Documentary Examples
The Russian Revolution is a historical documentary about the battle between the royal Romanovs and Lenin's Ulyanov family lead to the Russian Revolution which was fuelled by the hanging of his brother due to terroristic acts he committed. This documentary was written and directed by Cal Seville and is available on the online streaming site Netflix.
The documentary begins with archived footage of a church bell being destroyed and pictures of Jesus being burned. This symbolizes how Christianity was being persecuted during the Russian revolution. The director, Seville uses archived footage to give historical knowledge to the audience about the revolution. Accompanying the archived footage, there is a voice-over, commentating and narrating the story of the revolution. Furthermore, the authoritative voice-over persuades the viewers that the narrator has specialist knowledge on the subject. The documentary includes many interviews of authors that have written about the Soviet Union, Lenin & Stalin. The interviews with experts tells the audience that the information being presented has been researched and authenticated. Text accompanies the interview in the bottom left hand corner, illustrating to the viewers who the interviewee is and their occupation.
In terms of editing, the editor has used many J-cuts where the sound of 2nd clip is heard whilst the 1st clip is playing. It allows the audience to get a feel and better understanding of the environment. Between each shot, the editor has gone for straight cuts instead of using effects to give a serious tone to the documentary. This shows that it can hit a certain type of audience, which i believe is and older type of audience around 40+ and mostly can be watched by men, mainly in the ABC1 social class.
Exploring the historical type of documentary, we decided that this type of documentary would be hard to obtain footage with our given resources, time and money. In addition, historical documentaries rely upon lots of archived footage and the specification only allows 20 seconds worth of archived footage therefore we would not be able to create an extract of a historical documentary.
Rooney: The Man Behind The Goals
Rooney: The Man Behind The Goals is a 2015 BBC documentary about England's all-time top goalscorer. Wayne Rooney has given cameraman unique access to his home and personal life for the first time. The title suggests that the documentary is going to explore Rooney's personal life and how it affects him as a footballer. This documentary is in the mode of Bill Nichols' participatory as the filmmaker (Gary Lineker) and the subject (Wayne Rooney) interact and allow Lineker to address people in the documentary rather than comment on Rooney's life.
The documentary begins with a horizontal tracking shot from a car of football pitches. This suggests that these were the pitches that Rooney used to play on when he was child, since this documentary is about the story of how Rooney got to where he is today. The filmmaker then uses a cutaway to archived footage of Rooney playing for England then back to the tracking shot. The editors may have incorporated this to show how far Rooney has come from playing on a Sunday League pitch when he was a child. Furthermore, archived footage can give a historical knowledge to viewers who un-knowledgeable on the subject. The editor then uses a 'J cut' where the sound of cameras taking pictures scene is heard before the actual scene. This gives viewers a better understanding of the environment that Rooney lives in. J cuts and L cuts are used often in documentary film making.
The director uses the hook technique to make the viewers watch the whole documentary. The hook in this documentary is snippets of interviews with former teammates, managers and opponents such as Cristiano Ronaldo. By using these superstars and former managers, viewers will want to know what they say about Rooney.
This documentary has been made to honour a great footballer and has some sub-messages within the documentary such as hard work gets rewards. Furthermore, the documentary is trying to communicate with audience to inspire them; whether the audience is child wanting to become a footballer to an adult wanting to do better for themselves. So if we were to make a similar documentary we would have the right audience but i don't think we could create this type of documentary which has a rather large budget. although if we did it wouldn't be the best.
Banking on Bitcoin
Banking on Bitcoin is a documentary which appears on the online streaming site, Netflix. The documentary Banking on Bitcoin covers all basis’ from its roots to its future as a cryptocurrency. The title of the documentary is an example of play on words as it suggests Bitcoin is the last resort of monetary systems because the existing ones are failing. This documentary is directed by Christopher Cannucciari and is on Netflix.
The documentary begins with a complete black screen, with an upbeat soundtrack playing in the background and fades into a handheld shot of a man getting out a elevator. The handheld shot is documentary convention and gives a sense of realism as if you were there. The screen fades to black and titles of the director slide in then straight cuts. A tracking shot is used to follow the man out, opening the door of the building to exit the building, entering the public eye. By shooting the clip of him opening the door, it can be seen as a metaphor for bringing Bitcoin into the open. The cameraman continues to follow the man using a tracking shot and zooms into his ankle when he talks about his ankle tag, this immediately tells the audience that the man in question is a criminal out on bail. Titles come up naming the man and his occupation, the man is called Charlie Shrem and he is the CEO and cofounder of BITINSTANT. This suggests that his crime is most likely money related like tax evading as many rich people have been caught via the Paradise papers rather than violence related.
The next scene begins with an animation showing how the exchange of 1 Bitcoin to dollars has dramatically increased in 4 years. An animation is a common convention in documentaries to explain a topic simply and quickly. Also, this animation emphasises how far the cryptocurrency has come since it was created. A timeline animation succeeds this animation. This suggests to the audience that the documentary is going to follow a chronological order and pick up on the most important parts of Bitcoin’s history until the present day.
Cannucciari uses archived footage from a news television station about the Wall Street crash/08/09 global recession. Archived footage is used by directors to add historical knowledge to the given subject. The directors have used this archived footage to suggest to the audience that the current monetary system is a failure and potentially foreshadows how Bitcoin can help overcome the problems. Following the archived footage, a voiceover is played over the top of cinematic shots of Wall Street, protesters of capitalism and fumes, talking about the global recession. Voiceovers are usually authoritative and are used to make viewers think that voiceover has specialist knowledge on the subject. The cinematic/slow motion shots and the focus pulls may be used to suggest that capitalism is failing and new system is ready to takeover. A background sound track is playing; the tempo starts slow and begins increase. The fast tempo has connotations of hope, further suggesting something positive is about to succeed. A low angle slow motion shot is used when a man is posting question about why governments control central banks, a close up of a different man talking about the government’s stance on innovation followed by a medium shot of a man talking about how it is a monetary revolution. The direct speech from these members of the public are suggesting Bitcoin is the answer to the problems of the current monetary system. The low angle shot is used to make the subject in this case the man powerful, authoritarian and important suggesting he has specialist knowledge on the subject. The mise en scene in the close shot has the sun rising, the connotations of the sun rising is hope further suggesting Bitcoin is the answer to the current monetary system.
This documentary is in Bill Nichols’ mode of expository because it uses facts and figures to present an idea and uses interviews with experts to consolidate the idea. The meaning of the documentary is to inform the audience of the presence of Bitcoin and what it is to persuade the audience that Bitcoin is the answer to monetary policies.
We could make this type of documentary as it focuses on a particular topic and gives the audience an introduction on a quite modern topic, which is difficult to understand so, it can be quite similar to our own documentary as this is what we are trying to achieve in our own documentary
No comments:
Post a Comment