1. A2 MEDIA – TV DOCUMENTARY CONVENTIONS GRID
TITLE OF DOCUMENTARY: Super Size Me (2004)
Target Audience USA Rating – PG 13, BBFC certificate – 12
Teen toadults, General public of North America.
Parents/Guardians, Health/Food interests
INFLUENCES OF TARGET Targeted for teenagers so they aware of what they are eating and can
AUDIENCE ON make early decisions whether what they are eating is right or wrong.
PRODUCTION VALUES Parents/guardians so they can be more aware of the results of food they
feed their children.
Health/Food interests to research into the physical and mental effects of
this poor nutrition.
SCHEDULING: N/A – Full length theatrical feature film
channel/time/day
TYPE: Purpose – investigate results of McDonald’s binge and consequences of
investigative/social/edu a poor nutrition.
cational/cultural/Comm Cultural type to show the impact of bad food on America society today.
emorative Educational, so the audience will learn the consequences of poor
nutrition and the impact surrounding the fast food business.
STYLE: Narrative style as Spurlock guides us through his 30-day binge and
Narrative/profile/portrai constantly informs us his physical and mental feelings. As we observe
t/fly on the this journey it is also partly a fly-on-the-wall documentary so we
wall/docudrama/underc physically see him eating the food and his physical and mental reactions
over to it.
Arguably it could also be partly undercover as the McDonald’s workers
are unaware of Spurlock doing this experiment and exploiting their
company.
CONTENT: Cartoony looking graphics constantly used to satire the fast food
Info/visual and audio business and present astonishing facts and statistics, as well as to move
material/interviewees/p onto another section of the film. Colourful to satire “family orientated”
resenter/voiceover/grap business. Music is used to suit the genre, underneath voiceovers.
hics/music Presenter rarely stands and talks directly to the camera, to get on with
presenting more facts about fast food and show his progress.
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE: Linear story line – beginning before Spurlock starts his 30-day
Linear/circular/flashback experiment, follows through the experiment and finishes after his
/No structure experiment is over to review the results of his experiment.
METHODS: Spurlock the presenter is mostly heard as a voiceover, unless shown to
narration/dialogue/pres record the results of his experiment. Dialogue is constant, with pausing
enter/visual/auditory for interviews and recording his own progress.
ELEMENTS: Contains many facts and statistics of the fast food business and the
Facts/theories/opinions/ impact of American culture. Theories and opinions are delivered by
Evidence medical experts, doctors, lawyers and other experts as well as various
voxpops from the general public. Also includes a seminar of somebody
who became overweight and managed to lose weight, this gives hope to
those already effected by obesity and advice on how to lose weight.
RESEARCH UNDERTAKEN Large amount of research put into this documentary, shown through the
use of many facts and statistics and words from experts.
CAMERAWORK AND Many shots of many overweight people during montages, and exterior
LIGHTING AND MISE EN shots of the hundreds of McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants in
SCENE the USA.
Interviews with experts are shown to be in their usual environment

2. i.e.Lawyers with messy desks (to show they are busy) wearing suits and
doctors wearing white coats in their surgery, surrounded by medical;
equiptment and apparatus.
Lighting either natural for outdoor shots or artificial for indoor shots.
OPENING AND ENDING Very opening shows overweight children at a camp singing about fast
food restaurants and simultaneously performed hand actions. This is
used for comedic effect to grab audience’s attention and introduce the
physical and cultural impact of fast food on the children of America
today. A montage then shows us about the rest of the American public
and how fast food has effected them, including facts and statistics
showing the results in mass.
The closing montage summarises Spurlock’s journey in this 30-day
McDonald’s binge and leaves concluding that the fast food business
would only care about whether they are making money or not which
leaves Spurlock to ask the audience if they would be able to control
themselves and their intake of fast food before the consequences would
become fatal. An epilogue shows some facts about the reactions of fast
food’s officials to this movie.