Task 2: Media A2 documentary conventions/ Renya

Convention	Supersize Me	Louis Theroux Behind Bars	Documentary of choice
Content	The impact of junk food (McDonald’s) on personal health.  Morgan Spurlock eats a strictly McDonald’s diets for a month talking the audience over the impacts it had on his life and about how the food industry became what it is and how it maintains itself.	An investigation into the life of inmates in the San Quentin prisoners. Includes interviews with a wide variety of prisoners from people who were convicted for law violation and seriously dangerous convicts.	A documentary investigating the ‘red rain’ in India and the possibility of aliens and our origins.
Structure & organisation	Introduction Chapters clearly separated Includes brief summary of each chapter	Brief introduction (establishing shot) Chapters separated by fade out & music	Introduction and conclusion. No definite chapters but runs smoothly.
Tone e.g. satirical	Satirical tone poking fun at the ignorance of people about obesity.	The tone is more formal than supersize, includes some softer undertones	Formal, some light hearted jokes.
Purpose e.g. inform	To inform and entertain.	Mainly to inform.	To inform & investigate
Distributor & target audience	35 different distributors. The target audience can be anyone from obese people through health nuts. The age of the audience can also very as there is information available for all age groups. Although it’s mostly aimed at US citizens, the film has been available to view in several counties. (broad audience)	The target audience would most likely be in the adolescence/adult age category. They would have to have some form of interest in the topic. (intellectual audience)	The target audience are people who are interested in such theories and/or scientists. (intellectual audience)
Role of the ‘presenter’	To act as the ‘guinea pig’ about his hypothesis about junk food’s impact on the health. The audience sympathize with his opinions and decisions. He delivers the information first hand which makes the information more trustworthy, we observe it together.	He is the voice of the audience. Asks simple questions and voices the widely held opinions e.g. remorse, guilt, emotions…. His task is for the audience to see the prison through his eyes and the eyes of the inmates.	There is no definite presenter; the person doing the voiceover takes over that role the most. There is focus on the main doctor investigating the red rain.
Role of the cameraperson	The role of the camera person is to film the progress Morgan made through the month of him eating the junk food. The camera focused on relevant objects, the camera person delivers the images of what Morgan is talking about for a more rounded image.	To follow Theroux around the prison and represent the view pints of everyone through clever camera angles and positioning.	The role of the camera person is to simply present the audience with shots which make it easier to follow what the professors are talking about, e.g. establishing shots of Kerala, Southern India make it easier to see what the place is like and what environment it is in.
People involved	Morgan Spurlock Morgan’s girlfriend Camera man Darys Isaacs- dr. Lisa Ganjhu- dr Stephen Siegel- dr Other health people David Satcher- health minister Spokespeople, journalists, patients Gene Grabowski- deputy CEO (McD’s)	Louis Theroux Guards Camera man	Several doctors who have different views on what has caused the rain to turn red. Each one presents his or hers theory, though some in greater detail.
Locations	Major cities/states in USA (same place as context)	San Quentin State Prison (same place as context)	India, Kerala (same place as context)
Interviews	Dan’s girlfriend Fat patients McDonald’s spokespeople Waitresses Health consultants Doctors Random Citizens/tourists BigMac lover (eats them each day)	David Silva Guards ‘Playboy’ Deborah and Rob The white ‘group’ Other transgender/gay inmates Protected inmates	Doctors and many scientists and professors, the main one taking the audience through the journey of finding out the cause of the red rain is Godfrey Louis.
Voice overs	Done by Morgan himself.	Louis Theroux himself.	Random man/ narrator.
Colour Palettes	Similar to those of the restaurant. Yellow/red focus	Grey, green, darker scheme Fits in with the prison environment.
Lighting	Well lit apart form when he’s in a car at night or at home- indication of time passing.	Often when Theroux goes in to prisons the shot is badly lit. Faces are well lit- exposed, ominous.	Well lit at all times.
Non Diegetic Sound	Song lyrics/music compliments the topic e.g. nursery rhymes on food	Lyrics compliment the topic.	Music relevant to topic such as music often associated with aliens.
Diegetic Sound	Often there are sounds like ambient sounds to establish the city life which prompts people in to eating at fast food restaurants. Sometimes things like an alarm clock beeping indicated the passing of time as a shot of Morgan getting around his morning routine is shown. Other less pleasant ones create the feeling that his health is getting worse such as the sounds of coughing, moaning and vomiting.	Diegetic sounds are mostly in the form of ambient sounds of prison such as gates opening, muffled voices in the background, clacking of shoes on the concrete floor etc…	Diegetic sound is not important for the documentary as it would distract from what is being said. The audience is specific to the content and most likely mature so making the documentary interesting through the use of diegetic sound is not as important as it has been in Super Size Me.
Fonts & Titles	The texts is often similar to the font used by McDonald’s or presented in an eye catching way such as over artwork or in bubble writing. This, for example, helps to draw attention to the many statistics presented to the audience. ^the title of the documentary clearly plays on the McDonald’s logo.	The writing is not a significant part of the documentary and little focus has been put on it. When the titles are used it is to indicate the topic and names of the officers and offenders.	There is a consistency with the font and the use is scarce. Some fonts such us in one of the titles uses basic roman letters which have been made fancy in to resemble Indian writing.
Editing	The editing has been played around with. Many shots have been edited to music, have had colours enhanced etc… Many shots have been cut to only present crucial information to the audience instead of dragging speech on. This may have been done because the style of the documentary is appropriate for all audiences and younger proportion of the viewers may have found themselves bored otherwise.	The editing is a lot more sophisticated than in Super Size Me. There are many cuts and shot reverse shots used between the interviewer and the interviewee, perhaps to highlight how different their lives are. A lot of the shots of the prison are done behind the bars to give off a caged effect.	The editing is simply used to separate scenes and cuts are used to cherry pick what is said to portray the speech clearly and avoid babbling to confuse the audience when the topics are already hard to grasp.
CGI / Animation / SFX	Lots of graphic animation, stop motion (drink cartons)	Animation of the outer space is used to illustrate some of the3 scientific claims.	Pop art used.
Camera Angles	The camera angles vary throughout the documentary to keep things interesting. Many shots however are establishing shots as Spurlock introduces new topics, people and facts.	There is significant play with low and high shots to show who has the power in the prison. Surprisingly the power is split between the officers and inmates as well as between the inmate groups.	There are many wide shots, establishing shots and match on action shots used in the documentary. A MLS and MCS range is used during the majority of the interviews.