Creating meaning in TV documentaries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Creating meaning in TV documentaries - Essay Example Thus, documentaries stand for 'Truth'. The three documentaries this write up attempts to analyse, belong to varied sub-genres of themes of documentaries. The first one is titles, the Fallign Man, the second one is Nanking, a documentary on war and the last one is called The Silent World, which is based on nature. Thus, all three documentaries belong to varied set-ups. The treatment of each documentary is different, in spite of the common elements that exist in all three documentaries. The Falling Man is a documentary based on a picture clicked by a photographer, during the September 11 attack on the twin towers. It is basically a depiction of a man falling from the one of the top stories of the twin towers, who chose to escape death caused by the burning fo the story and decided to end his life by jumping down, rather. The very purpose of this documentary is debatable. On one hand, it caused an uproar about how the media portrayed this picture, since it did not attach importance to the sanctity of the dead. On the other hand, as the documentary maker says, it captured the 'life' of a man who is dead now. It captured the very essence of his life, wherein he chose to die a death that was better than what it would have been! On a diverse note, The Falling Man is a revelation into the aftermaths of terrorism, and how society can be devastated and lives destroyed, by a single act of terror. The documentary is an authored one, with a voice-over. Therefore, the sound effects coincide more or less with the intonation and stress in the voice-over artiste's narration. The performers are real-life victims of the terrorist attack, and therefore, the depictions are very heart-rending and hit the audience directly. The images used are controversial, as mentioned above, regarding what the media should permit and what it needs to withhold. The colour used is very natural, since it is a depiction of a real life occurrence. Latest technology has been used to capture the moments, but the editing is very minimal, owing to the fact that the real fall cannot be doctored. NANKING The Documentary film, Nanking is based on the atrocities that are committed during war. The underlying message is certainly regarding the futility of war and how the motive behind war certainly causes distraught in man's life. It is based on the Japanese massacre at Nanjing, the Chinese capital, which killed numerous people. The genocide is the core theme of the documentary. Here again, the picture depiction is realistic. The background sound effects are quite moving, since they depict war. The colour used is black-and-white, since it was set during World War II. The images do depict violence, which is the very negative essence of war. This certainly creates a