Emily Paris

Narrative Structure

It is a mixed documentary including achieve material, interviews and a voice over.

It is non linear as it is not in chronological order as the events unfold in front of the audience eyes as the footage jumps around from before the terrorist attack to after.

It is an open documentary as you are left with unanswered questions as no one if definitely sure who the falling man is.

It is a single strand documentary as it solely focuses on the falling man and trying to find out who it is.

The theme of the documentary is 9/11 and findout out who is the iconic falling man

Camera work

Camera work is conventional as it applies the rule of thirds technique where the eye line directly lies in the intersects of interest within the frame, however there is not a wide variety of camera shots most are close up or extreme close ups I believe this is due to the severity of the subject matter and the stories the people involved tell using these shots could make it more emotive as we are a little closer to the raw emotion of the interviewees.

One of the only long shots is a low angle panning shot which is looking at the world trade centre place looking up at it and then it falls straight focuses on the gates and then pans to a man wearing all black which symbolises remeberance

Mise en scene

Mise en scene most people interviewed where dark clothes could be a mark of respect to those who lost their lives.

The mise en scene on a lot of the interviews are very personal such as in their house which again is a clever technique by the documentary makers as it makes it more real and feel we know them and are welcomed by them to hear their stories which definitely makes the stories more emotive.

Sound

The use of sound is another very emotive skill, they have the American national anthem sung by children and a choir featured within the documentary while some stills of the images of 9/11 show At the end of the documentary the names of the dead are listed by the friends and family of those who were lost this is archive material as it isn’t sound the documentary makers got it was from the 9/11 memorial again the length of the list which ultimately doesn't even end it just fades with the credits the length accentuates how many lives were lost again all the sound is added to make us feel and think certain things and all anchors meaning Another use of sound would be the sound of the explosions and the sound of the crashes which are loud and played over footage and stills of the day.

Editing

There is a low angle tilt shot and tilt shots are often used to show the vertical significance of something which is why I believe it is used here because as it looks up from the bottom to the very top of the famous building it makes it appear bigger and taller which in turn emphasizes the large scale of a building being attacked would have had after that the camera pans from the building to a man the only medium long shot within the full documentary I believe a man wearing all black to be used is to accentuate the respect still their and wearing black which has connotations of mourning.There is a montage of images from the paying respects sequence of the ceremony that took place to commemorate the people who lost their lives, the effect of this particularly montage really emphasizes the amount of lives effective by the incident and the use of these shots one after another is very emotive.

Archive material

There is a constant use of archive throughout the documentary it is used to inform the audience of the disaster itself because of the very nature of this particular subject achieve material is inevitably a big part of this documentary as seeing the disaster itself adds to the emotions the audience will feel whilst watching. Having the footage of the towers being destroyed and then having an image of them before the event is a very unusual use of ordering I believe having the pictures of the aftermath and then being reminded of how they use to look almost makes it more emotional as we see the devastation and then the calm to how it should have been without the plane crash.

Archive Material

The topic surrounds the falling man which is only known through a very famous image captured by a photographer so this is a reoccurring use of achieve material to anchor the man being discussed the relevance of 9/1. it is edited in such a way so we zoom right into the photo to get close up and we also see pan and tilt shots of it this is to reiterate what happened to “the falling man”

Photos are also used when speaking about the falling man himself this makes the audience feel more well connected to him as they see him as more than just the image of him throwing himself out of twin towers and when they see pictures of him smiling with his family it makes his death more emotional the documentary makers are evoking emotions by using all of the archive material.

Archive material of peoples reactions are also used to anchor the severity of watching the trauma so we hear points of view from people seeing it as it happened as well as people reflecting upon what happened.

Graphics

The Graphics within this documentary are very basic this is to not detract from the topic itself, I would describe the graphics as sophisticated and gimmick free very fitting to the subject matter and throughout the documentary it is carefully very respectfully discussed.