Documentary analysis

Real Rescue Series 6 episode 14

In this essay I will be analysing the opening five minutes of the documentary ‘Real rescue, series 6 episode 14’ presented by Nick Knowles. I feel this will be a very important documentary to analyse because it uses a lot of real footage of the emergency services which is something that I would very much like to do in my documentary.

This episode of ‘Real rescues’ opens with a long shot of a man and a woman talking directly to the camera. The music is upbeat techno and could easily be being used to represent a fast beating heart. The man then goes on to narrate as clips of bad quality footage (perhaps filmed with camera phones) that are clearly snippets of the different rescues that this episode documents. I think this is quite clever in the way that it would draw the audience in, in a similar way to watching the news does, there is more anticipation at this point than there usually is at the beginning of a documentary because the reader knows what they are going to be seeing soon is real.

 It then goes on to show more professional footage of a call centre (presumably in a police station) and plays a recorded phone call of a little girl with added subtitles. This of course, pulls on the readers heart strings so to speak, especially when the young girl says that she is four years old and her mother is having a fit. She is perfectly understandable, so I think that the subtitles were added in to simply add emphasis to what she is saying, especially as there are no subtitles for anyone else’s story in the opening five minutes. 

Only after this does it go on to show the opening credits, along with more techno music, but with more high pitched sounds in order to create a fusion of sounds whish represent conflict. It also shows many two or three second clips of ambulances, fire stations, hospital equipment in small boxes with emergency service crews weaving in between them. The background of this all the while is blue, which connotes stability and trustworthiness.

After the opening credits have finished, the camera then goes back to the man and them woman, who then introduces the show again and informs the audience that they are in Hampshire’s police control room. The camera is then used to show a tracking shot of the woman, this is a bit wobbly though. In a way however, this only adds to the effect of the whole documentary as it reminds the reader in a way that, this is real.

In terms of editing, for the most part it’s continuity apart from the opening credits, subtitles and interviewees names appearing underneath them when they are talking. The music in the beginning is non diegetic of course.

Most people would consider the policemen that respond to the emergency calls to be in a position of authority. This is usually shown by high angled shots, however in this episode of ‘Real rescue’ there are continuous low angled shots which I think undermines the interviewees authority and is a convention that they should have followed. Even later on whilst in an air ambulance, there are only straight on, eye level shots. This contradicts the trustworthy image that the blue opening titles is trying to give off.

In conclusion, the style of this documentary seems very factual, the camera work is very basic, plenty of interviews and amateur footage are shown. To a degree I would like to incorporate aspects of this