Catfish, Too Poor for Posh School and MBFRGW

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CATFISH, TOO POOR FOR POSH SCHOOL AND MY BIG FAT ROYAL GYPSY WEDDING Documentary Analysis By Tasnim Choudhury

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Transcript of Catfish, Too Poor for Posh School and MBFRGW

Page 1: Catfish, Too Poor for Posh School and MBFRGW

CATFISH, TOO POOR FOR POSH SCHOOL

AND MY BIG FAT ROYAL GYPSY WEDDING

Documentary AnalysisBy Tasnim Choudhury

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Catfish

Catfish is a 90 minute documentary film, released by Universal Pictures in 2010. It is about social networking and how people may not be who they really appear as on their profiles.

I chose to analyse this documentary because it is also about social networking, which we are doing for our chosen topic and because of this, it could have good ideas which we could use for our documentary.

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The first shot that appeared in the documentary was a close-up shot of Google Earth zooming out into a shape of a globe. I thought this was quite effective because it grabs the audiences attention. I thought using something similar to this like a globe, can be useful for our documentary which is about social networks, because of the fact that social networking sites are growing more and more everyday in lots of different countries, the globe can be a symbol of how it is being used across the world.This shot on the left is an extreme close -

up of a girls eye on a monitor screen, the pixels on the screen indicate that it has been recorded off the monitor, this tells

the audience how the documentary is going to be quite focused on screens and

computers. I could use this idea for my own documentary to convey to the

viewers that the documentary will involve shots of computers, monitors, screens to establish to the audience that it is about

social networks. The music in the beginning is quite jolly, happy and innocent using a set of xylophone’s to depict this

atmosphere

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The documentary takes the audience through an investigation by telling the story through the

presenter. A presenter is useful because it helps to get the audience focused on what they are

saying but this might be hard to create into our documentary for we will need a confident person

who is really good at presenting. The presenting is one of the most important things in a

documentary, if it is not good the whole documentary can be unsuccessful. I like this close-up shot of them texting and

socialising through a different device, I could use this idea into our documentary to portray the different ways social networks can be accessed and used, it breaks it up from all the other consistent shots, making it psychically seem more appealing for the watchers. This clip on YouTube is shown in the

documentary, it instantly makes the audience watch it, making them feel

involved as well as still getting the message and story across. For our

documentary we could also record a few clips from YouTube too as it is about social

networking, YouTube is one example of a social networking site.

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A few facts and useful information are shown on the screen in white text,

against a black background through out the documentary, as well as some useful

articles form the newspaper. This explains to the audience what has happened, what is going on and

informing them with significant details in order to keep the audience interested

and curious. We could use bits of information like articles on the screen to inform our viewers and use facts about

social networking in white text to keep it formal and proficient, as well as

engrossing in our audience.The music at this point changes to a group of young children singing, keeping the innocence and happy atmosphere in the documentary. We could use this idea where we

keep the same theme and atmosphere through out the

documentary.

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Cutting edge:Too Poor for Posh School

Too Poor for Posh School is a 60 minute documentary also released in 2010 by channel Four. It is about 3 boys who are shortlisted for the Peter Beckwith scholarship. Which could pay for them to attend Harrow School.

The reason why I chose to analyse this documentary is because it is a channel four documentary which is the channel we chose to help release our documentary onto their channel.

Another reason is because our documentary, although about social networks, is also focused on how it effects students and I thought this documentary will be good to analyse because it is about students too.

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As the documentary of “ too poor for posh school” is introduced, the immediate opening of music plays an important part in the documentary as the magical

theme incites the audience to believe the information which is being described is perceived as “magical” as the theme continues till 2.00 minutes it is enough time for the audience to grasp the nature and importance of the documentary as the

theme plays a huge landscape of emotions throughout the targeted audience. This tells me how music is a very significant part of the documentary, used to grab the

audience which we need to create and apply towards our documentary.The first shot that appeared on the documentary was the

entourage of books on a staircase, this is cleverly depicted for the powerful message of “hard work” and “intelligence” with

the camera angle slightly titled to see the overflow of books.. This clever yet creative shot, intrigues in the audience which we could

use for our documentary through cleverly crafted shots that still portrays our story for our documentary yet grabbing the audiences

attention. This extreme wide shot indicates the importance of this image as the main attention is shown to the lecturer, it exposes some of the ways these posh schools are educated. We could use extreme shots like this in our documentary, for a cut away shot, or a shot that can be used in the introduction to give an over view of what will be revealed in the documentary.

