A. One trailer that we watched was a trailer for the documentary “Nanoka of the North” in this trailer the central focus was these Nanoka people who live in extreme climate and conditions unlike anything seen before during this time. The visuals and setting within this trailer tell the audience this by showing clips of the snow and Nanoka people laying in the snow, as well as title cards. Three moments that stand out are three images of dogs one they were fine and moving, next they had snow on them but still moving, next they were still frozen to death. This is important because this shows how harsh the weather conditions are in this climate and how dependant they are on their dogs.
Another documentary trailer we watched was “The Prisoner” in which tells the story of a man who’s accused of planning on murdering Tony Blair. They show government official documents as well as sound effects and images to show what the prisoner had gone through showing the intensity of the documentary. Three moments from the film trailer that stand out to me were the beginning where they show the prisoners home videos, then the graphics and sound of him being tortured and hit, and lastly showing images of weapons and the prisoner making a gesture as though it was a gun. These are important because I feel as though they set up a structure for the actual documentary and makes the audience member curious as to what happened to him and how everything went so wrong.
B. The different parts of the documentary “Virunga” would be the opening – giving a back story, war, the national park, struggles the national park is dealing with. Within transition points in this documentary they showed many shots of the wild life roaming around and the gorillas in the park to rangers working, and later on they show poached animals such as a poached elephant. I think this documentary is a narrative document because even though there are parts of it in which show the surroundings and animals it still tells a story line, it relates to a real event contains a number of characteristic narratives. For example it does not contain a distinct aesthetic, the mood changes from serious to happy to concerning etc. The documentary structures their images by using images of Congo in between the changing topics but it still flows together, for example in the beginning when they talk about the history of Congo to war to the national park. The documentary also structures the images so whatever someone is talking about the national park or the wat or SOCO they will show images and visuals that correspond to what is being talked about.
C. Throughout the film there are many panning shots and wide shots of the surroundings and nature. At the beginning of the film they included archived footage of past years in Congo to aid in a visual timeline to tell the state of Congo during the time of filming and to show that this has happened before. After the timeline and the security finding poachers the film is bright and you can see many colors relating to how happy the topic at hand is introducing the gorillas and the sanctuary. Once the topic of war and SOCO come up the overall picture seems more dull, shots are filmed and focused on darker areas and there are many appearend greys, browns, tan colors shown. There is even a point where they show the gorillas again but it seems very upsetting due to the body language of the gorilla and the camera being zoomed in so we mostly focus on the black gorilla adding to the color scheme making it feel upsetting. The majority of shots that were held longer than 10 seconds were interviews but there was also undercover footage from the reporter in which lasted longer than 10 seconds. The pace of the editing is not too fast or slow, in the beginning when they are showing the background of Congo it is faster than most of the film and the war scenes later on are also fast. They did this to amplify the intensity of the scenes and actions taking place. I think there is somewhat of an alternative pattern to the arrangement of shots because they gp from war to talking about the park to talking to a woman who is reporting SOCO, finding out what SOCO is, going back to the sanctuary and war. When watching the film all together it seems as though the shots are very alternating but when its put together they all end up leading to the preparation of M23 rebels coming and the aftermath.
D. The different perspective that is offered in this film is the reporter whos looking into the SOCO case and the congo people so we are able to see somewhat of what is going on within these two groups. The national park and caretakers as well as some of the orphaned gorillas. I think the goal of the film maker was to show just how many people were actually being affected by the rebels and war going on and how dangerous it actually was for the national park, on top of them having to deal with SOCO. the majority of the film we see talk about war and the national park and how it is being threatened not only by poachers but by M23 and SOCO trying to mine for oil in their park. I would say the people responsible for this documentary are reporters because they are following very closely and reporting the struggles this national park is facing and how everyone who works there just wants to keep it safe. They also touch upon some investigative reporting while following the reporter when she goes undercover getting information about SOCO. For the majority of the film I think they use proper documentary evidence the only part that I go is unethical would be when they showed the undercover footage of men who worked at SOCO from the woman reporter and another man. They publicly used their name attaching it to images and video without their consent and did not blur their faces out either, I understand they did this to show what they were doing was not right, but ethically speaking they didn’t give anyone’s permission to be filmed or use their full name.
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