Shona Easton documentary poster analysis

Documentary Poster Analysis

This poster advertises the documentary ‘Supersize me’ about a man who challenges himself to eat nothing but McDonalds for an entire month in order to monitor the affects of the food served their on the nation.

The Title of the film is written in red and yellow, two colours which are used by the McDonalds franchise in their logo, the word ‘me’ has also been stretched so it looks abnormal this is indicative of the affect the food will have on a person. The tagline is ‘a film of epic portions’ this also relates to the food aspect of the film as it pokes fun at the large portions at McDonalds.

The various awards and nominations the film has been credited with are also included on the poster in order to increase its appeal to the audience as it shows its recommendations from the industries professionals. A comic affect of the image of the man with lots of French fries in his mouth shows that the documentary has a light-hearted tone, the image is also attention grabbing as it is a white background and the man stands out due to his bright red clothing which has connotations of both danger and the McDonalds logo .

The films website is also included on the poster so that the audience can find out more about the film if they wish to. The people and companies and companies involved are also featured on the poster, again this can increase credibility if it is associated with a well known company such as Odeon.

Finally quotations from magazines such as rolling stone feature and give high praise to the film making the audience more likely to see it if it has been spoke well of, the font is yellow and matches in with the red and yellow theme used throughout the poster.

researching posters for documentaries- shauni

voice over shauni and shona

Voice over introduction

A small town with a population of 200,000 Barnsley lies between the larger cities Leeds and Sheffield. Over recent years the town has developed greatly moving away from its industrial heritage in order to become more modernised and culturally diverse.

In the recent elections Barnsley gave the BNP the most votes than anywhere else in the country with one in six people giving the party their vote. Whether or not this is a representation of the younger generations views or the older generations aversion to change is undertermined.

Reaction to our questions from unit against facism leader. shauni, shona and natalie

During the interview with George we hoped to show him an article on a website run by the BNP. This article included a petition to remove him from his current job teaching at a primary school as they feel he may inflict his strong opinions on the childeren. When we asked him if he would like to see the article and comment on it he refused and said 'it would be like looking at a bottle of poison."

Organising meeting with BNP stall co-ordinators. shauni and shona

We approached the stall set up by the BNP in barnsley town centre on the 12th of December we asked if they wished to participate in a student film we were producing about politics in the local area, they told us they would be willing to speak to us about what they are trying to achieve with their stall and arranged to meet with us on saturday 9th December

Question to ask passing students group

We are asking students randomly in the halls of barnsley college if they would vote for the BNP and the reasons for their decision.

Shona's analysis

Documentary Analysis :Dispatches-return to Africa’s witch children

This documentary is part of the channel 4 dispatches series which highlights social and political problems throughout the world. This is a follow up documentary which returns to Africa where children are being tortured, outcasted and even killed with the belief that they are possessed by witches. The documentary starts by briefly recapping what happened during the first documentary and how their footage shocked the world and caused a change in African law, in order to do this newspaper clippings and headlines are shown using insert shots. It revisits the people interviewed in the first series, the people who helped pass the child protection laws and also discovers that child witch condemning is still occurring in Africa.

The programme primarily follows two main characters whom are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of the topic the documentary is focused on. Firstly there is the charity worker Gary Foxcroft who has devoted his life to save the children from being condemned as witches and established the first shelter for them and conversely there is Africa’s leading evangelist who makes a living through establishing which children are so called witches and conducting exorcisms in order to ‘save’ them. There are also interviews from the children themselves and other people involved in both the condemnation and the saving of the children.

The interviews and narration used throughout the programme are conducted by an unseen voice this technique is known as vox pops. In this situation this method is quite effective as it means the viewers attention is not focused on a presenter or persona who is illustrating the situation but it is focused on the issues and situations at hand. Statistics are used by the narrator in order to portray the vast amount of torture that is occurring.

Insert shots of photographs of children who have been tortures and murdered under the belief that they are witches, these insert shots are impactive due to their horrific nature. Numerous other shots are used throughout the film, most notably is the establishing shot in order to show a change of scenery and the kind of place this is happening in. Horrific images of the torture methods used on the children as well as the disturbing exorcisms mean this programme is not created for young viewers and is recommended for people aged over 16, this helps effectively portray the seriousness of the issue as it is hard to imagine without actually seeing it.

The film is filmed using all natural lighting and only a small amount of sound is used in the form of haunting music during the point where the children’s injuries are being shown, this music is upsetting and adds to the emotion of the viewers whilst seeing these images.