cast: N/A
Camera Angle: long shot.
Camera moves: tilt downwards to grass.

Shot3 #:
Duration: 3 seconds
Notes: Tilt up to see the girl sat on the grass writing a letter.
Voice over begins.
Cast:
Undecided.
Camera Angle: long shot.
Camera Moves: tilts at beginning

Shot4 #:
Duration: 3 seconds
Notes: Close up of her looking over the hill.
Wind blowing her hair.
Cast:Undecided.
Camera Angle:Close up
Camera Moves:N/A

Shot5 #:
Duration: 5 seconds
Notes: Flashbacks of him giving her roses
Cast: Undecided.
Camera Angle: Long shot
Camera Moves: N/A

Shot6 #:
Duration: 2 seconds
Notes: Close up of her face
Cast: Undecided.
Camera Angle: Close up
Camera Moves: N/A

Shot7 #:
Duration: 7seconds
Notes: long shot of her saying goodbye to him as he's going off to war.
Cast: Undecided.
Camera Angle: long shot.
Camera Moves: N/A

Shot 8#:
Duration: 7 Seconds
Notes:
Over the shoulder of her writing the letter, folding it, placing it and rose petals in an envelope.
Cast: Undecided.
Camera Angle:
Over the shoulder.
Camera Moves:
N/A


Shot9 #:
Duration: 10 seconds
Notes: Skip to her walking through a quiet town.
Cast:
Undecided
Camera Angle: long shot to mid shot.
Camera Moves:
N/A

Shot10 #:
Duration: 5 seconds
Notes:
Shot reverse shot of her walking through a small town.
Cast:
Undecided
Camera Angle:
Mid shot to long shot
Camera Moves:
N/A

Shot 11#:
Duration: 4 seconds
Notes:
Over the shoulder of her posting the letter.
(Red colour is shown to represent death and love)
Cast:
N/A

Camera Angle:
Over the shoulder
Camera Moves:
N/A

Shot12 #:
Duration: 2 seconds
Notes:
Close up of her sighing.
Cast:
Undecided.
Camera Angle:
Close up.
Camera Moves:
N/A

Shot 13#:
Duration: 10 seconds
Notes: shot of her walking into the distance
Voice over ends
Music volume increases
Cast: Undecided
Camera Angle:
Long shot
Camera Moves:
N/A

Shot14 #: Duration: 7 seconds
Notes: fade to black
Movie title is written
Cast:
Undecided
Camera Angle:
N/A
Camera Moves:
N/A

The story line starts by having the girl (Jenny) sat upon a hill writing a letter to her lover at war. Through this piece we see her having flash backs of times she has spent with him. She sees her self being presented with flowers by him and then him going off to war and her saying her final goodbyes. The audience then see’s Jenny walking through a small yet old fashioned town and posting the letter she has written for her love into a red letterbox after this she walks off into the distance.

After this you see her working in a old fashioned house as a servant girl, you observe her brushing the floors. She then hears a knock at the door and goes to answer it. She receives a letter saying that her husband was killed in action during his time in France. After receiving the letter you see her sat in a chair crying over the loss of her husband and her now coming to terms with becoming a widow.

One night walking home she stumbles across a German solider who orders her to take off her clothes, after she refuses he attempts to rape her. A young man steps in and orders the solider to let go of her. After a small yet aggressive fight the German solider finally leaves and the young boy escorts her home. With time the two become closer and closer when they finally become a couple.

After the two love birds have spent much time together he finally gets the courage to propose to her. She is shocked and unprepared for the proposal and asks him if she can have time to think about it. She then questions her late husband and feels its wrong to accept the proposal. She walks to the grave she has had made (although no body was found) and lays rose petals and begins to cry. After a while she decides it would be best if she did accept as she finally realises her late husband isn't coming back. She runs back to the boy and announces she accepts.

After the wedding between the two of them she finds out she's carrying a child. She has to give up work and focus on making sure this baby is safe. After a few months she finally gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. Life is going perfectly for them when there is a knock on the door and in arrives her late husband. She feels over joyed by the return of him and runs to hold him, she begins to cry into his shoulder. After a few moments she realises the effect this will have upon her small family and becomes very disorientated. Her husband then walks in and questions her about the "stranger" thats appeared from no where.

