Opening sequence of The Notebook (Alex Elliott)

I have decided to anyalse the opening scene of "The Notebook" because it is a typical romantic movie which is popular with many girls and has won many awards.

It opens with quiet melodic music the main instrument you can hear is a piano, which straight away represnts love and compassion. The first image you see is an establishing shot of a birds eye view over a river and showing a sunset, which is always seen as a romantic setting. The credits are coming up on the bottom of the screen in small white writing. The images are still images that change every few seconds, the next image is still of the sunset but a mid shot, with a man on a boat. Again this is all typical codes of romantic settings. It is low lighting so the sun is the main focus in the background. It gives you a warm feeling inside. The name of the movie comes up small in the corner the same as the credits for the people. This is quite strange considering it is the title you think it would come up bigger.

Now there is a moving shot filming from behind, the person on the boat sailing along, in this shot you cannot see the sunset anymore and the lighting is very dark. The movements are very slow and the music becomes slightly louder. The shot fades out and becomes a high angle birds eye view of the river again, it goes back into a mid shot of the man on the boat but there still hasnt been a clear shot of his face, so he is a mystery, but we can assume he is going to be the main character. The lighting gets darker and moves back onto the scene we saw first with an over shot view of the river and sunset, the music is staying the same throughout. The next shot is a long shot of the river once again. The scene then fades out once again and we see birds flying through the sky above the river.

I think that the opening of this movie drags on for to long and isn't very interesting, but holds all the typical elements you would see in a romantic movie.