Assignment 4 – Analysis of TV Documentary

By Gledis Dedaj

The Documentaries I Will Be Comparing…

Catfish:Air Time/Date: • Saturday - 01 January 2011 Form of Release: • UK - TV Channel- Channel 4What its about: • Young filmmakers document their

colleague's budding online friendship with a young woman and her family which leads to an unexpected series of discoveries.

Production Companies: • Supermarché & Hit The Ground

Running FilmsDistributors: • Alliance Films (2010) (Canada)

(theatrical)• Universal Pictures (2010) (USA)

(theatrical)• Momentum Pictures (2010) (UK) (all

media)• Rogue (2010) (USA) (all media)Directors: Henry Joost and Ariel

Schulman

Lifers:

Air Time/Date: • Monday- 25 Jun 2012 Form of Release: • UK - TV Channel- Channel 4What its about: • A unique insight into the lives of

offenders facing a lifetime in prison.

Production Companies: • Century FilmsDistributors: • N/ADirector: • Tim Wardle

Target Audience!

• The target audience for 'Catfish' are people who uses media like Facebook, MySpace, twitter or any other kind of social networking site.

• In today's society this presents quite a broad target audience as most people especially in the Western parts of the world use some form of social networking site.

• With that said, it is reasonable to assume that perhaps the documentary would be directed at a more younger audience due to the fact that social networking is mostly popular amongst them.

• Its is teenagers that run a higher risk with such sites as they are typically deemed as naïve towards the dangers of the internet.

Catfish

Target Audience!

Lifers

• Due to the particular topic being explored in the documentary (life sentences) the target audience appears quite wide.

• However stereotypically within today's society those in prison are normally associated with lower or working class families.

• This is due to the environment that such people are surrounded with that lead them to a life of crime. (Poor conditions)

• Lower class families are typically deemed as uneducated thus they are more prone to ending up in prison.

Conventions of Documentaries

Conventions!

Voiceovers

Establishing Shots

Montage Footage

Handheld Footage

Quoted Material Presenters

(formal/informal)

Real Life Setting

Statistics

Interviews

Score Music

Archival Footage/Photograp

hs

Titles and Credits

Conventions of ‘Catfish’

Convention: Handheld Footage

Use: The whole documentary was

handheld footage and was filmed by Ariel

Schulman

Develop: This develops the convention of ‘handheld footage’

because documentaries are typically a mix of handheld and

steady filming.

Convention: Titles and Credits

Use: This was used and not

developed because they

placed the title/credits in the appropriate times and places in the

shots

Convention: Interviews

Use: They used this convention

Her eye line is directed to the side of the camera

therefore establishing that she is being interview by someone behind the shot.

This is a typical method of interviewing, therefore the

convention was not developed or challenged.

Convention: supporting images

Develop: They developed this convention slightly due to the fact that the only proof they

had of the ‘Megan’ person was photographs from ‘Facebook’.

She was only shown through images.

Convention: background music

Conventions of ‘lifers’

Convention: supporting images

Use: This was used, because the images supported what was being said about the

person.

(He was once a normal young boy)

Convention: background music

Convention: Titles and Credits

Similarities between the documentaries

Differences between the Documentaries

What I have leant!