1. Subject Of Documentary: The making of Jaws
Themes: There were a few different themes throughout the documentary, the main theme
was film making and the problems that occur when planning and creating a film and also the
other themes were based around sharks and the sea.
Audience Response: Overall I found the documentary average but with some interesting
facts, I think I would have enjoyed the documentary more if I had watched the film that the
documentary was about, also the documentary was quite old and had very basic imagery and
graphics which made it less interesting. One fact that was interesting from the documentary
was that one girl had broken her rib during the film making process which was quite shocking
and it kind of shows how technology has changed as that wouldn't happen during film
making now it would all be done using computerised technology.
2. Structure/Narrative: The beginning of the documentary talks about the concept of the
film and how it started out as a book which then progressed to be a very successful film
which changed Hollywood. The main basis of the documentary talks about how they
created the film and the problems they faced when creating it. Then the end of it is
basically the success of the film and how all the negativity and drawbacks they faced
didn't effect the success of the film.
Mise En Scene: The documentary is mainly made up of interviews edited together, the
Mise En Scene throughout is represented through the backgrounds used and the use of a
blue screen which enabled the editor to change the backgrounds to relevant imagery
such as; Jaws, Sea, Jaws Posters and areas of Martha's Vineyard where the film was
recorded.
Camera: Most of the documentary is made up of interviews edited together and there is
minimal B-Roll footage. The interviews are films from different angles and stick to the
basic concept of the rule of thirds where the interviewee is positioned to either the left
or the right and not the centre. There are also a few establishing shots of Martha's
Vineyard.
3. Editing: There is little editing which I noticed in the documentary, I noticed that there was
a few fades and pans of imagery and there was a lot of zooms into still images which
made them look more appealing as they were generally just images of book pages and
still images of the actors.
Sound: There was minimal sounds in the documentary but it did include non diegetic
music of the jaws theme tune and also there was no voice over in the documentary, the
sound was purely the interviewee's answers.
Archive Material: There was a lot of archive material taken straight from the film, sections
from the film were played whilst being talked over by the interviewees. There was a few
shots of book pages and still images of important people in the film.
Graphics: The graphics were very basic as it was created a few years ago before
technology had developed, although the names of all the interviewee's was shown on the
screen, it was in white and yellow writing with a band behind it which was water overlay,
also there was an animation of a shark coming towards the screen and biting towards you.
I think that this was quite good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MiVtavjD8w