http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHMTDJoYQeU
3 mins
50 first dates
The film starts off with the camera panning across a ROMANTIC LOCATION (an Island)
It then continues to pan to where the film titles are shown
We then meet two characters (women) engaging in a conversation about a man one of them had gone on a date
with
Films about romance mainly have a target audience of women so what better way to engage women by having
characters in which they can relate to.
We then cutaway to another shot of another woman talking about the man she went on a date with
We have a series of shots with different women engaging in conversation about this one man they went on a date on,
However in each shot you can clearly see what is going on in the background, so it is clear the see the type of lifestyle
each character is living. I feel the director chose to do this as women can not only relate to women but the can engage
even more if the character does a similar job or hobby they partake in.
Hairdresser
Dentist
We then go back to the women and they continue in their conversation. The director does this in the same shot order to
not confuse the viewers.
Eventually we meet the character that all the women are talking about, so already the female audience know a great
deal about this one character without him even saying a word, the fact that all the women had a lot to say answered some of the questions the audience may have had in mind this is a clever technique which I could incorporate into my
group work
So, after all the women talking about this guy they all dated and how he dumped them We then see this guy in action
doing what they explained
To summarise – 50 first dates met my expectations of a romantic film opening, the film started off with a shot of
typical romantic location ( a desserts island) . It then incorporated its target audience into the cast (women), the director does a clever thing of making the 1st scene mainly women so it appears the women are the dominant sex in
this film, however the fact that the are all talking about the one man raises the status of this man and makes it clear he
is the protagonist as they are all talking about him. The conversations held give clues of the narrative of the film and
all in all it is a very good opening.