Research for the main task

Research for my main task

I have researched into different openings of movies of the same genre, romantic/thriller. This gave me a wider insight into how our main task should be filmed and what things we need to include to make it effective.

Although the youtube clip above is a movie trailer, it still gives a good insight onto what angels and shots to use as it is the same genre.

As PS I Love You is a romantic comedy, involving the death of a partner, the memory of him is still awake and alive in the widower's mind. This is similar to Maddy in our main task, who experiences loosing a partner, however, instead of experience new, happy memories about him, she experiences a new finding of a photograph, next to his grave. Ending in her feeling anger against him, unlike the protagonist in PS I Love You.

However, some of the shots are very useful in PS I Love You for establishing characters, in which we can take and improvise certain themes and ideas from the movie, relating them to love in ours. At the very beginning of our short opening, we see shots of Maddy and Stephen when he was alive, very much in love, enjoying their time together. PS I Love You also has the same thing, of when they are happy and in love. This is useful as it can help us choose what type of music to use, and which sort of shots would be acceptable for our opening.






The opening to What Lies Beneath, although a thriller, is still an effective opening for helping our media main task group study different interpretations and ideas from other films. What Lies Beneath has a lot of romantic scenes in the opening, which can be improvised when we shoot our short opening. The plot of What Lies Beneath starts with a couple, Claire Spencer and Norman Spencer, who seem very much in love. The couple experience their daughter moving away to University, and after that, Claire Spencer starts to experience hauntings in her home. Eventually, she finds out Norman was having an affair with a younger girl, who he killed and throwed into the lake outside the family home. Although the genre of our movie is not a thriller, the plot is fairly similar and there are shots in the opening, which give the sense to the audience of a close, in love couple who would never let anyhting harm their relationship. In our movie, Maddy experiences the death of her partner Stephen and whilst visiting his grave she finds a prominent photograph left by Stephen's grave, from a lover of his.


In the film What Lies Beneath, although a different genre, it is important in establishing character, setting and the narattive structure is very similar to our main task. In establishing character in our coursework, we have decided to use a flashback memory of Maddy and Stephen, and then go straight onto the grave yard scene, therefore allowing the viewers to understand who's grave Maddy is visiting, and why she is going there.