Documentary: Editing

Editing.

Documentaries are edited in a fairly uniform way, and as I will be editor for the project I want to put some research into how documentaries are edited first so that I know how to properly display our story for the screen.

As examples, I used Reggie Yates' Extreme- Life and Death in Chicago and Louis Theroux: LA Stories- City of Dogs. I ensured to use BBC documentaries so that I was taking examples of something that is shown on BBC where our documentaries are aimed towards.

Style

The editing was styled to fit the topic of the documentary. In Extreme, it's a controversial topic that includes a lot of emotional stories. This is shown in the editing with slow-motion GVs while sad topics are discussed.
Reggie gives his thoughts before going to an event and after going to an event. This helps the viewer to empathise with him and understand the reasons behind meeting the people.
GVs are used to bring in any moments of speech so that the editing is smoother and we aren't just jumping from one person talking to the next.
In City of Dogs, they use a very simple format so that the viewer is able to focus on the characters and on Louis. There's nothing too stylistic about the editing.
Louis uses a voiceover to introduce each new person.

Pace

In Extreme they accentuate the feelings of anger among the people on screen by speeding up the editing during this time, and bringing it back down to a more normal pace during other times. The pace of the whole documentary is very easy to follow and they aren't trying to cram in any information. This makes it easy to follow and means the viewer can take in as much information as they can from what they're watching rather than being distracted by too many other things happening.
In City of Dogs the pace is very similar as it's easy to watch and they give each interviewee their time so that they can say the things that they want to say.

Colour

Extreme uses colours that I would describe as 'urban'; what I mean by this is that there is a lot of colours you would see in a city such as grey (buildings) and orange/ yellow (streetlights). There is also a lot of dusk shots which bring in darker tones in blues and browns. This fits with the vibe of Chicago.
City of Dogs uses clear, realistic colours that haven't been edited except for perhaps turning up the contrast a bit, which I think is just for appearance.

Timeline

The timeline of Extreme gives a story to the emotions that are shown; It begins with more voiceover use explaining the reasons for going to places, and also shows Reggie visiting rallies in Chicago with people arguing for their rights and for police to stop shooting people. It then moves onto more sad stories speaking to individuals rather than groups of people, and the interviews come in more. The voiceover is used less so but still used to enter and leave a story, a long with PTCs. Finally, it ends with slow motion GVs, PTCs and voiceover all for Reggie to explain how he feels about his journey and some finishing thoughts. It then shows some final facts as text on a blank screen, which 'brings it home' for the viewers. Essentially, Extreme follows the pattern of beginning with anger, moving onto sadness, and then showing some positivity.
City of Dogs mixes up the emotions among each other rather than going from 1 emotion to the next. This doesn't make the documentary any harder to follow. It begins in its introduction with shots of people saying 'gripping' lines such as "it's hard to choose, for lack of a better term, who gets to die today". This perks the viewers interest as this line out of context sounds shocking. Louis also uses a voiceover to explain the story and why he's telling it. At the very beginning it begins with a man who is very passionate about dogs and he starts crying about how they're mistreated. This is also shown first to peak a viewer's interest, as for someone who doesn't own a dog, this man's reaction might seem strange. In the middle it's shown how dogs are trained to be weapons- a protective force for people, and it's then shown how aggression is trained out of dogs. The whole documentary can be seen as worrying for the viewer, as there are hardly any positive moments, except for at the end when one owner of an adopted dog finds the dog who had run away from him. Louis follows up with each character in the end to get them to explain why they feel the way they do.

How will this reflect in our documentary?

What I took from this analysis is that documentaries will follow a pattern that is initially going to draw the viewer in and get them interested in the subject, and then use stories that are going to make the viewer emotional to make them want to see what happens by the end of the documentary. Although we don't have very emotional stories in our own documentary I know that I will need to structure it in a way that will grab the viewers interest and then keep it.

I also know to keep the pace very simple and not to play with it too much as this could distract the viewer from what is happening if they're trying to keep up with fast editing or just waiting for the next shot with slow.

I know to stay realistic with colours to also prevent distraction.