Once the film has started, we are shown beautiful tracking shots of mountains, and non-diegetic instrumental music being played in the background. Now this already starts to tell the audience that the story would be much like a fairytale. After the tracking shot, it goes into an establishing shot presenting a castle which is placed between the mountains. This immediately makes the audience think of it as a fairytale story, where the price or princess would live in a lavishing castle. Additionally the text in which the credits are displayed is very old fashioned script writing which makes us believe that the story is set in, "Once upon a time..." which is typical for fairytale's. All these connotations make us link to the fairytale story of Cinderella together with the castle and old script text.
A voice-over starts, telling us the actual story of Cinderella which signifies to the audience, that the girl who is talking (Hillary Duff) may be the main character who's life
may be similar to Cinderella's. A zoom out shot occurs making us realise that the castle and mountain setting was not real in actual, however then the camera pans to see where the actual location of this story is set. The non-diegetic music also changes into some music which has a feeling of humour in it, which suggests the comedic side of this story.
The theme of closeness and togetherness is presented after the pan, of a little girl hugging laughing along with her father. This mise-en-scene presentation nicely ties in with romance. There is a montage of the little girl growing up with her father, which suggests that the film would be most probably be about her life.
Super title's appear however in a different style and font to the previous ones. This time there is handwritten element to it which suggests the old times of the actual Cinderella. Furthermore the supper title's are in a pink colour which again ties in with romance.A diner is shown, to which the audience learns that the father actually owns it. Facial expressions of everyone inside the diner are very happy and filled with laughter, be it customers or the staff. It all is presented as if they were all a great big family, again portraying the theme of togetherness. Positive non-diegetic sound is played throughout this, however when an older female is introduced, negative non-diegetic music starts to play which lets the audience know that the new character is not positive.
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| The ugly Step-Sisters |
The scene then cross-cuts, to her father and the older female getting married where two new characters are introduced; her two step-sisters. They both are shown fighting which again suggests the comedic side of the film. The audience by now can tell that the new step-mom will be the evil step-mother and her daughters would play the two ugly step-sisters from the original Cinderella story. Therefore we can also tell, that the girl talking is portraying Cinderella and that she will be the love interest in this film.
The theme of togetherness is yet again presented, when we see the girl and her father both talking to each other on a bed. He has just finished reading her a fairytale story which causes them to talk about Price and Prissiness' and also dreams and aspirations. This again links back to the original story and love.A close up shot of the girl and her dad is shown where their hands are slipping away from one another as an earthquake is occurring. You learn that the father dies and sad non-diegetic music is played. Her step-mom is now shown in control and send the little girl to live in the basement, very similar to the actual story.
This opening sequence contains various of signifier's to connotate the Romantic Comedy genre to the audience. It's main focus, theme wise is shown to be love and togetherness. The audience is able to recognise what genre the film is, however there was no male character introduced, different to other romantic comedy films.
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