Romance

A walk to remember

In the beginning of the trailer we see a troubled boy who doesn’t care about his education and has a reputation to uphold in front of his ‘friends’. We are shown this through a medium shot of him crashing a car while all his friends cheer him on. This trailer follows the codes and conventions of a romance genre due to the diegetic sound of the voiceover that narrates the trailer and describes both the boy and the girl. In his scene the music is up paced with low key lighting which could represent him as quite a ‘bad boy’. Compared to the next shot which is the close up of the female gazing up into the night sky looking innocent and sweet. The mis-en-scene shows it is located in a school, which is successful for the genre as this is where many teenage loves occur and can also relate to the target audience. For example, teenage females as it can imply that this love story will happen to them which would draw them in. The non-diegetic sound added in when describing the female is a slow and gentle song, we see a medium shot of her in a long floral dress and knitted sweater. While being mocked by the boys friends we understand that the female is known as the ‘geek girl’ which again can relate to a certain audience in their teenage years as secondary school can be a difficult time therefore, watching this you may escape from reality. The next shots are interesting due to the close up of the girl ignoring the sarcasm of the mean comment and replying sweetly, ‘thank you’. But then we are shown a quick glimpse of a close up of the ‘bad boy’ looking up at the girl in quite a genuine and intriguing way. This is effective as we can connote that this boy may have a soft spot for her and implies to the audience that the romance is going to blossom between them 2. However, with her and him being opposites at school we can understand that there will be complications. This is effective as it will make the audience more engaged and curious to find out what happens next.

We get a two person shot of the boy gazing over at the girl and the girl gazing back, this is effective as with the voice over we know this is the start of the story already the audience start to feel warmth towards these characters. However, we then get a medium shot of him walking past her in the corridor, she looks at him but by her reaction we can see he does not look back. Here we start to see the complications erupting which would anticipate the audience to wonder what will happen.

With the slow paced music in the background, we see fade out editing shots of them holding hands and close ups of them smiling to the ground, the audience understand they are in love. The fade out transitions are successful due to it being gentile, correlating with the music. This is compared to an action film that would cut straight into a black screen to add that dramatic touch. Therefore again, this genre is clearly stated to be a romance by following the codes and conventions.

A long shot of the boy standing in front of a sunset and a calm lake with gentle music is a very different scene for him compared to how he was represented at the beginning of the trailer. This can imply to the audience that he is no longer a bad boy and the girl has changed him for the better. The calm river can reflect on the boy’s mood and the sun setting creates a romantic atmosphere. As the complications are shown through the story the music is still slow but much louder and the editing becomes a bit faster when changing from shots. This is effective as this is where the drama is happening therefore fast paced editing and louder music helps the audience feel the emotion. A medium shot of surroundings are shown with the title ‘love is a leap of faith’ , the blue sky, lake and birds flying across the sky helps set that romance and relates well with the title.

The end shot is a close up of the boy and girl kissing, this is effective as it creates a warm feeling and the soft side of the boy creates likeable attribute for the audience.