William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet opening 2 min analysis

Institution

• Director: Baz Luhrmann
• Release Date: 28 March 1997 (UK)
• Production Companies: Bazmark Films and Twentieth Century
  Fox Film Corporation. Bazmark films have also produced
  Moulin Rouge and Australia.
• Music: Nellee Hooper
• The budget was $14,500,000 and in the opening weekend it
  made $11,133,231 in the USA on 1,276 Screens
• Not filmed in Verona, Filmed in California and Mexico

Beginning of the clip

• Plain 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 denotated 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 clip

• There is sudden non diagetic 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 diagetic 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.
  

Intertextual Links

Our film links into the wartime romance genre because its storyline is about a women losing her love to the second world war and how she comes to terms with her loss. Its a mixture of Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007) ,and The Notebook (Nick Cassavetes, 2004). It also features similar themes to An Officer and a gentlemen (1982, Taylor Hackford), The War Bride (2001,Lyndon Chubbuck), The Edge Of Love (John Maybury 2008)and Titanic (1997, James Cameron) which are all romances set in the 1940s/1950s and some feature themes of war.


Our name is an example of how we have incorporated themes from these movies into our film. We also looked at a few of these films for inspiration on the costume and hair ideas for our two characters. Our main inspiration was Keria Knightley's 'look' in The Edge Of Love and Atonement, she had a mixture of modern and old fashioned clothes style and hair. This was because both these films were filmed in a modern time period but they wanted to give them that war time look and this is what we wanted to incorporate into our film.



We especially like her hair and dress in this picture of her in The Edge Of Love:





We tried ti incorporate as many intertexual links as possible but found it hard with this type of genre.

Katy Perry 'Thinking Of You' Music 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, the style of clothing, location etc.

Final Group Scenario

After looking for cast, location etc we have settled on our final group idea.
This idea has only changed slightly from the last one. We have decided to do a similar theme to The Notebook and Titanic which is to have an older character looking back on there past. We at first thought about incorporating a new character (the main character but in her 70s/80s) looking back over the letter at the beginning of the film opening, starting the film off with her memories of that time in her life making the audience curious to know why she's looking back over this period in her life. We choose not to incorporate this character into our film opening because we found it hard to find a women in her 70s/80s that would be willing to act for us, so we changed the idea into having a voice over of the women reading the letter over the shots of our main character reading the letter and getting up which would finish our film opening. This also tied into how we needed dialogue in our film opening which this helped with. We also got rid of the idea of having a child in the background of the film opening, like before we found it hard to find the right actor because with them being so young they would need parental supervision etc.
Our film opening would develop into a story of our main characters life after and before that scene at the beginning. It would take us through her dealing with her loss and what her life was like before to contrast with her life after his supposed death. But she finds out he's alive just when she's moving on with her life.
Our target audience is female 15-80 year olds because the genre isnt specific to one age group and will apple to most women.

Names for our film

We want the name of our film to en corporate the genre (war romance). A few ideas we have our:

• engaged in war
• lost love
• make war
• war valentine
• give up arms
• my wartime love
• war letter
• lost in war
• lost in love

We have decided on "Lost In Love & War" because it reflects our gnere and film idea well and the audience will know what to expect from it.

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/close-up 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 shot so we can see some emotion and identify the new character.
We then go to an OVTS shot from the man 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.
There is then a medium long shot of her sitting down an the doorstep opening letter, then going to an OTS shot of her reading the letter and a close-up of the letter and then a low angle shot.
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.

Audience Feedback

We showed a few people our 2 min film opening to get some audience feedback, we told them that it wasn't full edited and that there was some voices in the background of some clips which we need to cut out.



Charlotte, Abi and Emily (all 17 years old) - said that the location was good, the costumes and black and white filtering made it look 1940s. They thought that the beginning were the panning is medium then goes to long panning doesn't look right and that there are to many letter shots towards the end.



Mandy (40 years old) - it looks professional and the soundtrack suited the subject very well and really enhanced the mood of the scene.



Mark (40 years old) - could understand the story line easily, the music and location suited the style and genre of the film but the voices in the background could be heard.