DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH

Research into similar products

Documentary 1 – The Human Mannequin

The Human Mannequin is a documentary about a 17 year old girl who has a rare disease that causes her muscles to lock into place. Despite this, she is desperate to make it in the world of fashion. However, will the extremely body conscious fashion industry accept her. This documentary is relevant to ours as it is dealing with similar issues like body image and being judged by others.

This documentary is a mixture of reality TV and Self reflective documentary as it follows the life of a real 18 year old and she is aware the documentary and she talks to the camera. It also includes interviews with experts in fashion and medicine as well as close friends and family. The target audience is teenagers aged 13 – 18 which is similar to our documentary’s target audience. It is also on the same channel at the same time just the day before. This shows that we are on the right lines with timing and channel as it shows that this must be a popular time for our target audience to watch television. It starts with an establishing shot of her face whilst she’s having her make up done. This is introducing the person and theme in a subtle way.we would like to adapt this by starting with different ‘selfies’.

Documentary 2 – Catfish UK TV

Catfish is a TV show documentary where experts look on internet, specifically social media, to find out if people are who they say they are. People use fake pictures, profiles and identities to lure people into serious relationships. This documentary explores social media and how it effects people who post them and people who get involved. This documentary is a mixed

documentary including elements of reality TV and Docusoap. The real people are followed and investigated online. Using social media, they track down people who have been online messing with people. This does deal with how people use social media to edit pictures or even change profile altogether and tricking people like that really impacts on them. This is similar to how our documentary will look at how people use images on social networking to make themselves feel better.

Documentary 3 – The secret life of students

The secret life of students is a Channel 4 documentary in which students are given special IPhones that track all their texts, calls and online activities. This is good for pre filming research as it is the generalised habits of the age group that our documentary will revolve around and be targeted at. This TV show documentary is a mixture of self reflective

and reality TV as it follows the lives of real students and how social media effects them. The clip starts with a very wide shot of the student accommodation. This works as a type of establishing shot which shows the audience where the footage is taking place and what the general theme is. This then moves to a wide shot of subject Helen reading her book for university. This suggests that she really is trying to focus. There is also a close up of the main distraction, her phone, to show she is texting. When Helen is doing an interview there are several cut aways. One to a shot of her using her phone and one to the person she is texting.