Manipulation in Documentaries Essay

Every night when we sit down to finder our much loved Greys Anatomy or desperate Ho characterwives, we know for a fact they argon fictional dramas which allow us to escape the reality and boredom of our lives. We also realise the scripted testifys use more tactics to ensure our thinking. The maker does this to stupefy us towards a specific go through of life. But what do we expect from a infotainment? We know documentaries to be faithful recounts of events however, these events may be subject to plainly as much manipulation as the intriguing plots in our addictive shows.Many documentary makers include their single cultural assumptions and conversations to distort the virtue and position the target reference to react in a craved manner. This can be keep an eye onn in the documentary, Supersize Me by Morgan Spurlock and big(p) White wooden-headed perplexity showcasing Peter Benchley, David Doubilet and Rodney Fox. Both producers desire to position the hearing towar ds their discourse through their documentary.They accomplish this by presenting snippets of films, opinions and facts that agree with their discourse and disposing of the rest. Super coat Me, written, produced, directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, is a producer dominated documentary. It shows Spurlock endeavouring on a thirty day McDonalds binge to prove that unfaltering consumption of the food is a turbulent way to heart disease, higher(prenominal) cholesterol and obesity. Spurlock aims to prove his nutritional discourse by taking tests ahead and after the experiment to show the affects.Before the experiment began, Spurlocks organic structure showed healthy results both physically and emotionally, however, after the experiment, his body was physically summation sporting clogged arteries, high cholesterol, weight gain and emotionally he showed early stages of depression. Spurlocks aim in the documentary is to inform his audience that regular unwavering food consumption is extremely harmful to your body. It uses both fully narrated and self reflexive types of documentary to present the message.This sozzleds persona overs argon used to interpret graphs, pictures and facts presented in the documentary to prove that fast food has a significant impact on the nations health. He also includes umpteen techniques including camera angles, music and sound, lighting and many elements typical of documentaries. Spurlock uses Mise-en-scene to prove that obesity is a result of extreme fast food intake by purposely filming obese passel walking through a shot at McDonalds. Spurlock also uses the technique of interviewing doctors and scientists to grab our attention and make it difficult for us, the audience, to make our own decision.He does this as the majority of us believe scientists and doctors have the most association on this argument and therefore we will agree with his discourse. Similarly the documentary, salient White Deep Trouble, produced by John Bredar, attempts to influence the audience to feel sympathy and love for the Great White which to many represents a killer beast. The documentary aims to manipulate us towards the view that cheats are benignant fish that are simply misunderstood by humans.Through the pilgrimage of David Doubilet, a famous photographer, the audience are presented with pictures, journal entries and filming of the Great White in the hope of capturing the perfect shot. One of the crew on the mission is Rodney Fox who previously had a bloody encounter with a Great White and survived. Although the majority of us would be too horrified to return to the water, Fox has chosen to partake in the mission of reason the creature. The producer uses this to his advantage by demonstrating that even someone who was attacked by a killing machine managed to love the animal and therefore we should too.The documentary uses techniques in order to name a calm ambience and make the shark seem vulnerable. They use rel axing music and bright lighting to create a sympathetic and almost angelic view of the shark. Camera shots are taken under water allowing the audience to see the scenery and square(a) characteristics of the shark. The documentary provides close up shots to shows the sharks facial consumes and emotions. It also uses long shots to show the entire body and the provide insight into the sharks natural habitat.The documentary uses the feature of exposition to expose the true qualities of the shark in order to manipulate the audience. Both documentaries possess intertextualities that we are all familiar with. In general, when we see Ronald McDonald we are automatically reminded of McDonalds and their food products. In the Documentary, Spurlock shows Ronald McDonald as an evil antic rather than happy. This represents his negativity towards the restaurant. When watching Great White Deep Trouble our intertextualities towards sharks is that they are vicious man-eating machines like the sha rk off the movie Jaws.Although many facts, graphs and discourses are exposed and explained throughout these two documentaries it does not necessarily mean the producers opinion is correct. They simply want to manipulate and position the audience to believe what they say in order to sell their view to the public. When we hear the word, documentary our cultural beliefs tell us they are make full with true facts or recounts of events, however, we fatality to realise that documentaries are filled with individual discourses which arent essentially accurate.We as an audience need to ensure we do not fall victim to the producers manipulative techniques that are incorporated in the documentaries. In order to do so we need to be punishing in our personal beliefs and discourses. That does not mean you should confiscate all opinions from others. Be open to new ideas, but be strong in your own beliefs. That way you will not be manipulated as easily. Make your own decision and dont let the p roducer sway that conclusion.