Winning Time

Yep, another ESPN classic. I was taught that to get the attraction of the audience to watch the documentary, start it off with some action. That is exactly what this documentary did, showing the last quarter of game one in the 1994 NBA playoffs between Indiana and New York. After giving you a taste, they slow the pace down by talking about Reggie Miller's past and being overshadowed by his sister. As interesting as it was, it was still pretty boring, but you knew that if you kept watching it, the pace will pick up again. They were very thorough in their interviews by asking everyone that was involved in that game. Coaches, players, and even fans like Spike Lee. The only thing that I wasn't fond of was the time chronology in the video. After summarizing the 7 game series making the audience assume that it was over the period of 2 weeks, they just fast forward one whole year to their re-match series in the 1995 playoffs. I would've like it better if there was more story building between the two years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-CTRf-w9ZQ

Intimate Details

As I'm typing this, I could be being hacked in right now. That's what this W5 special is about. How weak is our internet security.

W5 says that on a wireless network such as at school, or a coffee place, someone at the table beside you can be monitoring your every action.

A scary thought, and a great awareness piece to all of us. However, they never mention how you can avoid it. They say that it was only wireless networks where we are hacked into. Is it safer to do it the old way where we just hooked up a wire to our laptops?

If anything, this awareness piece doesn't make me scared as much as I am intrigued. As W5 had professional hacker demonstrate how easy it is, I feel like "what's stopping me to do the same thing?"

On the technical side, this piece is different than the previous W5 submissions I've posted. This was more experimental and was happening live. Many of the people Paula Todd interviewed were not people who told a story about what happened to them months, weeks or days ago. Because of this, very little reinactment piece were used, if not any.

As for storywise, personally, I don't think this piece is complete.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20110318/w5-cyber-assaults-target-canadians-110318/

Roger and Me

As humour and irony goes, Michael Moore hit this right on the nose. However, I was taught that you need access to make a story, something that Moore lacked in this documentary.

Instead of his original goal to get Roger Smith to come down to Flint to see the destruction he caused, the story just became a wild goose chase.

I will give credit to Moore for interviewing victims of the unemployeed and the evictor kicking people out of their homes but to me, it felt like random story tangents to fill in the hour and 31 minutes of film. Too much opinioned segments and not enough facts. Some story tangents were too long and unnecessary. For example, the color analyst and the rabbit slaying owner. Seeing the rabbits head getting chopped off was too much.

Nevertheless, it was entertaining. But just like his other work such as Fahrenheit 911, it started out entertaining and funny, but went downhill halfway through with a very anti-climatic ending leaving a bitter taste in mouth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPNmHPjkxdk

Extreme Measures

What would you do if you were scammed out of 6 million dollars? Would you go to extreme measures to get it back? Nick Djokich did, and now is serving 20 years in prison.

Another W5 story from Victor Malarek but unlike his last produced piece where there's was only two sides, this story had four sides, making it a four part story.

The first and second parts were character building stories.

The first part focused on the crime that Nick was conspiring to hire a hitman to take out the men who scammed him which makes the viewer perceive him as dangerous.

The second part focused on his family and the community-helping, family-loving individual who believe that Nick is not dangerous at all and the pain of the injustice that Nick and his family got for being scammed. This part mades the viewer more sympathetic.

The third and fourth parts were pure investigation to figure out who was really to blame.

In the third part, Victor finishes where Nick left off and continued the investigation, by traveling to Nassau and interviewing the lawyer in Nassau, and trying to get a hold of two other men that were kidnapped.

Finally, the last part is question the RCMP involvement, or lack of.

Overall, this is one thought out story. W5 tends to use alot of reinactments to fill in the time gaps, but fortunately for Victor, most of the people whom he interviewed were cooperative which didn't require the production of many reinactments shots.

This story really gets to the viewer by asking the viewer if you were in Nick's situation, how would you handle it? Personally, I too would go vigilante if I'm conned 6 million and if my own country's justice system fails to protect me.


http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20110217/w5-nick-djokich-vigilantism-110219/

The Hunt for a Callous Con Man

Canada's real life story of "Catch Me if You Can".






This documentary is informative as it follows Detective John Dunlop and his search for Richard Earl Rupert, a county-wide con artist that is hidden off the radar.





W5's Victor Malarek is the narrator and also the interviewer seen in formal one-on-one on location interviews. Some of the interviews were informal as he interviewed Dunlop and his coworker in front of the Greyhound Bus Terminal. Also, some interviews were moving interviews when they interviewed a Calgary detective in her car as she drove.

This documentary used 'B' roll footage such as Toronto intersections, Calgary landscapes, liaur stores and banks, to establish their location. It also used archival footage from security cameras of seniors home, banks, McDonalds and television achivial footage from America's most wanted.
Other archival footage it used was screen shots from the Toronto Sun and other major city newspapers.

They also used re-inactments of Ruperts attempts, such as walking into a senior's apartment. It editing they tinted the color to maroon to help the audience distinguish that it's a re-inactment.

It also used graphics, such as a map of Canada and pinpointing cities that Rupert has hit over the past decade.



Can't wait to see their next piece when they finally catch Richard Earl Rupert.


http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20110204/w5-the-hunt-for-a-callous-conman-110205/

Four Days in October

Another baseball documentary you say? Well, I don't know what to tell you. There's something about baseball stories that evokes so much emotion in a man. Must be a "Field of Dreams" syndrome or something. Anyway, I digress.


Four days in October is a documentary following the Boston Red Sox in 2004 as they were one game away from being eliminated once again by their arch-rival, the New York Yankees, over to come back and win a championship ending a 86 year drought.


This documentary is informative and has actuality interviews. When it came to visuals, the interviews were mostly in sit down interviews in studio. The 'B' roll footage used actuality shots with Kevin Millar mic'd up on the field just talking it up with his team mates. There were location establishing shots such as the streets of Boston and outside Fenway Park and shots of people doing things such as the players leaving their cars to enter their stadium. Furthermore, many of the establishing shots involved audio archival material from the news cast of their local news station.


Overall, this documentary contains very little if not any narration. It used sound bites, conversations and interviews to progress the story.

Trailer: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=5633504


Just for fun, below is the link to the Nike commercial that their aired right after the Red Sox won the world series. I'll admit, I shed a tear when I saw this.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2JbRYrmf74

March of the Penguins

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, this documentary talks about the march that Emporer penguins journey through each winter. In mainly shows the Emperor penguins marching towards their breeding ground where they find their mate by performing dancing rituals.

This documentary is informative. Unlike the other documentaries I've mentioned earlier, this one does not have any interviews. However, if we see Morgan Freeman not as a narrator, but also the interviewer, then this movie contains elements of actuality where we don't see the interviewer at all.

Also, if there were interviews in this movie, normally all these shots would be 'B' roll footage with the actuality of the events taking place.

When it comes to audio, the piano music score orginally composed by Alex Wurman was well placed throughout the movie.

Therefore, this movie gives more of a movie feel than a documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3k-fkOtTDo