'That Thing - Lara Croft' Analysis.

Type of documentary - Mixed Narrated.

Themes - Virtual V Reality.

Feminism and The Representation of Women.

Power of the Media Influencing Soceity.

Narrative Structure - Closed, Single Strand, Non- Linear.

Camerawork - Interviews - medium/close up. Also a big close up on Angelina Jolie. Framed to left or right of screen. Tilted frame through the computer screen.

POV shot of playing game.
Panning across people playing the game.
Zoom is used on the magazine covers.

Mise En Scene - Green screen is used. Images of the game played behind interviewees. Front projection is also used.
Everything is to do with computers e.g. cybercafe.

Sound - Voiceover matches the gender and age of the target audience, the voiceover uses standard english and its constructs the narrative.
There is music used throughout the documentary suc h as music from the game, dance music and also Madonna's songs are played during an interview where she is mentioned.
Sounjd Effects from the game are used.

Editing - Main edit is cut.
Toby Gard (creator) edited in a computer screen and a tilt frame to make him different to everyone else.
Green screen is used.
Fast motion going into the cyber cafe.
Lara with a gun is a recurring motife.
They put game and film footage of the same thing played after eachother.

Archive Material - Game footage.
Film footage.
Angelina Jolie Interview.
Websites and Magazines.
Nikey Advert.
Barbie Scene - The barbie scene is probably not archive material because the documentary makers would have to get the rights if its from a real advert and its not conventional of a barbie advert.

Graphics - Nikey symbol
Name of person being interviewed in big font and thier relevance to topic is smaller. Also their job title ( relevance ) is followed by 'of that thing' for example 'the creater of that thing'.

'The Music Biz' Analysis.

The Music Biz Analysis on Prezi

'The Devil made me do it' Analysis.

The devil made me do it.
Channel 4.
Part of 'Public Enemy Number 1' series or documentaries.

Themes - This is a mixed narrative documentary which explores several themes such as Good Vs Evil which is a binary opposition, Louis Strauss said that all narratives revolve around a serious of binary oppositions. A further theme is of rebelion which realtes to the disifected youth and problems in soceity and also the lack of communication between teenagers and their parents. Although probably the most significant theme would be the power of the media influencing behaviour.

Narrative Structure - The documentary is single strand as it follows a central thread, also it is non linear because it doesn't follow time order as there are flashbacks and finally it is open because the question is left unanswered and the audience can make up thier own mind if media influence behaviour or not.

Camera Work - Many types of camera work are used within the documentary for example..

Handheld- this is for actuality footage such as real events so the camera can respond quickly to an action an example of this is when the Marilyn is walking around the town.

Interviews- close up/medium close up- framed to the left or right of the screen with the interviewer standing on the opposite side to them in order to get the framing right.

Point of view shot - this is used in several places such as the concert. The point of view can be from the audience, marilyn and even the camera man.

Tracking - backwards or forwards in many places such as following manson around the town.

The documantarys also has pans, tilted frames, extreme close ups, tow shots, establishing shots etc.. Furthermore stock footage is used such as shots of teenagers, crosses, churches and other variuous shots from around the town.

Mise En Scene - The interviews refelct on something about the life, occupation or role of the interviewee such police men in office. Also there is a contrast between the old fashioned town and the loud rock concert and furthermore there is a contrast between Marilyn Manson being in McDonalds as this shows he isn't as different as the media and even himself try to make out.

Sounds -
There is non-diegetic sounds such as calssical music in contrast with Marilyn Mansons music which is also played throughout the documentary. There are also ambient sounds such as church bell rings, screams or choir music, these are usually during a scene that fits with these sounds.
There is narration throughout the documentary, this is done by a male who uses standard english and doesn't have a regional accent and he doesn't change the tone of his voice at any point point so the programme remains unbias.
There is another voiceover that translates anything that is said in italian. The translater is a similar age and same gender as the italian speaker.Examples of this is shown in the first minute of the extract below.





There are also scenes that need tension created in them and this is done by sounds such as heartbeats during the girls confessions and dogs barking in the murder scene.

Editing - The programme uses several forms of editing such as simple cuts from scene to scene, a montage such as at the beginning of the documentary (shown in extract below) and also at the end of each important scene the screen goes black signifying the dark themes of the documentary or that a certain amount of time has passed by. Also at the end of the beginning seqeunce there is a title shot which uses religious imagery in the graphics which allows the audience to understand some of the themes.

Archive Material - The documentary contained tconfessions from the girls, recordings from the time of the murder, news rreports on the nuns death and also Marilyn Mansons music video. There is aalso extracts from an italian talk show and front covers of newspapers to ddemonstrate that this was worldwide news at the time.

Graphics - There are several graphics used in the documentary such as the title which is shown at the beginning and the end start and end of each commercial break. There is also names, times, dates and places shown in the frame in the appropriate places. Furthermore there is also lyrics and subtitles which appear at the bottom of the frame, once again in the appropirate places. Finally there are the end credits.

