PRO1- Research

 Documentary Research

 

In the book by Bill Nichols called Introduction to Documentary (2001) he defines 6 different approaches to Documentary film-making these 6 are:

 

Documentary Approaches

1. The Expository mode (Voice of God) – This mode is what most identify with a documentary Bill Nicholas said “emphasizes verbal commentary and argumentative logic” often using a narrator. The narrator will often guide the scene often making it intense and the narrator can also get you to sympathise with either side, for example you could care about a predator who’s trying to get food and feed their kids, or you could sympathise towards the prey and hope they get away.

Here is an example of Expository mode from critical acclaimed Narrator David Attenborough who has narrated over countless amounts of documentaries.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv9hn4IGofM

 

2. Observational mode (Fly on the wall / window on the world) – This mode uses the observations of an unobtrusive camera to create direct engagement with the everyday life of subjects. The camera often rushes about to keep up with the action resulting in rough, shaky, often amateur-looking footage. The filmmakers try to make it feel as real as possible and make You the neutral observer in all this and just watch as everything unfolds, and you see what’s happening in real time.

Here is an example of a man named Morgan Spurlock he ate McDonalds everyday for 30 days straight to see what effects it would have on the body he makes us feel as a neutral observer and there is a lot of amateur film making in it to make it feel real and that you are with him on his journey.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1NnrXknRNg

 

3. The Participatory Mode (Engagement with subject) – Unlike the observational mode, the participatory mode welcomes direct engagement the filmmaker becomes part of the events being recorded. These films usually take the form of a series of interviews or other forms of even more direct involvement from conversations to provocations.

This interview is from famous cult leader Charles Manson the filmmaker makes you apart of the interview the person who is interviewing is either off camera or showing their back towards the camera.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb4nK3KK0KU

 

4. Performative Mode (Filmmaker as active participant) – This mode of documentary emphasises the subjective nature of the documentary as well as acknowledging the subjective reading of the audience. The onscreen film-maker asserts more control of the events and takes part in events rather than simply observing them.

This video is of a man called louis Theroux who tries to prove that wrestling is fake and isn’t that hard until he is put through the same exercise the wrestlers do every day and joins in. He throws up.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-9oHxesKVg

How is this useful?

This helped me decide what kind of style i want my documentary to be and what would suit it best. My documentary is on a very serious topi millions suffer from it and i have to do it in a respectable manner so i can help those who are hurting and teach parents what to do if their children suffer from it.

Case Study Louise Theroux Weird Weekends

 

Codes and conventions/Style of Documentary

I recently watched a tv show called Louise Theroux Weird Weekends he makes a documentary style show where he covers certain topics and in the one I watched he was covering aliens and people who try to contact them/fight them. There are various techniques he uses to pull in the audience first is the hand-held camera where a person just runs with the narrator to show what he is talking about and what he is seeing it also gives a sense of realism and truth.

In this documentary he uses I think all the styles he uses The Expository mode (Voice of God) to move the documentary forward so mostly when he is traveling. He uses Observational mode (Fly on the wall / window on the world) when he’s out in the open observing and doing stuff with people he also uses tons of shaky cam and hand-held camera to make it feel real sometimes he also just makes us feel as the neutral spectator because they don’t ever notice the camera. He uses The Participatory Mode (Engagement with subject) when he sometimes interviews people he interviews certain people he appears off camera as if we are the ones asking the questions make us feel as if we are a part of it. He uses Performative Mode (Filmmaker as active participant) when he takes part in the activities he tries to contact aliens and fight them, but nobody shows up.

The opinion of Louise is obvious because the audience can tell he is being sarcastic and to him everything is a joke he is very passive-aggressive he clearly doesn’t believe in any of this and is just here to make it seem even more unbelievable.

