The Notebook

Editing:The editing of the opening scene helps the audience understand the genre of the film more, it uses a lot of fades to get to another sense having fades is a typical convention used for a romantic film. The music starts before the film starts, you hear a slow piano playing although it is a non diegetic it goes with the setting. The use of the sunset going down and the slow piano go really well as they’re both peaceful things to see and listen to.

The music starts straight away. Fading

Cinematography:You see a single person traveling on a boat peacefully in the opening scene of the notebook this is interesting as it creates some enigma code for example where's this boat leading us to? which makes the audience want to watch on so their questions can be answered, this person on the boat could represent a number of things including either wanting to get away or peacefulness and happiness with the soft glow of the sky or even loneliness and sadness. We then see some white birds flying from the lake to a white big house. The camera follows the birds in a tracking motion shot, these birds lead us to the protagonist which is staring at them and then we cut to a scene where the lady is asked to go bed.

A great amount of time is taken by the establishing shot of the sunset, we then here a romantic and melodic synchronous sound of music which connotes to the audience the genre of the film.

Mise en scene:The Mise en scene is an establishing shot of the sunset with a lake and a man peacefully traveling on a single boat. This suggest that the film is set somewhere in the country side. I think this location is perfect for a romantic movie.

SettingWe don’t know where the film is actually set because we only see the sunset going down, but looking at the lake it makes the audience think that it is set somewhere in the country side.

Representation of the charactersWe firstly see the protagonist when there is a

establishing shot of a white house we see her staring out the window, which then cuts to an over the shoulder shot showing the audience what this lady is staring at. We then have a mid-close up of the protagonist, we see her behind the window staring out side this suggest to the audience that she is symbolically trapped inside and maybe that she wants freedom and happiness. In this shot we see the reflection of the birds passing over her face, this could symbolise her hopes and dreams or even perhaps her memorise passing by almost as if they're fleeing away from her.

We then get introduced to another character which is dressed in a nurse uniform, this character says to the protagonist ‘lets go to bed’ this suggest to the audience that the main protagonist is being looked after which creates an enigma code: what‘s wrong with the main protagonist?

We then meet the second main character looking into a mirror with a voice over of him talking about himself. This is a very clever way of letting the audience in on what the character is feeling. The opening of this film doesn’t let us in on a lot and we don’t know a lot yet, this gives me the impression that this film will take a while to get into to understand the whole plot.