Documentary - Research

 

Here is the research for my documentary. This blog contains documentary analysis.

DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS

1. Making a Murderer (2018) S1 E1

The documentary is an expository belonging to the crime and history genre. Throughout the documentary, past footages had been used extensively. The topic in discussion involved criminal activity. The target audience would be young adults and older people who might be following the case at the time of happening. The wrongly accused, Steven Avery, along with his family, were seen embracing each other and rejoicing over the release, depicting them as poor victims of police incompetence. The same cannot be said for the officers. I liked the documentary because of its mixed use of old footage and animations to help visualise events.

2. Life in a Day (2020)

It is a poetic and observational documentary. The genre is lifestyle. The people were portrayed in a very wholesome and normal way. This, coupled with the very dramatic birth scene in the beginning and the sombre music is meant to evoke some sort of sad and happy feeling in people. The target audience of the documentary would be everyone, particularly people interested in seeing other people. I personally would not watch the whole thing because seeing normal people doing normal basic everyday things gets boring real quick, but it is definitely an interesting concept.

3. Gordon Ramsay Uncharted (2021) S2 E2

It is a travel and food documentary. Lots of drone shots and establishing shots to show the beauty of the environment. The vibrant and bright colours make the nature and food more appealing to the audience. The target audience would be anyone, but most importantly food and travel enthusiasts. The West Sumatrans looked very organised and respectful. The very energetic Gordon Ramsay makes the whole doc more exhilarating and more enthusiastic, making the audience more excited to follow the series. I really like this documentary because of Gordon's enthusiasm and the exciting clips of nature and food.

4. American Vandal (2017) S2 E2

I. Introduction

Title               : American Vandal

Director         : Tony Yacenda

Release        : 2017

Duration        : 30 Minutes

The episode is about a high school boy accused of vandalising cars in the school parking lot with pictures of the male genitalia, and the investigation than ensued, including various CCTV footages, interviews. and graphical animations.

II. Genre and Subgenre

The documentary was a mockumentary with the subgenre true crime.

III. Target Audience (demographic & Psychographic)

The target audience of the documentary would be teenagers to young adults. It was set at a highschool, and the main characters were highschoolers. The jokes were also more immature and would be found funny by younger audiences.

IV. Technical Elements

    A. Visual Elements

The camera work, angles, and shots were more akin to a real historical or true crime documentary. The shots used in the interviews are done in a way which makes the whole situation and scenario look serious, despite it being a satirical mockumentary. 

Like the camera work, the editing imitates a real documentary, The different cuts used between different shots to make smooth transitions are similar to cuts used in real interviews. They used graphical illustrations of incidents to accompany explanations made by different people, again, making the whole mockumentary look legit.

    B. Audio Elements

Sound track and music:

Music only played a modest role, as it was only used as background music. The differnet music used intensifies the different situations that were happening.

Voice over narration:

The narrator was used extensively throughout the documentary and is especially useful in explaining the numerous animations and graphics used throughout the episode.

interviews and soundbites:

Interviews were also an essential way of obtaining evidence regarding the vandalism incident and everyone, from the perpetrators to their parents, were interviewed.It gave a different side of the story, a more personal one, which could sway the audiences' opinions.

V. Meaning and Message

The purpose of the documentary is to share the incident to the world to spread awareness of this case and hopefully viewers could help in solving the case. The documentary did a great job of sharing the views and perspectives of all parties involved to be impartial.

VII. Personal Response

I personally enjoy the documentary. It is humorous and captivating, making me want to watch more of the documentary and its upcoming episodes. It has done a great job at making the documentary real life and serious, despite the premise of the show being very satirical and silly.

5. Cunk on Earth (2022) S1 E1

I. Introduction

Title              : Cunk on Earth S1 E1: In the Beginnings

Director        : Christian Watt

Release        : 2022

Duration        : 29 Minutes

Cunk on Earth is a historical mockumentary following Philomena Cunk as she travels around the world, interviewing experts to explore the history of Earth. The first episode is about the beginnings of Earth, such as civilisation, linguistics, literature, etc. 

II. Genre and Subgenre

The documentary is a historical mockumentary

III. Target Audience (Demographics and Psychographics)

The documentary is targeted towards a younger audience, specifically young adults. This is due to the immature and modern jokes that would be found humorous by young people, but the style of the documentary and language used might not suit younger audiences like children. 

IV. Technical Elements

    A. Visual Elements

    Cinematography

The documentary frequently uses establishing shots and wide shots of different world landmarks to showcase world history. This would give the audience a better picture of what the world looked like in historical places being discussed. Interviews, which is the highlight of the show, uses a shot reverse shot. By performing interviews with this shot, the faces of the interviewer and interviewee would be highlighted and thus would be easier for viewers to understand. During onsite scenes, medium shots are done. This gives a perfect balance between Philomena Cunk and the surrounding environment. 

Editing

Editing was done minimally and only if necessary. Its main use was to make smooth transitions between clips. Other than that, nothing outstanding and worth noting.

    B. Audio Elements

Soundtrack and music

Music was used through the whole duration of the documentary. The music played depends on which time period was being discussed at the time. For example, during the discussion of empires in China, oriental music was played. This would mean they are conforming to existing stereotypes. By using music appropriate of its time and region, audiences would have a more immersive experience as they can set the mood and feel as if they were living in that time.

Voice over narration

Cunk's narration were mainly used during times where extra information is needed or when comments are made.

Interviews and soundbites

Interviews serves as the main source of information in the documentary. For every topics discussed, and interview with an expert of the topic in discussion was held. Having an interview would be more beneficial for viewers as they find comments directly form experts to be more believable then if a host were to say it themselves. However, being a mockumentary, Cunk constantly bombards the experts with silly comments, leaving them flabbergasted.

V. Meaning and Message

The theme of the documentary is world history, exploring the advances in humanity like literature, civilisation, philosophy, etc. Despite it looking and made in a way akin to an educational documentary, the comedic and satirical comments made by the host Philomena Cunk would have made the educational lessons useless, thus viewers would not been able to actually learn world history from watching this mockumentary.

VII. Personal Response

I personally enjoy watching this episode of Cunk on Earth. The way Cunk non chalantly delivers her jokes and the fact that it was made to imitate a real educational documentary made this a very fun watch.