Documentary Formats: Texts

La sortie des usines Lumière
This Documentary seemed visually truthful to me as it all looked like everything happening was unpredictable as to what was going to happen. I believe that the film-makers just positioned the camera outside the workshop waiting for the people to leave the factory, Some people would think different however to me, it seemed everything just unfolded in front of them. This whole film was just one shot, making it even more realistic and believable.



Night Mail
From watching this I understood that the maker setup most of these shots to get across the message very easily, this must have saved time as instead of waiting for everything to happen, he could just direct the shots when he wanted to take them. We could also see that it was staged when we aw the an pulling the levers to switch track for the train, form then on we knew that everything as was planned just like this shot. Also the actors talking near the start seemed to coincidental to have happened when the camera was rolling. Something cool that made the documentary a bit ahead of its time though was an ariel shot that was captured using a train set model, for the short period of time this shot is for makes the shot believable that they actually managed to get this shot realistically.

Bowling for Columbine

For the brief time I watched this documentary I could tell it was staged almost straight away, the film-maker is meant to see how easy it is to setup a bank account and obtain a free licensed rifle. Making it look so easy to the audience, what he doesn't show is that this process would a take many days if not weeks to finish, however in this particular part it seems that he got the gun in the same day he set up his bank account. He done this buy wearing same clothes and weather being almost the same as the day he set up the account. Another thing he didn't say at the start is that the bank is also a fully licensed arms dealer meaning they are fully secured to sell guns and aren't just giving them away because they have them. Michael Moore tries to make the audience see bad in things that aren't so bad in reality.

When Louis met Jimmy and the Nazi's

In this documentary Louis met up and spent some valuable time with Jimmy Saville. During this it seemed very believable to me as when he asked questions to Jimmy he didn't know what to expect, also the same for Louis as he didn't know what Jimmy's reaction would be. Everything was really comedic which made the whole thing really funny to watch. Also in the Nazi's episode Louis seemed to enforce his belief on the people he was interviewing as he proved their opinions to be incredibly wrong in the sense of politics and society. The Nazi episode especially shows how narrow minded people are against black and Jewish people, showing how much people can hate someone for what they believe and how they look without giving any reason.

The Thin Blue Line

Whilst watching this documentary we can see that everything happening is truthful as it was more of a standard interview movie. We can see cutaways from all of the witnesses and suspects perspectives to show their point of view on what they saw. All cutaways were re-constructed that were based on the crime, making it un-realistic in some respect however this allows us to visualize what happened. These clips were being replayed over and over again to try and allow you to make some sort of assumption of who done it yourself. Seeing Randall trying to describe his innocence towards the murder seemed very truthful as when we saw David Harris being interviewed he was wearing a prison suit showing he has been put away for the murder and that he was the one who actually killed the policeman. This documentary for more was more embracing than all the others as it left you questioning throughout the whole thing who actually committed the murder. The previous ones just informed you of peoples cultures and how and what its like to live and work where they are.

The Lambeth Boys

I felt like this documentaries wasn't very authentic as most scenes felt as if they were planned and the people knew what that had to do in that specific part. Moments when they were talking to each other sometimes felt real however you could partially tell they were acting because the camera was rolling. It showed things that would definitely not of happened if it was completely un-staged, such as when they were shouting at the back of the truck and having a large conversation in the chip shop. In the chip shop scene you can see one of the people take a short glimpse at the camera, showing that they weren't supposed to make eye contact with the people recording, emphasizing it was fake. There were short montage clips that slightly broke the authenticity of the whole documentary and really long dance scene that got really boring. The overall recording of the documentary really didn't fee like I was watching a documentary, it was more of a movie styled film. This also detracted the authenticity from it making everything that was happening less believable.