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

Nightmare on Quebec Street

This is a W5 two-part exclusive documenting a neighborhood fighting back against a distruptive neighbour.

The reason why I chose this story is because it's a 3 minute drive from my house.

The interview technique involved the narrator to be in the shot as it became conversational. For the story, they used sound effects for graphic photos, such as dead cats, and they used re-inactions of windows breaking and the neighbours banging on the walls.

For camera effects, when they did show the villian, they slowed down the short with evil music played in the background.

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/w5/nightmare-on-quebec-street/#clip250152

Little Big Men

An ESPN film, directed by Al Szymanski, this documentary looks back at a 1982 Kirkland little league baseball team, lead by their star player, 13 year old Cody Webster and their rise to national stardom and the fall of Cody Webster dealing with the media and hecklers.

This is a historical documentary as Szymanski uses actuality from photos and home videos of baseball games.

The interviews are emotional as they interview Cody and his teammates on the good times and cry as their recall the tragic moments that Cody had to go through as a teenager. The technique for these interviews are different as each teammates interview has them center-framed and looking directly into the camera like a confessional room from a reality television show.

http://30for30.espn.com/film/little-big-men.html

Super Size Me

The reason why I chose Supersize Me!, was because of two things. It's use of humour and relativity in the society that I live in. What made this documentary successful was that it used multiple interview techniques. It was investigative as the director, Morgan Spurlock interviewed doctors, nutritionists and lawyers. Morgan also does conversational interviews with random people on the street and McDonald's employees.

The one that stood out that made it entertaining was the use of cartoons, for example the segment where the video shows the comparisons of advertising McDonalds, Pepsi, candy companies vs. heathly food advertising. It also used light music during the surgery of one man. They also use charts and graphs to show a before and after.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trgwGhAJj10

Spurlock touches every documentary method which is no surprise why it was nominated for an Oscar.