Love Actually Title Credits Analysis

The title sequence in ‘Love Actually’ starts off conventionally by firstly showing distributors and production company logo’s. A sound bridge is created when the last production company logo fades out. The non-diegetic sound is orchestrated and slow, making the audience feel emotional and give a caring feel as well as calm. The camera focuses on a person with a backpack walking through the crowds. Here a mid-shot cinematography is used to give the audience a glimpse of the setting but not fully giving it away. The style of the cinematography looks like a home-video. As the music continues credits appear over the scenes at the bottom of the sequence with the editing process of dissolving in and out. There is a montage sequence of people meeting and greeting each other. Here the cinematography is shown through different angles so the audience can see the setting; airport. At this point the audiences are felt as if they are in the scene due to the environment in which the scene is in. A voice over then begins when a women is picking a child up. The voice over gives a hint of who the main character could be if the voice is recognisable to people. 

A focus pull is then created through the camera to draw the  audiences attention and eyes on the people that are greeting each other. This gives the connotation to the audience of the film being about love as the people are affectionate to each other.The voice over and camera angles reveal that the setting is at an airport and that this film is based on a romantic genre due to the main character talking about relationships and love. The title then appears gracefully.

This, i think, is a nice simple sweet title sequence for a romantic comedy film. I think that the voice over worked beautifully as it gave a greater impact towards the audience of them being intrigued to know who the main character or the voice for the voice over could be. This opening is unique from other title sequences with the same genre as it introduces the start of the film without fully exposing the characters. I also feel that the parallel sound that was played throughout the sequence went really well and set the mood up for the audience of what journey they are going on; romantic journey.

This title sequence is fairly meaningful in the fact that it consists of Roland Barthes narrative codes to convey specific meanings. The enigma code has been used in a way to leave the audience questioned on the link to the people greeting each other and the voice over this leads to the clip using semantic code as the voice over can lead to meanings of a number of things. Usually, romantic comedies are targeted to women due to romance and desire. However i think that this title sequence does not only target women but targets men and families in general as it shows love between family and friends and not just couples. Throughout this sequence narrative codes and features have been used and shown to convey to the audience that this film is based on a romantic genre.