Main Task Deconstruction

Here I have deconstructed three documentaries:

Catfish: The Movie :

David Bowie: The Story of Ziggy Stardust :

My Chemical Romance: Life on the Murder Scene :


I have used Microsoft word and Scribd to do my deconstructions.

Main Task Deconstructions

Overall, from deconstructing these three documentaries, I have learnt and been inspired by a variety of features within. In terms of camera shots/movements/angles, I have found that all used basic camera shots - such as close-ups and mid shots for interviews, along with other shots such as establishing shots, long shots, etc. From this, I have been able to realistically envision how my documentary may look, and what camera shots would look good for certain scenes. In addition to this, I have found that both Catfish and Life on the Murder Scene mostly use handheld cameras - very rarely is a tripod used and a track is not used once - this is useful as it allows me to realistically be able to film, without it looking unprofessional, using my Nikon camera. In David Bowie: The story of Ziggy Stardust, a green screen was used for the background in the interviews, seeing this has made me realise that using a studio in order to film interviews will look out of place in my documentary - as using a studio does not reflect real life,like I want my Documentary to show.

In terms of editing, each documentary had cut transitions between different segments, the type of transition that I feel would look best in my documentary was found in both Catfish and Life on the Murder Scene. In these documentaries, a simple black screen was used with plain white text to indicate that the day/topic had changed and to give background information. This, I feel, would fit well with my documentary to give background information and also to indicate a new day (e.g. cutting from one scene talking about an upcoming concert, to the actual day of the concert). In addition, in both these documentaries, there were no fast cuts - fast cuts are usually to create atmosphere, etc, which neither of them needed - and many scenes lasted for quite a while before cutting to either a new camera angle or a new scene, which is something I will use in my documentary.

All the documentaries used both Diegetic and Non-Diegetic sound, and therefore, I am going to also - in the form of background music - Non-Diegetic- and any noise/speaking happening during a scene being Diegetic. However, when researching the background information on Catfish, I discovered that two lawsuits had been filed against the documentary as it had music that hadn't been credited to those who created it. This has informed me that by using music in my documentary, I will need to contact whoever owns the rights to the music to ask for permission.