 

Magazine Article 1
Name of Publication	Seventeen
Date of Publication	September 2018
Title of Article	“Sad Girls Club” Helps Teens with Depression Find A Community
Author	Alison Caporimo
Description of Content   This article is about a woman who was diagnosed with depression at the age of 12 her name is Elyse Fox. After she made a film about her problems loads of girls emailed her talking about their problems and how they had nobody to talk so that’s when she made a club called “Sad Girls Club” where girls can talk about all their problems and help each other out.
List of Key Points of Interest   Elyse describes what she’s was thinking and how she felt during her depression.   She Kept it all in which is what most young people do.   She wanted to bring awareness to mental health and that’s the same wat I want to do.
Book
Title of Book	Lost Connections uncovering the real cause of depression – and the unexpected solutions
Author	Johann Hari
Year	2018
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing
Title of Chapter	—
Page No (from – to)	—
Description of Article   In his new book about the underlining or common mental illnesses and how to address them from bestselling author and award-winning journalist Johann Hari argues that depression and anxiety are a direct result of our cultural norms, societal, expectations and the wat we live our daily lives. Drawing from personal experience as well as interviews with social scientist actively working in mental health field, Hari introduces readers to a whole new day of examining mental illness.
List of Key Points of Interest   I liked how he interviewed professionals that study Mental illness and asked important questions and tried to prove his theory that depression and anxiety is a result of our cultural norms.
Internet Source
Web Site Address/URL	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i9OktVsTWo
Date/Time accessed	12/09/2018
Title of article	Teen Health: Mental Health
Author	Penn State Pro Wellness
Description of Article   This is a video for people who have mental illness and for people who don’t people who suffer from mental illness watch this video and they see that they aren’t alone and that everyone suffers from the same or a different type of mental illness and this video also helps people who don’t suffer from mental health know how hard it is for people who suffer from it on a daily basis.
List of Key Points of Interest   They share a lot of facts about teens and how many on average suffer from mental health.

How is this useful?

It tells me a lot of different facts about mental health that i did not know before i could use some of them to get my point across.

Common types of mental illness that occur in teens:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• ADHD
• Bipolar

Facts

• Over 45% of teens around the world suffer from mental health
• 1 in 5 teens suffer from a severe mental illness (20% of our teen population)
• Over 800,000 people die due to suicide every year and suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds.
• In 2013 there were 6,233 suicides recorded in the UK for people aged 15 and older. Of these 78% were male and 22% were female.
• Mental health problems constitute the Largest single source of world economic Burden with an estimated global cost of £1.6 trillion.
• In the UK the estimated costs of mental health problems are £70-1—billion each year and account for 4.5% of GDP.
• The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950’s.
• The chances are high that either you or a loved one has had a history of anxiety. In any given year about 17% of us will have an anxiety disorder—and over our lives, about 28% of us will have an anxiety disorder.

Mental Health in girls

Source: https://weareagenda.org/womens-mental-health-key-facts/

Agenda – alliance for women and girls at risk.

• Women in poverty

who have experienced

abuse are even more

likely to experience

poor mental health

 

• 53% of women who

have mental health problems

have experienced abuse.

 

• Over a third (36%) of women who

have faced extensive physical and

sexual violence in both childhood

and adulthood have attempted suicide,

and a fifth (22%) have self-harmed

 

• *A study from the University of Manchester

found that 73% of 10-19 year olds who identified

as having self-harmed at least once were girls.

Mental Health in boys

• New research done by “time to change” on October 28, 2016 shows that half (49%) of teenage boys in the UK would not feel comfortable talking to their dads about their mental health (including stress, anxiety and depression). When asked why, more than a third said it was because their dad doesn’t talk about his feelings and 31% said they wouldn’t want to burden them  .

 

• Society teaches us that boys aren’t suppose to cry that its never ok for guys to cry so they end up keeping in all the emotions they feel which is very unhealthy and could cause problems in the long term such as substance or drug abuse or they lash out and attack someone unable to control their anger they might also start abusing their significant other.

 

• a survey done by “time to change” revealed that 37% of young men chose to ‘put a brave face on’ when struggling with mental health problems and 33% would rather keep it to themselves.

How is this useful?

This is useful because it tells me a lot about how different girls and boys are when it comes to mental health. Girls keep it to themselves but eventually when encouraged by others they will speak out about their problems but because of society saying that men are suppose to be brave and never show weakness they will almost never seek help in their lifetime and they think that everything will be ok if they put on a brave face and just not think about it but the illness will eat them from the inside out and will change their personality eventually making them really violent or really depressed.

