Love Actually

Love Actually is a British film made by Working Titles in 2003. The film follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England.



Working titles started off as a very small company gradually building itself up slowly, in 2004 it made a total profit of £17.8 million. Working Titles made the film Four Weddings and a funeral in 1994 which was expected to be unsuccessful. The film was an unexpected success, becoming the highest-grossing British film in cinema history at the time, with worldwide box office in excess of $244 million,with a budget of only $6million. Love Actually had an estimated budget of around £30,000,000 and ended up being a huge success making a gross profit of $247,472,278 worldwide. The main reason for such success was the well known A list actors that starred in the filmsuch as Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Rowan Atkinson, Laura Linney, Martine McCutcheon and Lúcia Moniz.

As of 2007 Working Titles films were all distributed by Universal Pictures, whcih owns a 67% stake in the company, whcih then helped them to gain a bigger budget for their future films. The co-producers at Working Title are from Studio Canal, also BBC films & other private investors then own the remaining part of the company.


Hugh Grant has starred in many Biritsh Romantic Comedy's. Aswell as Love Actually he's also starred in:

• Four Weddings and a Funeral




• Notting Hill




• About A Boy




• Bridget Jones's Diary




• Bridget Jones's Diary, The Edge Of Reasons




• Music and Lyrics




• Two Weeks Notice

Love Actually recieved mainly positive feeback, some negative as with every film. Some examples of its positive feedback are:

• Cynics maybe sick, romantics will feed their spirits soar. Richard Curtis returns.




• The writer responsible for the biggest British hits of the last ten years. The film was directed well as a vibrant and romantic comedy, blending ambition with good sense by filling the profuse parts of this multi-storied script with excellent, experimental actors, and rising young stars.

Pre-title sequence for 'Love Actually'

I analysed the pre-title sequence of Love Actually, the shots used during this are in a documentary style and almost looks as if they aren't actors and are real people coming out of an airpost to be reunited with their loved ones. A big proportion of the shots are zoomed in, showing families hugging and been loving towards each other. In terms of distance and framing medium close up and close up shots show the happy, joyful and loving expressions on the peoples faces as they're reunited with the people they love at Heathrow Airport, London. You can easily see by decorations it is Christmas time, there are extreme long shots of different parts in London such as an ice-skating rink and a large Christmas tree in a part of central London. During the pre-title sequence none diegetic sounds are played in the form of a piano,it's very soft, slow and dreamy. Also a voice over is used which is none diegetic speaking about love the whole way through. The titles that appear on the screen are red and white, this symbolises love and purity. Mainly all the shots used jumpcuts from one shot to another and slow motion is also intergrated into these shots which compliments the slow music, it has a dreamy focus to it and seems almost unreal. The entire pre-titled sequence is shot at Heathrow Airport in london showing families been reunited. Most of the actors are white and middle class, you don't tend to see many people of different colour. London is symbolised in these shots as a sparkly and amazing place to be, showing mainly middle class people, and looks very expensive.