Christmas with Dad: Documentary Analysis.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p004r1f8

This documentary film, while the genre and topic is vastly different to ours, shows many shots and techniques that are classic to a documentary that I would like to incorporate into our own film. For example, to change a scene, the camera normally focuses in on a smaller object in the scene and then a sudden cut happens to bring the camera into the bigger picture. In 'Christmas with Dad', the camera focuses in on the Christmas decorations on the house as an introduction and then cuts immediately to the father stood outside the house with the decorations on it, tying him into the established scene. Not only does this set the scene where the father is, but it also subconsciously tells the audience what tome of year it is, and what the environment is going to be like.

Another technique that appears is the idea of expanding the scene with other shots while the person being interviewed is speaking. In 'Christmas', while the father is speaking about his family, it cuts to them in turn and shots of around the house that he lives in, giving the audience a wider idea of what kind of lifestyle these people have and, most importantly, informs the viewers more about the situation being presented. This could be infinitely useful for our own documentary as we can use these shots to expand the scene. To use as an example, there could be a scene where Kevin is in the park waiting for Beth and is being interviewed about his thoughts, and the camera could pan to some children playing in the park (Permision forms would be filled out beforehand) to reflect on his feelings towards the subject.

The final analysis I can make of this documentary is to use shots where there are no actors in it to show the passage of time. In the above documentary, it uses shots of the cityscape, firstly in the dark with the streetlights all on, and secondly a shot in the morning to show how the time has passed in the documentary. This could be useful in our own documentary to show if a certain amount of time has passed. It could be implemented at the very beginning to show time has passed between the 'Before the Break' segment where Kevin breaks up with her on bonfire night to the present time in the documentary where he agrees to go to a family planning clinic for more information.