The Marketing of Meatloaf

Analysis

Type of Documentary

• This documentary is a mixed documentary because it has a variety of content; interviews, narration and observation.

Themes

• The themes in the documentary are as follows;

• Music.• Power of thee media on celebrities and public.• Marketing & Merchandising.• And how an audience is manipulated by the

media into doing things.

Narrative Structure

• The narrative was:• Non-linear because it looked back on his

career.• Single strand because it focused on ‘Marketing

Meatloaf.

Narrative Structure

• Closed because it finished the story it started with which was marketing Meatloaf. Also, it finishes where it starts, at the 1994 Brit Awards.

Camerawork

• The documentary had a variety of shots such as; low/high angle, POV shots, establishing shots, tracking shots and handheld camera shots.

Camerawork

• Standard conventional interview set up was used by which framing the subject to the left or the right of the screen and using the rule of thirds for their positioning.

Camerawork

• One interview was filmed in profile and this looked wrong because of the way the subject was facing.

Camerawork

• When filming still images, the camera moved around it in an animated style.

Mise-en-scene

• There was shots of America to show that it was in America and there was shots of the Brit Awards from London.

• The background to the interviews was chroma-key and it showed archive material of Meatloaf.

Sound

• The voice over was calm, clear male who spoke in standard English. He also had a hint of sarcasm to his tone as well.

• Being a documentary about Meatloaf, his music featured throughout most of it but operatic music was used as well to reflect on Meatloaf’s theatrical style.

• Music also featured from Mr. Blobby and The Village People.

Editing

• Slow motion was used in some parts of the documentary.

• Super-imposed images were also used.

Editing

• Animated zooms and pans were used on still images of Meatloaf albums and magazine covers.

• Dissolves were used for the chroma-key. As it showed a music video, the interviewee would dissolve in at a relevant time.

Editing

• Fade to black was used for its purpose of ellipsis.

• When one part of the narrative was over, it would fade to and from black to start a new chapter.

• Cross cutting was used between the Brit Awards and the press conference.

Archive Material

• There was plenty of archive material in this documentary;

• Meatloaf’s music videos• The Jay Leno Show footage

Archive Material

• As well as radio announcements, various other TV appearances, there was also newspaper headlines.

• There was the still images of his album covers.

• Then there was the music videos for Mr. Blobby and The Village People.

Graphics

• Interviewees name and relevance came up on screen

• This was done as name and job on the top line and then the company they worked for which would prove relevance to the documentary.

Graphics

• Finally, the super-imposed graphics that appeared on screen.