A Cinderella Story Analysis

A Cinderella story is a teenage romantic comedy and is about a girl Sam Montgomery who is not so popular at her high school. After her fathers death and not having a will left to her, her evil step mum gets everything that her father left behind and makes Sam do everything at her dad's diner. At her school she is shunned by the popular stuck up girls, the main one being Shelby Cummings, a very wealthy, spoiled person. Austin Ames and Sam interact with each other through emails and text messages and do this without any idea of who they are communicating with. They decide to meet at the school dance on the dance floor at 11 o'clock but their time together is cut short when Sam has to race back to the diner. As she is running out she leaves her mobile phone behind with Austin finding it. To this Austin tries to find out who Cinderella is and Sam is afraid that if he finds out who she really is he may not want anything to do with her. And may even forget about their on going relationship.

I analysed this extract in terms of camera shots, angles and composition, Mise-en-scene, Sound & Lighting.

In this extract we start off with an establishing shot of a castle. The castle is big and beautiful and has been used to give audiences an impression that the movie is going to be based about something magical and is probably going to be a happy story.

We also see a two shot of a father and his daughter, with the daughter holding a snow globe, they used this shot to show how close the daughter and the Father are and how he spends a lot of his time with her. One possible effect for the audience is that it makes them feel happy and puts them in a good mood as they love to see a father and a daughter bonding together. Another shot which shows the daughter and her father close is the mid shot of the father lifting her up and playing with her. This is very good evidence of how close they are as he is lifting her up with happiness and is extremely joyful himself. This again creates an effect for the audience as it makes them feel pleased and excited. There is also and additional shot which shows how close the father and daughter are and this is a long shot which is shot behind a window, the shot shows the father reading a bedtime story to his daughter. This is a beautiful shot as it shows the brilliant bond between the two and shows how much they love each other.

The location seems to be San Fernando Valley as she states this in the extract. There are many mini scenes in this extract where there is voice over of girl talking an explaining her life. The first scene is when the daughter and the father are sitting on the car, this again shows the relationship as they love to have fun together. Another scene is the father and daughter playing baseball, this again shows the relationship between the father and daughter as it shows how they like to spend there time together and love to have fun together, this presents verisimilitude as it shows the reality of a father and daughter relationship. Finally there’s a scene in the cafeteria of the daughter having her birthday and shows how everyone loves the girl not only her father.

The costumes used are casual clothing as the father and daughter are mostly based outside so therefore this creates verisimilitude as it shows that reality of how people dress outside and if you’re going to have fun.

The props used are snow globe, baseball glove, baseball bat, birthday cake, candles. Also there is a big sign to show that there is a restaurant and that it is open. The director used this mise en scene to show the audience what the film is going to be about.

Lighting:
• Very bright, natural lights and makes audience feel like the film is going to be based about happiness.

Diegetic sound:
• Girl talking when the camera is moving around the mountains
• Car alarm
• Voice over of character talking about her life, and includes where she lives and also talks about her father
• Sound of bat making sound when the girl swings for the ball
• People telling the girl to make a wish in the restaurant

Non diegetic sound:
• Opening credits begins with a refreshing, mysterious music which makes the audience think that the story is going to be about something magical
• Music goes louder and switches to the girl and her father
• Drumming and clapping music comes on when they are playing together, shows verisimilitude as the music is happy and suits the scene as it shows the daughter and father playing together
• Song changes when the father holds the women to emphasise to the audience an impression that the women might be evil as the music is loud.


This film has a convention of two young lovers and this is reflected throughout the film. The convention is used particularly well as it shows the two loving each other without knowing each others identity, they communicate using texts and emails, this is a typical love story as at the end they find out each others identity and then get together.