Morgan Spurlock

Morgan Spurlock 

Born: 7th November 1970

About: He is an American documentary film maker best known for his documentary Super size me, Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden, Comic-con episode IV: A fans hope and One direction This is us. He went to New York university. 

Documentaries: He has done a lot of work in the media industry and created many documentaries but his most well known is Super Size Me, which was released in the US on May 7th 2004. Spurlock Gets many of his ideas from things around him, for example Super size me he said the idea came to him on thanks giving when he was watching the news and saw that a lawsuit was being held against McDonalds by two teenage girls who blamed their obesity on them. 
However Spurlock also liked to have life and energy in his documentaries and liked to bring less known subjects to the masses, that is why he did his documentary Comic-con episode IV: A fans hope, where he worked with  Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, AintItCool.com founder Harry Knowles, and comic book creator Stan Lee.

Other information: Spurlock uses different styles of documentaries and in a series 30 days he does a Participatory documentary where he spends 30 days in the life of someone else for example being in prison, a devout Christian living in a Muslim family or a homophobe staying with a homosexual person.

Final ideas presentation.

04/08/14-31/08/14

During these dates I have been on holiday and whilst being on holiday i have been doing research and adding to my blog.

15/07/14-16/07/14

Tuesday 15th- We had a blog lesson were we did research and worked on our blogs.

Wednesday 16th- My group and I made a story board of what our 5 minute documentary would be and include, we wrote what camera angles we would use and what content we would have. 

NOTE: From Thursday they 17th of July to the 1st of August i was on holiday and didn't have access to my blog. 

08/07/14-11/07/14

Tuesday 8th- We had a blog lesson were we did research and worked on our blogs.

Wednesday 9th- A woman from the company My Kind Crowd came to explain what she did and what My Kinda Crowd does. We then had to enter a challenge #SnapShotUni where we had to submit a photo or video with a caption of what university meant to us, i ended up being short listed and then won the prize of getting to go to City of London university for the day and get to be a "student". 

Friday 11th- We watched more documentaries and compared them with the mark scheme. 

01/07/14-04/07/14

Tuesday 1st- We had a blog lesson were we did research and worked on our blogs.

Wednesday 2nd- I watched extracts of documentaries (e.g Stephen Fry- Out there and The fame report) and took notes about them like the mode, key facts, interviewer/ee style, stylistic features and what the documentarian was trying to achieve. 

Friday 4th- I watched last years documentaries and made note on them, we put them into grade boundaries so that we became familiar with the mark scheme and what we needed to achieve a good grade. We then made a tick list of what we thought our documentary should include to make it work. 

24/06/14-27/06/14

Tuesday 24th- We had a blog lesson were we did research and worked on our blogs.

Wednesday 25th- I got into my group and we discussed our initial ideas that we could do for our documentary. We made a presentation of our three ideas so that we could so our class to get initial feedback.

Friday 27th- My group and i showed our initial ideas presentation to our class, we had it filmed so we could later put it on out blog. We then got our feedback back and made notes about it and then the class all had a debate about all our ideas and how they would work.

17/06/14-20/06/14

Tuesday 17th- I was introduced to the stylistic features used in documentaries and learnt what they were and how to spot them and which worked well and which didn't and thought about what i could use in my own documentary.

Wednesday 18th- I had to choose a documentary, i chose catfish a documentary series, and write about all the stylistic features used and the effect that they have and why they are used in the show.

Friday 20th- I had to present my stylistic features presentation to the class and have it filmed so i could later put it on my blog.

10/06/14-13/06/14

Tuesday 10th- I was given a brief about a "love documentary", first we watched a few love documentaries done by the year above and wrote notes on them to get idea on what we should include in our own documentaries and what to avoid. We then got put into groups and told what type of documentary we would be doing mine was reflexive.

Wednesday 11th- My group and I started and finished filming all the footage we needed for our love documentary.

Friday 13th- We had the whole double lesson to get our footage onto a mac and edit it, adding in music and transitions, to finish off our two minute documentary.

PBS-Nova: mind of a rampage killer.

Online recording software >>

Channel 4-Meet the Mormons.

Sky Documentaries- Jesus camp

This is a singular documentary.
It was directed by by Heidi Ewing.

About: This documentary follows three children who are in the Evangelical church who go to a controversial summer camp which grooms the next generation of conservative christian political activists.  

Style: This documentary is observational as you are completely unaware of the documentation however it also has expository content.

Stylistic Features:  Voice recordings- to tell the audience a bit about the documentary also used to back up points being made.
Music- at events the music intensifies showing the drama, also the behavior creating an unsettling feeling for the audience.
Black screen and writing- showing the audience who is about to be interviewed.
Facts appearing on screen- informing the audience on the subject mater.

Camera angles: Close ups- of kids showing how young they are and how they act at these seminars exposing to the audience what the church is about.
Eye line match- showing what the children watch, also their behavior towards it.
Panning shot- Mum to kid (home schooling) showing to the audience that parents play a big part in this religion and the way the kids act.
Establishing shot- setting the scene for the audience/ the "camp"

Interviewees/techniques: Interview kids, parents and leaders of the camps.
 You don't hear the questions being asked only hear the responses, within the answers the questions is often mentioned. Only interview one person at a time, when you hear what the children say without adult presence it is shocking as they are acting and speaking like adults.

I liked the fact that it has an interesting subject matter and want my own documentary to interest the audience like this one, however i don't like the style of the documentary and would rather use reflexive.