Tracking Down MaggieNick Broomfield

Documentary Genre and Modes

Tracking Down Maggie is a reflexive documentary. Broomfield acknowledges his presence in front of the camera and provides a narrative to the documentary. Reflexive documentaries are normally associated with experimental documentaries, but Broomfield’s is more of a real-life documentary.This documentary also takes the Participatory Mode with the filmmaker and crew (attempting) to interact with the subject, it is interview dominated throughout and features the use of archive material. This is very similar to my vision of a documentary by it being interview dominated as it gives the audience something to critically respond to, then they can choose to agree or disagree, which I believe is an efficient way to engage the audience. Tracking Down Maggie takes on multiple modes, it will hopefully encourage me to also not stick to a particular, and even take on more than one, documentary type.Tracking Down Maggie solely focuses on one controversial subject - Margaret Thatcher. At the time the documentary was produced (1990s) Thatcher was one of the most disputable politicians in modern Britain, with many having opposing opinions of her. It could be argued this singular focus engages an audience because whether people like or dislike her, there is a huge interest around her, so when the documentary film was broadcast, it got many views and responses. This is different to my vision for a documentary, I will be looking at a number of issues surrounding my subject of social networking, for example, I’ll be dealing with aspects such as cyber bullying, modern communication and culture have been shaped through social networking. Just as Thatcher was culturally relevant in the 1990’s, so is my documentary focus.

Camera Shots, Composition and Movement

Slow motion at important bits in the documentary, it was vital to use when Broomfield needed to pick out and give out information about certain people in shot. Zooms in to the relevant aspects to stress the importance of them, and to show the audience the truth since it is controversial. Zooms were also used on interviewees as the information they were giving were important to Broomfield’s views of Thatcher.Handheld shots to show it’s real life, possibly to interest people since it is controversial. There are no reconstructions and so the handheld camera shots reinforce this. Effective establishing shots (Shot of top of building, tilts down to the doors).Historic clips from previous broadcasts were used throughout. The selection of clips potentially show bias from Broomfield. For example: Broomfield in his narration mentions that Thatcher displayed derogatory attitudes towards women. This statement is then supported by clips of Thatcher being surrounded by men in the boardroom and then a clip of her in an interview discussing the role of women in paid work and domestic work (Time:17:05-). Although I believe using historic clips can be very effective, using something similar to this for my documentary wouldn’t be relevant as social networking and the internet is a fairly new thing so such archive material wouldn’t be available yet.

Props, Setting and Lighting

It was created in the 1990’s, the equipment is outdated for a current audience watching it in 2013. But the target audience, most likely to adults interested in politics, may not care for high tech aspects such as this, as they are likely to care more about the content over the cinematic factors.It looks low budget due to the ‘behind the scenes’ nature of the documentary. As a Channel 4 production, I would expect it to be high value and focus on professional and restrictive content due to Channel 4’s popularity. However, it seems Channel 4 allow creativity and freedom of the filmmakers in order to produce what they want to make, from their website they state: ‘Channel 4 has world-class reputation in Documentaries based on its history of bold storytelling and innovative use of technology. Over the past thirty years, many of our most significant commissions have been the result of taking on ideas no one else would have been brave enough to try. And our biggest single note to producers has always been to bring us the most daring and controversial ideas’. Judging by the popularity of Channel 4’s documentaries, this approach is shown to be successful.The documentary is set in various locations that are relevant to the investigation, such as Thatcher’s hometown. The crew followed Thatcher in hope to speak to her, even to and around the USA. As they filmed in different environments, the use of establishing and handheld shots increased when unpredicted filming occurred, capturing the spontaneous nature of the documentary.

Characters/Participants

People that knew her, many characters to give different viewpoints on Margaret Thatcher. The presenter, Nick Broomfield, is the constant character throughout, to guide the viewer through her story. But as I’m possibly moving towards making a Expository style documentary, having a presenter used in this way won’t be needed.Broomfield wanted to interview specific people such as Thatcher’s children, due the conspiracies based around her son. As Broomfield tried getting someone who is involved with the subject, this could possibly inspire my work in the sense that I’m hoping to interview people who are involved and use social networks.Members of the public are asked questions in hope of them having knowledge of Thatcher. For example: one woman was interviewed as she had Thatcher’s old toilet.

Structure

Information is given through the narration, which is what I’m hoping to do in my own documentary. I feel it’s an effective way of portraying information because it adds to the visuals. It also makes the editing process more interesting because it would allow me to select which shots to use to match the narration, which would hopefully result in me creating my own editing style.Casual interviews with people that knew Thatcher were conducted in a spontaneous, seemingly unorganised manner, to make it friendly to get more out of the interviewees. Focuses mainly on the interviewees and not the interviewer, so that their perspectives only matter. This is how I intend my documentary to go: totally cutting out me asking the questions, as a result, I’ll need to find a creative way to show the questions.Random events unfold throughout the documentary, this makes the structure seem unpredictable and unorganised, which is what I believe Broomfield intended to do as a part of the reflexive mode. Although this suited very well with the documentary, I’d prefer my film to be very structured and organised, with my interviews being set up in a certain layout. Nick Broomfield narrates what is happening, to give an overview. His narration is authoritative, encouraging the audience to think in a specific way. When a documentary is based on one person only, such as Tracking Down Maggie, the documentary tackles specific aspects of their life. This documentary tackled personal aspects, family matters, failed attempts at talking to Thatcher and her employees, interviewing ‘friends’ (conveniently for Broomfield’s negative bias, they all seemed to have speak slightly negatively of her) and members of the public.

Structure

Information is given through the narration, which is what I’m hoping to do in my own documentary. I feel it’s an effective way of portraying information because it adds to the visuals. It also makes the editing process more interesting because it would allow me to select which shots to use to match the narration, which would hopefully result in me creating my own editing style.Casual interviews with people that knew Thatcher were conducted in a spontaneous, seemingly unorganised manner, to make it friendly to get more out of the interviewees. Focuses mainly on the interviewees and not the interviewer, so that their perspectives only matter. This is how I intend my documentary to go: totally cutting out me asking the questions, as a result, I’ll need to find a creative way to show the questions.Random events unfold throughout the documentary, this makes the structure seem unpredictable and unorganised, which is what I believe Broomfield intended to do as a part of the reflexive mode. Although this suited very well with the documentary, I’d prefer my film to be very structured and organised, with my interviews being set up in a certain layout. Nick Broomfield narrates what is happening, to give an overview. His narration is authoritative, encouraging the audience to think in a specific way. When a documentary is based on one person only, such as Tracking Down Maggie, the documentary tackles specific aspects of their life. This documentary tackled personal aspects, family matters, failed attempts at talking to Thatcher and her employees, interviewing ‘friends’ (conveniently for Broomfield’s negative bias, they all seemed to have speak slightly negatively of her) and members of the public.