Shannon Sloyan A2 Media

Documentaries Research:

The mafia with Trevor McDonald:

A documentary usually includes facts about whatever the topic is on. This documentary is specify aimed high profile criminals who have served time in prison or haven’t at all. It is known as an expository documentary as it demonstrates social problems of the Mafia in America. Trevor McDonald is a journalist and he travelled the USA researching about these criminals. The format of the documentary is interviews. The typical style that was portrayed throughout the documentary was that Trevor never sat down, he always stood up. This shows that he is dominant. If he sat eye level and had said the wrong thing, the person he was talking to may have gotten offended and may have tried to do something to the journalist.

During the documentary Trevor is presented as very formal as he wears a suit and speaks with a wide range of vocabulary. As for the interviewees they wear what they would any day as if it was a normal day. The people being interviewed tend to swear when they didn’t like what they heard.

There was an over the shoulder shot which appeared just at the start between Trevor himself and a man comparing squashing a fly to killing someone. As Trevor is the journalist, he is researching and asking questions so the camera is showing the person who is going to be answering the question.

Crosscutting occurred throughout the whole documentary. It cut to one interview to an aerial shot of a city. During the aerial shot, Trevor would be talking about a summary of the research he found out during the interview. Which is known as a voiceover.

Where am I sleeping tonight?

Documentaries are factual and about something or someone. This documentary was about homeless young people and their lifestyle. The documentary is an interactive. As the filmmaker is continuously asking questions to the homeless people around him. The presenter of the show was also a homeless man since he was 15years old and understands what it is like to be homeless. The format is interviews, it is informal as the man talks as though he is speaking to his mates. He also dresses in his normal clothes as he cannot afford professional clothes for the show.

The particular style that the man likes to use all through the documentary was that he handheld the camera filming the people he is interviewing. There are many close ups of one particular 19 year old, it was used to show the emotion of how hungry the young person was. There was also many crosscutting in the documentary, alternately between different interviews and places. The location was vital throughout the whole show as it wasn’t in one place, the man was walking around with the camera to the homes that the people were staying at that night and the conditions were poor. At the start of the documentary, incidental sound was used to accompany the action of what the man was doing.