Analysis of ‘TONIGHT - Pop, Sex & Videotape’ Documentary

This documentary was aired on the 12/12/13 on ITV 3 at 7.30pm. The documentary relates to what our documentary is based upon, however this documentary solely focuses on the media and how that has affected the younger generation of today and how they portray their music to their fans. The documentary involves interviews with experts and music industry insiders questioning why artists feel the need to expose themselves in this way and Annie Lennox, a former singer/songwriter, expresses her concerns.

This is the title sequence for the documentary with the title being ‘Tonight’ and the topic being discussed being ‘Pop, Sex & Videotape.’ This suggests to the audience that this particular documentary is a series and that it explores different issues maybe every week or so. The title is big and bold which attracts the attention of the audience. The title ‘Tonight’ consists of small clips that have possibly been viewed before in previous episodes. The background, for which the title is positioned in front of, is a dark navy blue. This connotes that the topic being discussed is serious and it also makes the title stand out and it’s also centralised which adds professionalism.

This shot is part of an interview with Annie Lennox who is a former singer/songwriter and she talks about how she is concerned about the artists of today and the way in which they portray themselves which is affecting young girls and boys as the explicit content is easy to access. The framing of the shot is how we will frame most of our interviews. The interviewee is positioned towards the right hand side of the frame and the caption is positioned on the left hand side in the corner. The purpose of the caption is to allow the audience to identify who is being interviewed and usually their occupation is written underneath, in this case there isn’t, but for our documentary we will use captions with detail of their occupation.

This shot is background footage of one of Rihanna’s explicit videos with someone’s hand holding a remote control in the foreground. This emphasises the fact that content like this is easy to access. The background footage is used to cut away from interviews and relate with what they’re talking about to other footage. So in this case the accessibility of music videos was being discussed so this footage was used to re-emphasise this and keep the audience interested.

This shot is of another interview with radio presenters as they play the music that have explicit videos so they are giving their views on why they think artists have such provocative videos. The shot contains three people so they are centralised. The conventions for this documentary are kept consistent throughout for example captions are used again as this is an interview. The font colour and size of the text is also kept consistent which makes the documentary professional. The location in which the interview is taking place relates to the interviewee’s in this case they are radio presenters so the interview is taking place in their studio.

This shot is more background footage of a record player. This is showing contrast to how times have changed and how technology had developed over the years. It also relates to the topic that is being discussed which is music videos. The purpose of this background footage is to show statistics on top of the footage. Statistics commonly used are public asked questions that are then calculated into a percentage. When statistics are used the source from which they were found is usually stated at the bottom of the screen.

Again this shot is part of an interview with an expert who is the head of music videos at Black Dog films. Again the framing of the shot is kept consistent and this is how we will frame most of our interviews. The interviewee is positioned towards the right hand side of the frame and the caption is positioned on the left hand side in the corner. The purpose of the caption is to allow the audience to identify who is being interviewed as their occupation is written underneath. We will use captions with detail of their occupation. Also the location in which the interview is set relates to the interviewee.

This shot is of background footage of a mobile phone showing someone trying to access explicit content however an age verifying message appears alerting the user that to view this content they must verify they are older the ages of 18. This footage backs up the idea that some video sharing websites such as YouTube have implemented age restrictions but there is nothing stopping children from looking at provocative videos elsewhere. The presenter is talking whilst this background footage is being shown so again the footage emphasises what is being said.