Analyzing Existing Products
What is a Documentary?
It is a genre of movie making that uses videos & film scenes, photographs and/or sound of real people and real events which when edited together creates a particular story, viewpoint, message or experience. Usually non-fiction, primarily for the purpose of instruction, education, or maintaing some sort of a historical record. Very early documentaries, oringally called "actuality films" lasted one minute or sometimes even less. Overtime, documentaries have evolved to become much longer in length, and to include more categories; some examples being educational, observational, and docufiction. Very informative and are often used within schools, as a resource to teach various lectures. The filmmakers involved within this craft have a responsibility to be truthful to their creative vision of the world without intentionally mispresenting a topic of discussion/interest.
From Bedrooms To Billions
Is the remarkable true story of the the 'British Video Games' Industry from 1979 to the very present day. Developments in all kinds of computer technology in the UK during the late 1970s & early 1980s, helped inspire an entire new generation of small team enthuiaisits including Hobbyists, bedroom coders and entrepreneurs to both make and realize some truly classic games. (Including the workings on Pacman & Atari) 'Bedroom Programming/Coding' is referred to a particular person who is somewhat average 'amuter' programmer that does not much of his workload for gaining profit. It's a type of individual where is 'going it alone' rather than working directly in a cooperate office envoirment. The contents of this documentary tells the story of how the creativity and vision of relatively small number of individuals allowed the UK to play a key, pioneering role in shaping of the billion dollar video games industry featuring key important contributors to the UK Story such as Peter Molyneux, Jeff Minter, David Braben, David Perry, Mark Healey, Jason Kingsley and many others from across the video game development industry of that era.
'Peter Douglas Molyneux' is a well-known English video game-designer/programmer. He was responsible at creating the "GOD" Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and black & white, What's Inside The Cube?, and Godus. Currently works at 22 Cans. Jeff Winter is an independent English video game designer and programmer who often goes by the nickname of 'Yak'. He is the founder of the software house Liamasoft and has created dozens of games throughout his 36 year Carrer. Which began with games for the Sinclair ZX80 in 1981. David Braben is another British video game 'CEO' developer and designer, founder of the Frontier Developments, co-creator of the elite series of space trading video games, first published in 1984. The most biggest one of them all arguably is by far Mark Healey, who is a British video game developer from Ipswich, Suffolk. Healey started his Carrer making games for the old commodore-64 (home computer) which lead to him most famously collaborating with creators of 'Little Big Planet' and the sequel that came after it.
The start of the video begins with a suttle fade in where we see a clear, evenly light long-lane style, sitting up shot of the subject explains his points of thought & speech etc. The positioning of the subject is actually very clever as it utilizes the power of leading lines very suttley within the righthand corner of the screen. The purpose of leading lines can appear both in photography and videography, these lines often draw the viewer's eye in a spefic direction towards a designated portion of the photographic frame. This is highly effective at what it does as it draws the viewer's concertation and eye level to meet the subjects very-own eye level which helps ground the intro solidly. The fade in appears to also be a simplistic cross dissolve which is very popularly used in all kinds of videomaking and it can be used almost limitlessly in multiple different genres of film and tv as a whole.
The use of colour is also very effective at not all looking the same and feel vibrant & punchy which is naturally going to draw the viewer in even more in to the sequence. Red and green tend to contrast with each other very well as they are opposites to each other on the colour wheel which therefore explains to a technical level why the colours work so well when put together on screen, very good presentation overall within the first 45 seconds of the video and helps the viewer settle in very nicely.
The montage afterwards around the 18 second marker feels very wholesome and nostalgically influenced as we are greeted by quick-cuts of 70s video games and their oringal department stores that they where housed in here we get glimpses of some the fellow creators and CEO members who where apart of the brand apon it's birth. Nostalgia is a sacred and often very powerful tool used in many, many examples of media. The type of people who fit into this sort of demographic tend to be those who look back on the past wistfully (like a family member looking at old photographs of friends, places and locations etc) most notably in our time, these types of people tend to be those who love fan-service in their tv and film. This is something to keep note of when writing the screenplay for my documentary as inspiring montages are very popular and used importantly to help sell the product to the audience. After all the montage can be the biggest deciding factor for someone weither or not they'll continue viewing the documentary or not.
Turtle Power
Everybody knows who the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are. They are afterall, still a global phenomenon. But they didn't always start that way. The Documentary tells the history of the wild and crazy characters, from the early days of the oringal black & white comic to today. Along the way, insight into just how the gritty comic-book became a kid friendly, long running, uber-successful cartoon and toyline; and how without a lot of help along the way, and some believers in highly influential places, this comic (which presented a completely oringal breed of superhero) would have been considered too bizarre and too crazy, which all of the rules and should never have worked in the first place, actually did. And how the turtles themselves have become a huge beloved part of international and American pop culture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qbymj_yAfo
We're firstly introduced into the documentary by a quick 'curtain swipe' animated transition into the old footage of the first TMNT movies and it's classically known black and white comic books. The montage of videos are edited together very interestingly as it utilizes the power of J-cuts. A J-cut, is a method of editing a timeline sequence on a software where you have the audio from the next shot precede the upcoming shot. These clips also have a lot in common in regards to how they are all sewed together therotrctally within the editing programme, they all have the use of jump cuts put into them. (However it is not be confused by a j-cut) A jump cut is a very popular film technique used when one shot cuts to another without any continuity between the other previous shots. The most common type of a 'jump cut' is when two consecutive shots show an actor (or sometimes multiple) from different angles or distances and/or with no overlap whatsoever.
Example of a great jump cut as a reference: https://images.app.goo.gl/MZwakJoaY77kVii36
The Death Of Superman Lives: What Happened?
Is a 2015 American documentary film written and directed by Jon Schnepp and produced by Holly Payne. It chronicles the behind the scenes events surrounding the cancelled Tim Burton film Superman Lives. Currently streaming on 'Hulu' and 'Showtime' and is avidable to be purchased Blu-ray or the film's own official website. The reason for it's cancelation was warner bros ordered another rewrite from Dan Gilory for "budgetary reasons" and filming was massively delayed, and the project was finally put on hold and then effectively canceled in April 1998, the budgetary requirements were the result of a series of a box office misfires by Warner Bros themselves. Johnathan David Schnepp was an American Producer, Director, Voice Actor, Editor, Writer, Cartoonist and Cinematographer. He is most famously known for the documentary film 'The Death Of Superman Lives' Which he both directed and wrote. Holly Lynn Payne is an American Author and Screenwriter, and has written off four novels. The Virgins Knot, The sound Of Blue, The kingdom Of Simplicity and Damascena.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJTjkAGLJVY
Conclusively let us talk about the font crawl effects and it's italics. Clearly a direct reference to the Christopher Reeves superman of that 70s era. Once again the use of nostalgic reverence is clearly presented within the first seconds of the documentary. The theme of superimposition is carried cleverly through out the documentary as big swooping flashes of text is distinctively designed to wow the viewer to keep watching the video. The editorial pace of the trailer is also quite interesting, the video appears to be very heroic & powerful and pointent with it's editing. Great use of a tracking shot as the anonymous actor(Standing in for Nicolas Cage) becomes almost one with the silhouetted background. Beautiful use of red, blue and black installed in the set designs which mirror the aspects of Tim burton's creative visual language and tone incredibly well.
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