Important Scenes

Murder Scene -
This scene is one of the best filmed and edited scenes in the documentary as it uses a lot of sound to tell the story and very little visual. The scene started with a long shot down a corridor with ambient lighting and a voiceover which stops just as the door closes. The echo of the door closing signifies emptiness. There is then a slow pan across the town of a roof top, this goes on and on whilst the girls confessions are used as a voiceover, these voiceovers are backed up with sound effects such a heart beat which gets faster as the attack begins, there is also muttering and you can hear the blow to the nuns head. Furthermore there is dogs barking in the background and this shows that no one is around apart from the girls and the nun then you can hear a knife being pulled out of the bag and stabbing the nun repeatedly as the heart beat slows down which highlights the fact that the nun is dying. There is then a point of view shot from the nun as she dying, it is a tilted frame of her lying on the floor helpless. Images of churches are then shown, the shot changes on every heart beat and then when the heart beat stops there is a pause with a church bell ending the sequence.(symbol of death). Then following scene contains a lot of religious iconography.



Manson interview - This scene starts with a low angle of Marilyn Manson which gives him power whilst the lighting leaves his face half in the light and half in the dark, this can highlight the question of whether he is a saint or a sinner. The camera then follows Marilyn Manson around the town by tracking, Marilyn goes into McDonalds which makes him seem normal and poses the question of whether 'Marilyn Manson' is just a character played by Brian Warner ( Mansons real name ) or if he really is an anarchy figure. The voiceover during this scene is Mansons interview and as he steps into McDonalds says "im not evil, i just have an opinion" .

Interview with priest - The scene starts with a close up of the priest driving and smoking and there is a voiceover of him talking about meeting the girls which killed the nun. The lighting in this scene uis very dark as they are talking about a dark subject. Every so often there are point of view shots of the road whilst the priest is driving. The documentary makers have done the interview in this way to keep the audience entertained and to emphasise the fact interviews do not have to be done in a traditional way.

Narrative structure of documentaries

Open Narrative Structure - There are questions left unanswered at the end e.g. documentaires on assisted suicide. this allows the audience to make their own minds up about the issue.

Closed Narrative Structure - There are no loose ends, everything is tied up at the end, there is a definate ending to there documentaries. e.g. a documentary on the 9/11 bombings.

A documentary cannot be both open and closed.

Linear Narrative Structure - The documentary is in chronological order, the events and shots in the programme occur in the order that they did in real life, e.g. a documentary on the 9/11 bombings

Non Linear Narrative Structure - There is no chronological order, time is disrupted in some way by using  flashbacks to take the audience back in time for example.

Documentaries cannot be both linear and non linear.

Multistrand Narrative - There is more than one narrative thread in the same programme, these may over lap at the end of the programme, e.g. one born every minute.

Single Strand Narrative - There is only one narrative thread, for example it only follows the life of one person this is how most documentaries are structured. 

A documentary cannot be both multi and single strand narrative.

Circular Narrative Structure - At the start a question is asked, the narrative explores the question then returns to it at the end e.g. born to be different

How?

Visuals - Television is a visual medium, the programme needs to be visually stimulating and maintain the audiences interest.

Archive Material - This would include stock footage e.g. street scenes, historical footage or film extracts.

Interviews - The most important part of a documentary, the narrative is shown though the interviews, they can be held anywhere but the mis en scene is important when relating to the topic or interview. The framing is impprtant and must always be correct so in an interview the intervewee is always sat on the left or right hand side of the shot, the interviewer always stands the opposite side to the intervewee.

Vox Pops - 'Voice of the People', normally one question is asked to a number of people then the most interesting answers are choosen, this gives a good cross section of people.

Voice Over - This can effect and alter the meaning of the clips shown with it, it anchors the meaning of the visuals and the voice over acts as the glue holding the narrative together.

Theories

Gate Keeping - This is the selection and rejection of information that will be presented in the programme, many interviews will be filmed but only the most entertaining or important interviews will be put in the final programme.

Construction of reality - by editing and gate keeping we produce constructed and artifical picture of reality.

Different types of documentaries.

Fully Narrated - off voice screen voice over is used to make sense of the visuals and dominate thier meaning, e.g. natural history documnetaries. The narrator always seems authoritative,"voice of god" also foley artists add artifical sounds such as footsteps.

Mixed Narrated - These use a combination of interview, observation and narration to advance the argument.

Fly on the wall - The camera is "unseen" or "ignored" and it simply records reak events. e.g. the family. There is often no narration and leave the audience to make their own conclusions.

Self Reflective - When the subjects of the documentary aknowledges the presence of the camera and often speaks directly to the camera man or documentary maker, this does not normally mean the presenter, it gives the impression that they are speaking directly to the viewer of the documentary.

Docusoap - This is a relatively new subgenre which began in the late 80's, these documentaries follow the lives of individuals usually with designated occupations e.g. 'Airline'

Docudrama - This is a renactment of events as though they have just happened e.g. a reconstruction of crimes on the programme 'Crime Watch'. 'The Only Way Is Essex' and 'The Hills' are examples of a docusoap but taken to the next level, they are scripted. This blurrs the line between the documentary genre and the soap genre.