The Devil made me do it.

Type of documentary: This is a mixed documentaries as different situations take place throughout the documentary.

Themes: The themes include youth culture, religion, good v evil, Manson v God, children v parents and binary oppositions. There are also theme references to a generation gap and there is always a theme of the influence of the media.

Narrative structure: The narrative structure is single strand. It is also non-linear because it has flashbacks not in chronological order.

Camerawork: In this documentary a lot of handheld camerawork is used. Point of view shots are also used to put the audience in 'their' position. Cutaways of still and moving images are used which is very affective. Medium close ups and close ups are used during interviews. A variety of angles are used also, and framing is always left to right or vice versa.

Mise-en-scene: Dark lighting is used in some parts of this documentary and this is affective and creates atomasphere. Shadows are also used throughout the documentary to give the sence of dark and evil. The backgrounds that are used on interviews, anchors the meaning of what the interviewee is actually talking about.

Sound: The narration of this documentary is a male narrator and this is the glue that holds the narration together. There is authentic voiceovers in English as the people in the documentary speak Italian. Choir music is used as a cut away in this documentary also, and a opera singer.

Editing: There is a juxtaposition of shots and cutaways used in this documentary. Naturalistic lighting is also used to show the place and time of a location. When shadows and slow motions are used, this also gives affect to the situation taking place in the documentary.

Archive material: Moving images are used to show when the woman died. Also archive material from Manson's music videos are also used and footage of his music gigs. Archive from cutaways and zoom in and out of the newspapers are also used. Fan merchandise is also material that has been added into this documentary.

Graphics: Subtitles are used when some of the people are talking in Italian. Graphics are used in the interviews to show who the interviewees are and to show the audience their details and status. They are always left aligned and are white sans serif font.

Raw spice: The unofficial story of the making of Spice Girls

As a homework, I watched Raw spice: The unofficial story of the making of the Spice Girls. I analysed the documentary in different sections as shown below:

Type of documentary - This documentary is fully narrated, with a woman using a voiceover that tells the story of the visuals being shown on screen.

Themes - The themes within this documentary include how the group got together, interviews with the group and also archive material and rehersing.

Narrative structure - I believe this documentary is open narrative as the audience can make their own mind up about the Spice Girls and about the making and having their own opinion about the girls.

Camerawork - Handheld camerawork is used when interviewing the girls individually, when they are talking directly to the camera, this is affective because it looks like they are talking to the audience, telling the audience their story. The camerawork during the interviews is right next to the interviewer and the interviewee speaks to them and not the camera.

Mise-en-scene - Chris Herbert (pop manager) speaks about the girls individually in an interview, and when he speaks about them one by one, a image appears behind him to set the scene/setting and to show the audeience who and what he is talking about. Microphones are also used as props during the rehersals, and also during rehersals, the setting is a big room with mirrors and sound systems to create the setting. The clothes that the girls are wearing are also affective to show how the girls have changed over the years.














Sound - The music at the beginning of the documentary is non diegetic and is added in, in the edit just as a backing track. Voice overs are also used from the narrator and other people whilst they were being interviewed and they had a cutaway of the group rehersing. Also when Chris is being interviewed, non diegetic sound is played of the girls rehersing in the background.

Editing - The word 'spice' at the beginning of the documentary is edited as the use of colour are all different etc. The interviews with the group individually are also edited in at the end when the documentary has been put together. To seperate the interviews, a cut away of 'Raw Spice' and non diegetic sound of 'We're gonna make it happen' are used to break up the interviews. Archive material is also added in when all the documentary material is put together.

Archive Material - During the documentary, footage of the group is used when they are performing and when they are rehersing at the beginning. Material from when the girls first auditioned is also used, and also when they were rehersing in the studio. Footage from when the girls got their first house together and the audience had a taster of the house is also used to show the living situations.

Graphics - 'Raw Spice' at the beginning of the documentary is used as graphics, and also credits of the pop manager Chirs Herbert is used. The graphics show the audience who people are, and why they are being interviewed how their involved with the documentaries situation.

Watching The Devil made me do it

Todays lesson we started to watch, The Devil made me do it. We began to analyse the documentary in different ways including, the type, themes, narrative structure, camerawork, mise-en-scene, sound, editing, archive material and graphics. This documentary is about 3 young girls who comitted a murder and also how Marilyn Manson and how he was connected to it.

Scheduling

In todays lesson we learnt about scheduling.
The clear segements for scheduling are: Breakfast, Daytime, Kids TV, Prime, Post watershed.

