Movie And Film: A Walk To Remember

Dipisha Patel

Principles of Cinematography

Essay Project: Storytelling Scene Analysis

March 4, 2014

For this project I selected A Walk to Remember written by Nicholas Sparks and directed by Adam Shankman. The cinematography was done by Julio Macat. The book was released in October 1999 while the movie premiered in 2002. At large the book and the movie tell the same story except for the period. The book is set in the 50’s but the movie was set in the mid 90’s to attract teenagers rather than alienate them. A Walk to Remember is about a girl named Jamie (Mandy Moore) and a boy named Landon (Shane West) who played the lead roles in the movie. The movie is a good interpretation of the movie as it captures the most important points with a few additional details. At large the movie illustrates the scenes described in the book well by showing how Landon transformed from a moody and reckless jock in high school to a loving and caring man. Like the book, the movie shows the scene with Jamie warning Landon to not fall in love with her. Jamie even reminds Landon to not fall in love with her when Landon confesses his love for her. When Landon finds out Jamie is terminally ill, he does everything he can to fulfill all her wishes until she passes away.

Although the book and the movie tell the same story at large, there are some scenes that are showed in the movie but are not mentioned in the book. One of the scenes in the movie was with Landon asking Jamie’s father who is a reverend to have faith in him in dating his daughter. Landon was asking for permission to date his daughter but the reverend initially refused because he was afraid Landon was going to hurt his daughter. The scene may have been added to the movie because the director may...

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...The scene was described in detail in the book as well but it did not convey the same emotional message as the movie did.

The preceding scene depicted how the rest of the movie was shot because in the beginning of the movie Jamie and Landon were distant. The focus in the beginning was more on the two as individuals than a couple. But as the story progressed, the camera’s focus started to gear toward the two as a couple. The telescope scene was important to develop the story as it marked the closeness of Jamie’s and Landon’s relationship. Overall the video transfer was crisp, displaying no avert signs of edge enhancement. Detailing was also good, and there were a range of views and shades to adjust and focus and lighting used throughout the movie. The picture quality seemed slightly soft and the colors were a bit mudded from the cinematography but not the transfer.