A. Content: The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair is about an innocent man who was accused and tortured of conspiracy to commit treason. In order to make the audience empathizes with the innocent man, journalist Yunis Khatayer Abbas, they started out the trailer by using his own home footage from before he was captured. Also, they used graphics to show where he lived and the different aspects of war. One moment in the trailer that stood out to me was the text graphic that would pop up. This was important because it helped give context to the story. Another moment in the trailer that stood out to me was the comic book like pictures that were used when a person who they could not get a real video of was spoken about. This was impactful because it let the audience put a face to an important name. Lastly, a moment that stood out to me was the sound effects used when Abbas was describing him getting beaten and tortured. This was an effective way of explaining and showing the beating without actually showing someone getting hurt.
B. Structure: I watched the documentary Virunga (2014), directed by Orlando von Einsiedel. The first section of the film was about the background of the park, gorillas and the people who either work on the park or live in the city near the park. The second section was focused on Melanie Gouby, the freelance journalist who was covering the rebel group M23 as they were trying to take over the country of Congo with the secret assistance of SOCO. The third section was about the war and M23 coming into the town and into the Virunga National Park. The last section was the after math of M23 taking over the park. The transitions between each section were made up of b-role that foreshadowed what was going to happen in the next section. For example, before the section about the war, the b-role transition consisted of bombs and fires started by war. I would say that this documentary is narrative because although most of the footage was from when the events actually look place, the voice over was mostly form Gouby reflecting on what happened. The documentary is understandable because they go in exact chronological of what happened and the whole thing only took place over two days.
C. Cinematic Style: The cinematography consisted of a lot of either extreme close-up shots on people and animals or wide shots of the park. Also there are lots of hand held shots because this is documentary film about a war so the film makers didn’t have a lot of time to set up a nice shot or use a tripod. They had to be ready to film whenever and where ever, plus they had to be able to run if they needed to because shots were fired. The lighting was either beauty natural light from being out in the park and out in the town, or horrible dark light from hidden cameras that Gouby would use in order to record meetings she was having with SOCO workers or with M23 soldiers. The pace of the editing is a medium speed. There was mostly interviews or shots of the animals and nature. The shots of animals and nature didn’t last more than 10 seconds though. The sequences move forward in terms of a straightforward narrative. Like I said before, the documentary took place over two days and it was following everything that was happening within those two days.
D. Documentarian Stance: The two main perspectives that are offered about the topic is the perspective of the park workers and the perspective of Gouby, who is an investigative journalist. The goal of the filmmaker is to make the audience aware of what SOCO is doing to this national park and to the animals who live in it. It also becomes very clear at the end of the film when they explain where you can go to help save the park. The word I would use to describe these filmmakers is reporter because they are reporting on what has happened since not many people are aware of this travesty. The filmmakers were also very good at using proper approaches to these tough topics. They just reported what happened from the gorillas and the keepers of them and the park. They didn’t add any opinions or anything. It was just facts.
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