The target audiences for these segements are: Breakfast- Young children and working adults. Daytime- Mums, unemployed and school children. Kids TV- Children. Prime time-
Teenagers and families. Night- Late teenagers and adults.

Genres on TV: Reality TV, Soaps, Dramas, Comedy, Sitcoms, Game programmes etc.

Target audience for each channel: BBC1- Mixed age (everyone) because we pay for the license fee. BBC2 does not appeal to everyone, however is for mixed ages. ITV is for adults such as This Morning and Rosemary & Thyme. Channel4 is for the minority, not a huge range of people. Five is for everyone/mixed age for example Milkshake!, Home and away and CSI.

Repeat schedulings: BBC1 2-3%, BBC2 50%+, ITV 2-3%, Channel4 50%+, Five 50%+.

Watershed: occurs from 9pm onwards. This is for late teens to adults to watch only. Watershed time is changing to 10pm as children are staying up later.

Inheritance: You put a program on after a established program to get their audience.

Pre-echo: Scheduling a program before a popular program, to get audience that are going to watch the popular program.

Hammocking: Inbetween two popular prgorams to inherit the target audience from the popular programs.

Audience fragmentation means channel loyalty is becoming an issue.

Documentary information

During yesterdays lesson, we put together a mind map as a class of what is involved in a documentary. Involved in our mind map were things such as: Archive footage- stills/moving images, Graphics- names/status/details, Framing, Music/Montage, Cut aways, Themes, Vox pops and Editing.
Also in the lesson, we learnt about the structure of documentaries such as open narrative or closed narrative, and also linear and non linear narrative and finally circular narrative.

Different types of documentaries

Today we learnt about the different types of documentaries.

Purpose of documentaries: To document/report with eveidence. Something that has actually happend. It can show this by using actual footage or reconstructions. It can use a narrators vouce over to anchor the meaning or rely on paritcipants themselves with perhaps the occasional interjection by an on scene narrator.

Documentaries are not just about facts, instead the facts are used to create socially critical arguments, thereby inviting the audience to draw their own conclusions.

Features of documentaries: Observation- Most documentaries contain sequences of observation and the program makers pretend to the camera is on scene or ignored by the people taking part.

Types of documentaries
Fully narrated- They use an off screen voiceover and the voice ober is used to make sence of the visuals on screen. The narrator always seems authoritative.

Fly on the wall- No commentary or narration. The cameras are left to record the subjects. No interference which allows viewers to come to their own conclusion.

Mixed documentaries- Use a combination of interivew observation and narration to advance the argument. The narrator will appear in front of the camera.

Self reflexive- Subjects of the documentary acknowledge the presence of the camera and often speak directly to the film maker. They make a point of drawing attention to the film makers role in constructing a view of reality.

Docudrama- Reinacment of events as if they have actually happend.

Docusoaps- Programmes that follow the lives of particular individuals with designated occupations.

Visuals
Archive footage, street scenes, open countryside and close up of faces are just some of the stock materials used to suggest the intended meaning or emotional qualities of a particular theme.

Interviews
An interview can be held anywhere but the setting does affect the meaning. They normally begin with factual questions first to put the interviewee at ease, and the interviewer usually saves the emotional gripping questions for later on in the interview.

Vox pop
Technique consists of street interviews of the general public with each person being asked the same question. The answers are then strung together in a fast sequence. There good for suggesting a general agreement or else the opposite of diversity opinion.

Narrative of conventions
Documentaries relies heavily on traditional conventions of narrative i.e theres a beginning, a middle and an end.
The beginning: Central question of the ddocumentary can be posed at the beginning in an intreuging way. The most dramatic piece of action footage can be placed at the start or some qucik interview cuts in the conflict with each other can get the audiences attention.
The middle: Often examines the issue in human terms focusing on people and their opinions and conflict is strenghtened in the middle section however apparently conflicted evidence but all complications must eventually support the exposition (line of argument).
The end: The exposition is fully apparent at the end. The audience has no doubts to what the programme is saying and there may even be a course of action the audience can take to address the problem.

First week back in September

In the first week back at school, for the first few days we researched documenataries. As part of the task, we researched channels 1 to 5, and also what types of documents are shown on different channels. We also had to find definitions of different terms such as 'social realism' and 'cross-ownership' etc.
I also researched about Marshall McLuhan's global village theory, and he describes how media has changed over the years and that individualism is now changing and actually beginning to disappear. Below, is a video of Marshall McLuhan.