Supersize Me

Today in class, we watched the first half of the documentary, Supersize Me. From my research on the different types of documentaries, I believe that this film is the expository type due to the fact that it has a very strong argument line and the intention is to persuade viewers of this view: that take out, particularly Mc Donald's, has a very poor effect on consumers' health and can have detrimental effects.

Examples of how the audience has been manipulated:
- Interviews with people who are clueless about what calories are, etc. which is manipulated as there were probably many people who know what they are that were cut out from the film to emphasise the point of the obesity in the nation
- Shots of the doctors and nutritionists who are extremely concerned with the effects of the diet, which have been included for validity of the argument
- The man who is doing the diet is constantly telling the audience how poor he feels, he throws up while it's recording, etc.
- Statistics to prove the point of growing obesity, how bad take away food is, etc.
- The man's girlfriend expresses how concerned she is about his health which plays with the viewers' emotions and positions them to feel sad
- It was stated in the beginning of the film that the blood test results could be manipulated (sugar could be increased by drinking orange juice beforehand and cholesterol could be increased by eating bacon beforehand) which was probably used in the blood tests during the experiment to make the results seem a lot worse
- The images of Ronald McDonald in between the different topics has been placed there  to emphasise the argument and to scare the audience away from Mc Donald's as it is portrayed as evil, bad and scary

The Six Types of Documentaries

1. Poetic Documentaries

- Fragmental, impressionistic, lyrical

- One of the first documentaries types: first appeared in the 1920s

- Reaction against the content and crystallising grammar of early fiction films

- Organised images of material world by patterns and associations

- Well-rounded characters were absent, instead there were entities

- 'Real world' broken up into fragments and arranged aesthetically

2. Expository Documentaries

- Speak directly to viewer, authoritative commentary

- Strong argument and point of view

- Rhetorical, aim is to persuade the viewer

- 'Voice of God' commentary

- Images are used to enhance the argument and the rhetorical tone manipulates viewers to view these in a certain light

3. Observational Documentaries

- Observe life with minimal intervention

- Generally avoid voice-over commentary, post-synchronised dialogue and music, and reenactments

- Aims: immediacy, intimacy, revelation of individual human character in ordinary life situations

4. Participatory Documentaries

- Impossible for the act of filmmaking to not influence or alter the events being recorded, they emulate the approach of the anthropologist: participant-observation

- Filmmaker is apart of film, viewer gets a sense of how events are altered/influenced by them

5. Reflexive Documentaries

- Don't see themselves as a transparent window on the world, they draw attention to their own constructedness and the fact that they are representations

- Prompt viewers to question the authenticity of documentaries in general

6. Performative Documentaries

- Stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world

- Personal, unconventional, poetic/experimental

- Hypothetical enactments of events to make viewers experience what it might feel like to have a certain perspective on the world that is not their own

Documentaries and Social Media

Today in class we discussed documentaries and the different film techniques used by directors in order to convey a message in a certain light to the audience and to manipulate viewers to believe all aspects of the film. Some techniques used amongst most documentaries that differ to other film styles include:

- Interviews

- Statistics

- Voice over explaining the topic

- Archived information, e.g. photos, newspaper articles, etc.

- Reenactments

- Footage of actual events

Our assignment this term is about social media and the negative/positive impact that it has on the population, so here are some ideas that I have on Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat regarding if I think they're good or bad and why.

          1. Instagram - Good

1. It allows users to post photos and videos, which means that it's easy for friends, family and followers to see what you're up to and where you have been travelling to

2. There is an option for private messaging which allows people to connect with others on Instagram

3. It gives businesses a platform to promote and share their products with many people all at once

           2. Facebook - Good

1. Sharing posts gives people the ability to find people with common interests and potentially make new friends

2. Private messaging allows users to connect with others

3. It reminds you of events and birthdays, etc. coming up which is a useful tool in social outings

          3. Snapchat - Good

1. Private messaging allows users to have conversations with others

2. Snapchat stories allows users to share with others where they are travelling, etc. and what they are doing

3. Snapchat only allows photos taken on the snapchat camera to be sent, rather than photos from the camera roll. This is good because it means that there can be no photoshopping, etc. and all images are realistic and unedited.