After finally seeing William (late husband) out of her house she goes to bed and begins to question whether she has made the right choice to marry her new husband and become so deeply involved with him.

After thinking throughout most of the night she decides to arrange a meeting with William. The next day she finds him and tells him to meet her on the bridge at 2am. The next night she grabs the child and sneaks out of the house without him knowing. She then runs to the bridge to find William stood waiting for her. They instantly rekindle there love and run away to start a whole new life together with the child.

Mis en scene.

After discussing where the first scene should be shot (either on a hill or a cliff) we finally decided that it should be shot on this small hill in a local town near us. The town looked very old fashioned and had a bright red letterbox that could later be used in our scene when Jenny posts the letter to William.
We also looked at outfits for world war 2 style on the internet. This proved very difficult to get as they were so expensive and would take months to be shipped to our address. This wouldn’t help us in anyway so we decided to have a shopping trip around local charity shops and brought our outfits from there. Most looked very authentic and very realistic, this improved our movie and gave it a fantastic old fashioned feel.
The lighting for our piece wasn’t very important as it was all based outside and was later going to be edited into black and white. However, we did need to film on a sunny day as the editing process would have been to dark and not very clear. We checked weather reports and finally picked the perfect day.
Next we looked for sad depressing music for our piece as this would of showed how Jenny was feeling and would of also of added to the black and white theme. However, most music in the 1930’s was very uplifting and happy to take the depression away from the war and make people feel cheerful for a short space of time.

What makes a good Romance/War film?

There are many popular stereotypes that come with the Romance/War genre. These not only give the audience and expectation of what they are about to see but also helps them bond with the film and the characters as they may have experienced similar things within their own lives.

Narratives.
-Man is sent off to war without warning, leaving the woman alone (possibly with children.)
-Woman falls for an injured solider and takes it upon herself to make him feel better and ends up falling deeply in love with him.
-Finally, she has a very hard time whilst he is away but he ends up coming home and they live happily ever after.

Popular settings.
-World war 1
-World war 2
-Afghanistan
-Future wars that have not yet happened.

Characters.
-Woman (usually wife) who is left at home alone or with children
-Man who is sent off to war.

Iconography.
-Guns
-Bombs
-Planes
-Slow music
-Tears
-Letters
Films.
-Cold mountain
-Pearl Harbour
-Casablanca
-A very long engagement.


Box Office.
-Casablanca- $1,719,913
-Pearl Harbour- $449,220,945
-Cold mountain- $173,013,509

Popular editing techniques.
-Black and white/ Sepia (both represent old time movies)
-Or colourful/ army style colours (futuristic wars)
-Love songs.
-Slow pace down.

Audience.

I think the main audience for this sort of film is for the older generation as they are more likely to appreciate the effects war had upon people during the time it was happening and also they may be able to empathise with that character. I also think this is one of the main reasons why most war/ Romance movies are filmed in black and white as this relates to the older generation more.

The opening so far.

Our original idea for an opening was a Sci-fi Romantic Comedy. However, after thinking this through and realising how hard and expensive this would be to achieve this we decided to change it to a war romance. This would give us an easier plot line and a more realistic budget to work on.
We decided our main characters would be named Sophie and James, theses are both old fashioned yet soft names that would again connote the feeling of love and romance. However, after a long chat we decided that Jenny would fit better than Sophie as it’s an older name and also sounds more innocent.
The main plot line of our piece was that Jenny would be sat upon a hill writing a letter to William who has recently been sent off to war. The letter is said within a voice over and allows the audience to empathise with Jenny and the sorrowful situation that she has unfortunately been placed in. Another element that we have decided to do is the fact that the whole film is in black and white; however, the audience can also see the colour red. This will connote love, yet the fear of death that she has for her lover who is in a dangerous situation. This is also shown by the rose petals that Jenny places in the letter to William. The audience then see’s her walking into town and posting the letter.

Our first day.

In lesson we began to analyse a 2 minute cover of woman in black. Within this lesson our teacher explained what people would look for within a film and how to present it within our piece. This was to introduce us into our coursework piece and give us a clearer idea of what to do.
He showed us what the connotations of a horror opening was and this made us want to look closely into what we needed for a romance/war genre that we had decided to cover.