Documentary research

I will look at 3 different BBC 3 documentaries and be discussing things they have in common, different styles they use and some of the advantages/ disadvantages of using them.

Weight Cut - Can i lose 10% of my body weight overnight?

In the opening couple of minutes after explaining what the documentary is about, there is an establishing shot as shown below. When i first saw this it reminded me of the title sequence at the start of the 2002 film Panic Room. 

As you can see there is a resemblance between the two shots however the documentary uses this "graphics hidden in the shot" style of throughout the entire piece whereas in Panic Room it is only used for the introduction of the lead actors and the title of the film.

The use of graphics throughout the documentary is an interesting approach to giving narrative and extra information that the audience are not being shown/ told, however there is a risk that the person watching will be distracted by reading the graphic they they do not pay attention the the interview/ GV etc. which may be more important than the graphic.

Young and Sterile: My Choice

This documentary focuses on young men and women who are permanently sterilising themselves due to them not wanting to have any children, however the question being posed is should they be aloud to do this so early on in their lives and should the NHS be supporting it? This is very much like our documentary in the sense that it touches sensitive subjects and is trying to find the answer to a "why question"  e.g. why are these people doing this to their body. Compared to our documentary which is posing the questio "why are thier no openly gay premiere league football players". They also make use of a presenter for the documentary, which seems quite a BB3 trait. This is a good approach if your documentary is very interview heavy, however if it is more of an observatory camera style e.g. fly on the wall a voice of god approach is more appropriate.