Survey 

 

How old are you and how old were you when you thought you had Depression or anxiety

• 3 people who are 18 found discovered they had depression/anxiety when they were 16
• 1 person is 17 and discovered they were suffering from depression/anxiety at 15
• 1 person is 17 but discovered they were suffering from depression or anxiety at 9
• 1 person is 18 but discovered they were suffering from depression or anxiety at 18

People who don’t suffer from Dep/anxiety but their age right now

• 19 yrs old – 1
• 18 yrs old – 1
• 17 yrs old – 8

Do you know anyone who suffers from anxiety?

·        out of 16 votes 75% (12) of people say yes and 25% (4) say no

Do you know how to cope or what to do when you, or someone you know, suffers from depression/anxiety?

·        Out of 16 votes 31.25% (5) say yes 18.75% (3) say no and 50.00% (8) say kind of

Would you be interested in watching a documentary about depression and anxiety?

• 50% (14) say yes and 12.50% (2) say no

Do you know how to spot someone whose suffering from Dep/anxiety?

 

• Out of 16 votes 50.00% (8) said yes and 56.25% (9) said no

Have you ever contemplated Suicide

·        Out of 16 people 31.25% (5) said yes and 68.75% (11) said no

Do you know anyone whose thought about suicide if so did you do anything to help 

 

·        Out of 16 people 7 people said they have helped someone whose thought about suicide and the 9 people left said no or nobody’s ever said that to them.

 

Stories

·        One of my cousins in Wales had repeatedly said that life was meaningless, and she wanted to “end it” so we immediately drove down to meet her and make sure she was ok

·        Yes, I do. I told their friends to tell their school which helped them.

·        Yes, I managed to talk to them, and get them into a more stable state than what they were in.

 

What do you or the person you know who suffers from anxiety and depression do to cope with it?

·        Films, video games, being outside, eating and over-working myself

·        A range of strategies that I learnt from therapy and using kooth.com

·        Takes tablet’s

How is this useful?

This teaches me about my demographic the people I’ve aimed my documentary are 12-19 year olds and it seems that almost everyone has helped someone with mental health or has gone/going through it themselves. It also tells me how some people cope with it which helps because it tells me there are other ways than just substance abuse which most people tend to do.

How to treat mild depression

Wait and see – Your GP will suggest waiting a short time to see if it gets better by itself. In this case, you’ll be seen again by your GP after 2 weeks to monitor your progress.

Exercise – There’s evidence that exercise can help depression, and it’s one of the main treatments for mild depression.

Self Help – Talking through your feelings can be helpful. You could talk to a friend or relative.

How to treat moderate depression

If you have mild to moderate depression that isn’t improving, or moderate depression, you may find a talking therapy helpful.

How to treat Severe depression

Antidepressants –  Antidepressants  are tablets that treat the Symptoms of depression. There are almost 30 different types of antidepressant. They have to be prescribed by a doctor, usually for depression that’s moderate or severe.

The side effects of Antidepressants are 

• nausea.
• increased appetite and weight gain.
• loss of sexual desire and other sexual problems, such as erectile dysfunction and decreased orgasm.
• fatigue and drowsiness.
• insomnia.
• dry mouth.
• blurred vision.
• constipation.
• It can affect/change someones personality and ability to feel anything its true you will feel less sad and stressed but you just wont feel anything everything is just dull.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) – aims to help you understand your thoughts and behaviour, and how they affect you. CBT recognises that events in your past may have shaped you, but it concentrates mostly on how you can change the way you think, feel and behave in the present. It teaches you how to overcome negative thoughts – for example, being able to challenge hopeless. feelings.

The side effects of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) 

• anxious mood
• flashbacks
• depressed mood
• frustration
• stress
• anger

Interpersonal therapy (IPT) – Interpersonal therapy (IPT) focuses on your relationships with others and problems you may be having in your relationships, such as difficulties with communication or coping with bereavement.

Psycho-dynamic psychotherapy – In psycho-dynamic (psychoanalytic) psychotherapy, a psychoanalytic therapist will encourage you to say whatever is going through your mind.

Counselling – Counselling is a form of therapy that helps you think about the problems you’re experiencing in your life so you can find new ways of dealing with them. Counsellors support you in finding solutions to problems, but don’t tell you what to do.

None of these 3 have any side effects and are very effective.