The opening scene uses fades and slow romantic music to set the tone for a romantic genre film. A single person is seen peacefully boating on a lake, creating intrigue about where they are going. White birds then lead to a woman staring out a window of a white house, possibly feeling trapped. Another character is a nurse asking the woman to bed, hinting she requires care. A man is also introduced looking in a mirror, his voiceover sharing his feelings with the audience. The slow pace of revelations in this beginning suggests the full plot will take time to unfold.

1. The Notebook

2. 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

3. 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.
Setting
We 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.

4. Representation of the characters
We 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.