That Thing – Lara CroftLuke dickinson

This documentary is about the game Tomb Raider and the main heroine Lara Croft.

The type of documentary is mixed, it has a variety of content. Like interviews, narration and archive footage.

The themes explored in this documentary are: On the surface video games in general, but also the power of the media, feminism/strong female role models and the way the media is changing.

The narrative structure of the interview is closed and single stranded as it is only about Lara Croft, it is also non-linear as it doesn’t follow any chronological order, as it chops up the interviews.

The camera work for this interview features shots like over the shoulder while someone is playing and panning across general footage of the game. Tracking and point of view shots where used when entering the sort of internet café where everyone is playing the game.

The interviews where mostly filmed following the common conventions of documentaries, featuring A big close up, close up medium close up or medium shot. The only interview that doesn’t is the interview with the games creator Toby Gard, they tilted his interview and put him in a computer graphic to add humour.

The mise en scene featured is, the use of a green screen – to footage of the game into the background – front projection – the game is projected onto the interviewee’s face, its give a sense of them being in the game.

The voice over used is read by a male, who is youthful as it fits the target audience, and he uses standard English. The music used is fast paced and upbeat, the music also is throughout the entire documentary. A track by Madonna is also used as she is mentioned as a major feminist icon much like Lara Croft.

The editing features fast cutting, which keeps a fast pace throughout the documentary, there is also slow motion used during the Barbie and ken scene. Cutaways are used to cut out the questions.

The archive footage used is footage of the game, magazines/newspapers, Lara Croft movie footage and the Angelina Jolie interview.

Graphics are used to tell us who the interviewee is, the name is bigger then the relevance to the topic but both are lower case. The subline anchors the relevance to the topic. The ‘That thing’ graphic is recurring theme present in the series.

The editing features fast cutting, which keeps a fast pace throughout the documentary, there is also slow motion used during the Barbie and ken scene. Cutaways are used to cut out the questions.

The archive footage used is footage of the game, magazines/newspapers, Lara Croft movie footage and the Angelina Jolie interview.

Graphics are used to tell us who the interviewee is, the name is bigger then the relevance to the topic but both are lower case. The subline anchors the relevance to the topic. The ‘That thing’ graphic is recurring theme present in the series.