Minecraft: The Story of Mojang

Documentary Analysis

Type Of Documentary

The documentary is fully narrative, as a narrator is used but not shown in the entire

documentary; the narrator is also interviewing the interview subjects however he does not

feature in the documentary.

Themes

• The themes of this particular documentary are as follows;

• Gaming

• Technology

• Independent Companies

• Phenomenon

• Culture

• Industry Innovation

• Inspiration

Narrative Structure

The narrative structure for this documentary is linear; it’s linear as it documents the rise of the

successful independent game “Minecraft”. It discusses the rise of the video game that started off as an individual’s idea which blew up to be a massive cultural talking point in the 21st century

within the gaming industry.

Camerawork

In the documentary the creators follow the creator of the game to gaming events and film him meeting fans of the game, this was done handheld for both mobility reasons and also to provide a feel that the viewer is at the event

with them. It makes the audience member feel a part of it and involved. In the documentaries where the subjects are sat down and the interviews have been organised they have been framed through the standard rule of

thirds shot so the viewer can see the background. They also in other interviews stood the camera on a table and filmed almost like a medium shot of the subject where

you can see the full surroundings of the subject.

Mise-En-Scene

In the documentary when filming the Mineconevent it shows a shot of the amount of people

waiting to get in to the event, this shot shows the popularity of the game and how far it has come

since the very beginning. There is also a shot of the creator of the game looking at the event as a whole from the front almost looking stunned at what he is seeing, This shows the genuine shock and surprise as what he has done and created, the music at this point also takes that further with it being very slow

paced and melodic as he looks around.

Sound

Throughout the documentary the games official music which is very 8bit like is featured

throughout the whole documentary, this is obviously fitting as it demonstrates the feel of

the game and the documentary.

Editing

In the documentary an art developer is shown talking but his face has been covered by a face from a game he created, so his face could not be seen, the animated face can be seen talking when the interview subject is talking so it creates a suiting image of the documentaries theme and character.

Archive Material

The documentary uses a large amount of archive material when documenting the rise of the game and the rise of the company, it has used TV exerts and web shows exerts such as “Bytejacker – ep.

103” which is featured at 11:21. It also uses YouTube videos to show the game off as a large

porting of the success of the video game is credited to YouTube as YouTube commentators played it and shown it to the world. The documentary also gives the audience a look at earlier builds of the game to

demonstrate the evolvement of the game over a rapid period of time.

Graphics

Apart from the graphics featured in the game it uses what it seems basic graphic use when displaying the interview subjects name but it also uses a fade in underneath to show who the subject is and how he links to the documentary for example the following screenshot shown.