In this documentary, a voiceover is used instead of a presenter, this instantly makes the audience more aware of the voice they are listening to which is why they applied

Formal language consistently throughout the documentary to give a proficient appeal to the documentary. .

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A number of shots of the young boy are displayed in the introduction to inform to the audience that the boy is the main subject of the documentary. It reveals quite a few important things in the introduction such as interviews and vox pops to draw in the audience with curiosity and interesting topics that will be shown in further detail making the audience want to continue watching the documentary to find out what will happen.

This low angle shot is quite effective here, even though it is only shown for a couple of seconds it still manages to portray the message across to the audience about ethnic minorities. We could use clever messages like this in our documentary that allows the audience to find and analyse the hidden messages.

After a minute and a half the continuous music from the

beginning fades out and stops when the title sequence is

introduced in white bold text. This establishes the question the

documentary is focused on allowing their viewers to

differentiate the main aims of the documentary.

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‘Too Poor For Posh School?’ follow the rule of thirds quite consistently through out their documentary, this frames

their face and posture quite well and makes their documentary appear proficient and presentable. To make

our documentary like this we will need to follow the rule of thirds as it is a good technique to use, it instantly

provides a better view of the documentary.

As the young boy is the main subject of their documentary, the camera follows him around his house and the high angle shot depicts a ‘fly on the wall’ style. We could use a fly on the wall shot, if we find someone to be the main subject for our documentary, it gives a sense of realism to the audience, like you are there with them. I like how they introduce their interviews with a

subheading with white, bold, font, telling the viewers their names and occupation, this immediately tells the

audience that this is an expert interview and not an ordinary vox pop interview. I could apply this to our

documentary to tell the audience the difference between the expert interviews and vox pops with text

underneath as well as the way it has been laid out, which is a MCU shot sitting at a desk, with good

lighting.

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My Big Fat Royal Gypsy Wedding

‘My Big Fat Royal Gypsy Wedding’ is another channel Four documentary released in 2011, which I thought is useful because of the fact that our documentary will be released on channel four as well and I thought we could use some similar ideas on this documentary towards ours.

This 60 minute documentary go behind the scene following a team of wedding planners that organise this big royal gypsy wedding, it reveals what the wedding planners have to go through in order to fulfil their needs as well as the documentary exposing some of the cultures and traditions of gypsy weddings to the viewers.

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In the first minute and a half there are a number of different camera shots being displayed from close-up shots to extreme close-ups and mid-length shots to

wide shots etc: All in a very fast pace edit. This introduces everything that is going to be revealed in this 1 hour documentary in just a minute and a half.

The music starts off very clam and royal for 10 seconds, and then It suddenly gets very fast using a

harmonica to depict this chaotic atmosphere, and the pace of the edit get faster to align with the music. We could use a similar idea to this where is starts off with fast pace edits, revealing everything in a minute and a half to grasp the audiences attention, keeping them

intrigued and curious about our documentary and what will happen.The introduction ends with their own creative

title sequence with magic sound effects as their title ‘My Big Fat Royal Gypsy wedding’ appears on the screen and their chaotic music fades out, to get the viewers ready for their documentary. We could use a title sequence like this, making our own animation about social networking to get the audience excited and ready to watch the rest of our documentary.

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I like how they have used cut away shots and a few creative shots, as the clear

voice over using formal language through out the documentary speaks,

this gives the audience a chance to focus on the voice and what she is

saying without distracting shots that will divert them from focusing. We could use cut away shots and creative shots of the sky to get the audience to listen to what

the voice is saying instead of getting distracted by something else, images

like this is less likely to distract our audience. In this documentary they introduce

where they are set, with a wide shot of a place in Liverpool, this is shown after the

introduction. We could use this idea to show where our documentary is mostly

based and set in. This establishes to the audience where it has taken place and it

can also be a good shot where information can be applied for the

audience with a voice over just like in ‘My Big Fat Royal Gypsy Wedding’.