By Zia Martinez

Meat Loaf documentary is a mix documentary because it contains range of elements such as interviews and achieve footage that supports the evidence and/or the exposition.

The documentary was about music, awards and marketing music. The narrative structure open up on awards (The Brits Award) to convey how hard working people are and to praise themselves. It also then develops on how Meat Loaf re invented himself and how he market himself. Moving on to the middle of the documentary, they started to introduce the problems they're facing. For example the documentary unfolds how they were low on budget, the problem of how to re marketing Meat Loaf and where are his audiences and fans are. The documentary also shows Meat Loaf’s competition such as The Village. Whereas towards the end of the documentary, it portrays Meat Loaf’s success and how his marketing strategy worker. The documentary also shows how his completion such as The Village failed their marketing.

Within this documentary, there were many close ups on Meat Loaf, this was done as he was the focus of the documentary; the documentary was about Meat Loaf. It also gives him the star element. High angle shot and panning shots was also used when portraying Meat Loaf, this was done to portray how powerful he is and to signify his importance. Panning shot were also used in achieve footage when portraying the microphone and the people in the event to convey that the room is full, making it look like it is an important event. Medium shot is also used when portraying Our Price to portray the importance of the music charts. Within the interview there were also many head shots and looking into space, which is a main codes and conventions of interviews. There were also times where the screen flips which is not something an interview normally have. For example an interviewee was wearing a watch and the watch flips; this looses continuity within the documentary which portrays unprofessionalism.

Within the documentary, they set is systemisation. It was set in awards, magazine, music companies, music industry and on set with meatloaf. The mise en scene within the documentary is reflective of all the things that is happening. Mise en scene is also representative of the marketing strategies as the documentary enables insights on exactly what and where it happens. Miseon scene is also relevant when the documentary was on set filming the filming of Meat Loaf’s music videos. The set was relevant to the idea of the music and lyrics; the music video is about beauty and the beast so the mise en scene was relevant as it was filmed in the castle, woods etc. In mise en scene we also follows Meat Loaf’s journey; what type of person he is; to his award ceremonies; on set; meeting fans. It follows his journey and what he actually has to do to become successful.

There were diegetic and non diegetic sounds throughout the documentary. Non diegetic sound was used when playing the track sound in the back ground every now and then. The track is relevant as it was Meat Loaf’s song, “I would do everything for love”.

Diegetic sound was also used in interviews and the track that is playing. Other sounds used were top of the pops all throughout the documentary in the background to reinforce the music.

Throughout the documentary, slow motion are used when portraying concert and gigs footage. This was done to make the documentary more effective, making the audience feel like they are actually there. This also signifies how hard working and how passionate Meat Loaf is and how dedicated he is to his work.

There were also super imposition used when interviews are being portrayed. This was relevant to the documentary as the super impositions that are used are either about music marketing or Meat Loaf. Blue screen are also used heavily to create this super imposition.

Simple cuts and straight cuts were also used as a part of simple editing.

Throughout this documentary, there were many archive materials that were used such as The Britt Awards, The Grammys, Speeches of artists. There were also montage of people giving their speech and people walking to the stage. There were also archive materials of Meat Loaf on stage and meeting his fans, Meat Loaf on set being filmed, music videos such as Take That and Elton John. These archive materials are relevant as they were all based on music, which is one of the documentary's theme.

Graphics that were used in this are quite fancy. Black borders were used when the interviewee's name was being portrayed. The name is also in different colour to create contrast between the black border and to also make it look more visible.