A2 Media Studies | Practical Brief: Section 2

In this section of my documentary brief research I will be choosing a clip from a documentary which will likely relate to the documentary that I want to make and will be identifying elements of mise-en-scene, camerawork/cinematography, editing and sound and will show how these conform to what the documentary is about, I will also hyper-link references made in my research to make sources easier to access.

2. Identify a documentary in the genre/issue you are interested in making on YouTube

For this I have chosen a clip from Channel 4's Britain's Benefit Tenants where council members inspect a household in Goldthorpe.

Mise-en-scene

The documentary is introduced with mise-en-scene with a broken down property which is being investigated for rats overrunning the property, the house in the scene as seen below seems to be quite torn up suggesting that the area the house is in is struggling for wealth whilst living off benefits. This is because as the house is established at the beginning of the scene, there is rubbish seen outside of the property soon after the guy in the car talks about the bins being stolen and how there's no bins for people in the community to put their rubbish, it's seen throughout both the title and the broken down house that the family is living off benefits.

Suburban property established with evident rubbish

Lower class clothing of people in the property aside the people investigating is seen and the lighting of the scene is often low key which is evident because it could suggest that the people living in the property are going through an economic crisis as before mentioned, an air gun is also used for killing off the rats that come into the house and this is because as the people owning the property do not have much money to pay for an exterminator or something to put their rubbish in, an air gun seems to be one of the only solutions for this broken down family. Linking back to the establishment of the house in the scene and the rubbish which s evident outside of it, the rubbish everywhere and inside the house shows that a community is crumbling apart and struggling for wealth in order to survive on a daily basis.

Torn up and stained house Goldthorpe

Inside the house are blurred faces and broken doors leading down to the basement where all the rubbish is, attracting rats into the household. The broken doors are evident as well as the blurred faces because the people in the establishment may have requested not to be shown on television when Channel 4 aired the scene as they are already broken down enough from the struggle to gain wealth for daily survival.

Cinematography

The camerawork in the scene identifies techniques known as handheld movement, two/three shots and establishing shots which capture the economically broken down setting. Handheld movement in the scene allows for the audience to acknowledge what one of the torn up houses looks like and how people living on benefits have to live their lives and also establishes the setting even more with the aid of establishing shots by allowing the audience to look at the interior of one of the houses in the community which is currently going through an economic crisis with the earlier mentioned struggle for survival.

Goldthorpe, broken down as established in the scene/extract.

More techniques identified within the scene are three shots, high angle shots, medium close ups and mid shots. The three shots and high angle shots show weakness within the people living on benefits as the frame is looking down upon them as for members in the council are shown in a more static frame of view as they are of more power, the three shots also show the people on benefits surrounded by the council members which could also suggest that the so called 'benefit tenants' are becoming empowered by the council as they have to keep paying taxes and won't take "rubbish that isn't in a wheelie bin" according to the extract. With the addition of over the shoulder shots, the camera technique highlights a benefit tenant and this could suggest that the frame is attempting to put the audience into a better perspective of the tenant, over the shoulder shots are also used for the conversations that occur in the scene.

High angle shot to establish weakness in the innocent child with parents living on benefits.

Further techniques such as before mentioned medium close ups and mid shots with the addition of an extreme close up all could further suggest that the frame is capturing the broken down faces of people living on benefits to allow the audiences viewing the documentary to acknowledge what seems like the slums of the United Kingdom how people are being treated. The medium close ups and extreme close ups in the frame could suggest that the frame is attempting to bring the audience more into the perspective of the benefit tenants whereas for the mid shots, they establish how the benefit tenants are dressed and how they are presented in the frame, often very poorly as they lack a lot of finance in order to keep their house running in good condition.

Three shot showing a member of the council holding a torch and possibly two benefit tenants.

Zooming is also identified within the scene as the house is being established towards the viewing audience, the camera is in a zoomed in state as the frame has holes inside the house showing how poor condition the house looks, also showing how bad benefit tenants live in their properties. Two shots in the frame show pipes running underneath the floorboards of the house as shown below, these assist the audience in establishing the condition of the house as mentioned before.

Editing

Editing within the scene identifies such techniques such as  slow/medium paced editing and the pace also helps introduce the viewing audience to the people who live on benefits and what their lives are really like. The pace of the editing picks up once the house is being established in the frame such as the broken floorboards and the view of the rubbish in the basement also showing an establishment of how benefit tenants are living, the struggle to finance landlord property can be shown through editing at the beginning of the scene with straight cuts.

Conversation with a possible benefit tenant

There are straight cuts showing establishing shots of the setting (Goldthorpe, United Kingdom) and these are possibly used by the director to allow for meaning and understanding of the documentary from the viewing audience. At the beginning of the scene, the pace of the editing is slow to allow establishment of Goldthorpe and how a part of it really is, this then picks up a little as the interior of a torn up and damaged house is shown, with straight cuts getting the frame straight to where the house is not only broken down on the outside but also on the inside.

Sound

In the beginning of the scene, a voice over is heard talking about the documentary and benefit tenants in Britain and how wheelie bins are being stolen within the area in Goldthorpe. The voice over is also introducing the audience to the situation being shown, the situation is that wheelie bins are being stolen in the suburban area and that the council won't take any rubbish that isn't in a wheelie bin, hence why the house as seen through camerawork, mise-en-scene and editing is a complete mess and is being "overran by rats" as said in one of the occurring voice overs.

Dialogue also helps introduce a more dull feel to the setting of the documentary as the benefit tenants do not sound so impressed or happy at all with their household, the tone of speech throughout the benefit tenants could suggest feelings of shock and possibly sympathy as they're the ones putting up with these bad conditions as other people in society aren't in this situation. Ambient sound and non-diegetic sound also contributes to these feelings of shock and sympathy, the sound of cars coming past in the wet, broken down environment and non-diegetic sound of the child crying could contribute to these feelings of shock and sympathy as in the cars coming past.

Further identification of sound in the scene leads to the technique of a sound bridge, at 0:20 in the video as the dialogue is going, another shot is in the frame but there is still dialogue going on whilst this transition occurs. The use of a sound bridge within the scene suggests that the director wants to introduce the setting that the council members are looking at because of a mass amount of rubbish within the household as the members don't accept rubbish which isn't in a wheelie bin as mentioned previously.

It could suggest that someone in a much better state is in there or that not many people want to come down the street because of its torn up and broken environment as mentioned before. As with the child crying, the audience would be able to acknowledge at this point that the child does not like living in such a messy condition or is feeling uneven because of the empowerment of the council members. Most of the sound in the documentary extract however is diegetic as the director wants to capture as much as he/she can in the frame and to create a depressing and dull feel to the documentary and setting.

Summary

Following my scene analysis I have learned about what a documentary in my preferred genre does and how it makes an effort to create some sort of representation. I would say that the representation that Channel 4 are attempting to show is the representation of benefit tenants being quite run down in terms of their household, their jobs and their money. Along with the first section of my practical brief selection, I have found that this will support me in planning for my own documentary, which has a similar theme to this though not so negative as portrayed in this documentary.