Deconstruction of Documentary

The documentary that I have chosen to denotate and analyse is, 'Supersize vs. Superskinny.' I have chosen this because I enjoy watching it and find it interesting how they have to swap diets. I also feel it is relevant because it is to do with diets, and eating habits, therefore I may find some inspirations to put into my documentary. In this series, the location, in the feeding clinic are two women at opposite ends of the weight spectrum but with one thing in common; they both want to look wonderful in their wedding dresses. They are swapping diets so they can learn some home truths about their diets. Dr. Christian Jesson is in charge in the five day feeding clinic diet.
The skinny woman is thirty-one year old mum, Jeanette, she is six stone eight. To introduce her, there is a picture of her very skinny, anorexic body. She looks very unhealthy and this shows one side of the extreme food diets.
The narration is a woman telling us all the information that we need to know. She doesn't have much tone to her voice and isn't very exciting to listen to, but she is an expert so it is good to listen to her.
The obese woman is thirty and is called, Rosemarie, she is twenty-one stone. Over three times the weigh of Jeanette! To introduce her, there are pictures of her obese body. She looks very overweight and this shows the other side of the extreme food diets.
This documentary shows the two very extreme diet sizes on the scale of diet. As this film doesn't show an average weight it is shocking to see the obese and anorexic person be put together. This is because the only people we can the women with are each other and they are on completely opposite sides of the scale of diets. They make the documentary like this because the women's diets are supposed to be shocking.
It is bias from one diet to another, saying how skinny or how obese people can be. When the women meet and are put together, you can tell how bad food diets really are. This is because they are going from one extreme to another and it isn't a very pretty sight.
There is Archival Footage of them living their normal lives are shown at the beginning when we are introduced to them. Documentaries use Archival Footage because it shows you what the person looked like before they came on this documentary, so that you have some idea of how they have improved/not improved.
There aren't any interviews in this documentary; they are just face to face interviews with Dr Christian talking to the women about their diets. They talk to him because he is an expert and he will give good advice that will help them improve their diets. This advice can also be useful to the people who are watching the documentary if they suffer with diet problems.
Narration is happening through out the documentary and we are told lots of information. The narration works because it informs the audience about what is happening and it also helps the audience if they want to go on a diet. The information that is given is about the women's lifestyle and how they are coping with their five day diet. The narration is also given because it makes the audience want to carry on watching the documentary because it is educational and you learn lots about diets from it. I think personally that the idea of swapping diets is great and it is very interesting. If I find it like this, I am sure others do too. I think that this documentary has the theme that targets many women. This is because all women care about how they look and what people think of them.
As well as many narrations there is also music in the background, it isn't emotional it is to keep the pace of the documentary going. The music is normally played when the women are talking about how hard the diet is. This is because it is hard for the women to change their diet so dramatically and when they explain their feeling and thoughts to us, the music is there for the background.
There is a lot of editing by text coming up on the screen because it also gives us information. For example - they say how many calories you should have each day and how many calories the women have each day. It also tells you about the exercise that the women have. The camera angles are different in every scene. This is done because it makes it exciting instead of using the same camera angle in every scene. The camera shot that is mostly used is the medium shot.
A camera technique that isn't used is, 'wobbly camera'. It is because the 'wobbly camera' is normally used in films that are filmed as you would see life and not in documentaries about size. I think they used medium shots most of the time because it is a camera angle that fits in every mise-en-scene in that you need to see.
We can tell by the characters that Jeanette finds it hard to force food down her, especially when it is an obese person's diet. Rosemarie finds it hard to not eat too much and she is obviously starving and Jeanette is obviously bloated. This scene is constructed so that we can see how each person is suffering with their new diet.
Apart from when we see their bodies at the beginning of the documentary, the camera shots are mostly medium shots.
The documentary is full of information about being healthy/unhealthy. This is for people who want to put on weight or loose weight. I think that most of the audience watches this documentary is because they want to focus on their own weight and they want some tips and advice on how to do this.
The documentary does look like it has been edited so that the women look unhealthier than what they actually are. This is done by editinjg around their eyes, to make the look black and more tired like, however this could be done to show the emotion and feeling that the women are going through. They may even look like this is real life, but it is a real bad look and it keeps the audience interested to keep watching the documentary.
Another thing that makes people want to still carry on watching the documentary is how people want to know how the women have got on with their new diets. This is why this is always shown in a documentary (2 months - 1 year onwards). They show this because people are interested in how much the person(s) have improved over their time being in the documentary.