The documentary I will be analysing is called 'Glamour Models, Mum and Me'. This documentary is about the relationship between a plastic surgery obsessed glamour model Alicia Douvall and her surprisingly well balanced 14 year old daughter, Georgia. This documentary follows both mother and daughter on their daily motives and trips.
I chose to analyse this documentary as it looks interesting and has variety of techniques such as different levels of shots, angles, cutaways, and the way specific places are been captured and interviewed. I will be looking forward to see the ways in which this documentary represents relationship of two blood related people but have totally have different outlook/opinion in their separate lives and also the techniques it uses to persuade the audience of its truth. I will be focusing on a five minute extract of the hour long documentary.
The five minutes extract I have chosen to analyse begins with a medium close up of Georgia's face and hands playing game on her phone sitting on a sofa, then it cuts to another medium close up of her mum sipping a cup of tea. Then from there the camera starts to move around tilting from left to right, zooming in and out, changing angles and levels. Eye level is mainly used in this section in order to make us see their full expression on their faces to understand what they are really talking about.
effective.
The cinematography used in the cutaways to show the mum and her daughter is mainly close up, medium close up or a medium long shot (2 shot). I believe they have used this to show the actions of the body and the expression of their faces for the viewers to be able to make they own thoughts and opinions of what they think about the two different characters. Also the have used different angles and movements of shots such as low angle, high angle, eye level, tracking shot, steady cam etc. The tracking is been used to show the movements of the characters, this is to view to the audience and show them how their movements represents who they are. Also a low angle shot is been used to show the tall trees and buildings of the surroundings of where they are. This is used to make the audience get an image of where they are to catch up with the scene been shown.
The cinematography that is used in interviews is also very important because the way that different people are interviewed can make viewers have different interpretations of them, so the camera person needs to make sure that he/she doesn’t try to portray as the wrong thing. Generally, the same camera shots and angles were used for the interviews in the five minute extract.
Mise-en-scene in this documentary represent each character in various ways. The daughter is been represented as a well behaved, well mannered, educated girl. This can be told by the use of props which was the way she dressed. She dressed like a mature 14 years old girl. Also the use of props like books represents her as educated. This props have represented her clearly to the audience because she looks like she knows what she wants in life and she's working ahead of it. We could tell this by her doing her chemistry homework and talking to her mum about the chemistry work she needs to get done.
A massive contrast of the mother and daughter has been portrayed to the audience through the use of mise-en-scene. The mother dressed much more feminine than her daughter and we could tell this by they way she wore tight outfits to bring out the sexiness of her body. However this also made it more clear to the audience that she's a glamour model.
Also mise-en-scene is also used to show the similarity of both mother and daughter which is the fact that they are rich. This was clearly portrayed by the use of gadgets such as car, the daughter having two different i pod/touch, and also the location where they stayed when they went on holiday to Los Angeles.
Sound is been used very effectively in this documentary. Most noticeable sound used is diegetic sound of both mother and daughter talking. The reason why i feel this is effective is because the audiences can relate to what they are both saying as the whole documentary is about them. This would make it more interesting for audience to watch because they are listening to who they are watching words of mouth to their own lives.
Also a voice over is been used to narrate what is supposed to be going on before they hear the diegetic monologue/dialogue. This is to make the audience aware of what is happening to be able to catch up with what would be said by the characters and viewed. Without the voice over the audience wouldn't be able to understand clearly exactly what the interviewees could be talking about.Without the voiceover, some parts of the documentary would not be informed clearly to the audience, and this would lead them to make a wrong interpretation of it without being told the correct story.
Non diegetic music is been used to tell the audience what is going own and to make them feel the emotions expected to feel. For example 'I don't want to be the second best' this music was used when showing a close up of the girl going out with her mum. This makes the audience feel quite emotional as the way the girl is been viewed because anytime she's around her mum, she sometimes feels she's the second best of both of them because her mum is a glamour model, though she does have the toughts of her own belief that her path is also the right path in life. Sound is also important when people are being interviewed as it is essential that the interviewee can be clearly heard and understood by the viewers. The crew ensured that everyone that was being interviewed is clearly heard.
Finally the documentary as a whole is made to show contrast between two people.It showed facts and footage of the difference and with it coming to an end of the mother realising her mistake after the journey they been through.
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