Analysis of Love Actually / A Cinderella Story

As evidence for our preparation (Pitch), our task was to analyse two clips that have a similar scenario to our idea. This is so that we can think about the main key conventions used in RomComs with the basic elements including mise-en-scene, editing, sound and camera-work.



Love Actually - The scene starts off with the girl in her house and she appears to be wearing white which matches the exterior color of the house. This use of mise-en-scene is meant to represent the female gender as being the monumental attraction. Another interesting take is the lighting of the conversation. On the girls side she has a bright glow where as the man doesn't have any lighting surrounding him. This contrast is used again to make the girl seem special and superior where as the man is made to look inferior by having a dark background. The use of camera work is also prominently used to present the characters in a specific way. The over shoulder shot with the man is used to show he's in a weaker position by exposing more of his body with a slightly tilted high angle shot. In vice-versa, the shot of the girl is slightly low angled but shows less of the mans figure in the right to show her superiority.





A Cinderella Story - The mise-en-scene presented in this scene is used in a variety of ways. An example would be the boy constantly looking around behind his friends for back up which tells us that he's looking for help. This puts him in a weaker position. As for the female character, she appears to be very dominant. This clue is exhibited by how she abruptly marches into the men's changing room and looking bossy at the same time. She is also positioned in the middle of the frame during the conversation which suggests that she is the center of attention. The background of boys are staring at her as well which is blurred out in order to concentrate on the female and male lead. The use of music is merely non-existent as there is no non-diagetic soundtrack. The sound is focused upon the conversation between the character leads with the occasional use of murmur and school locker sound effects to set the scene out as if it were a school teenage genre.