TASK 2B

2 documentaries 

Documentary 1 is about the creation of Dubai whereas documentary 2 is about culture and development of Iran as a nation.

Creation of Dubai - The style of the documentary chosen is Expository. The reason being is because this particular style of documentaries relies strongly on voice-over narration and interviews to obtain the information that is required for the film. Expository documentaries are also often found to be arguing a point and are centred around an issue that is affecting a lot of people and needs solving. The voice over is a key factor for the type of doc as it is often referred to as “The voice of God” and the reason being is because we can hear the voice walking us through whatever the visuals are showing but can never see the actual character that is narrating the film. The tone of the narrator also has the power to add a credibility effect to a story which can further influence the audience and how they feel about the story.

With this doc about Dubai, we can see that it is heavily based on voice over as the narrator is explaining whatever he is talking about while at the same time showing visuals to back up his facts. The second documentary about Culture and development of Iran is also expository and it is evident by having the voice over narrator which talks about the focus of the episode which is about the country as a whole, how it’s misunderstood by the west and how it is undergoing a radical change, becoming more and more modernised.

Interviews – Interviews are present in both documentaries and it is important to show interviews to the viewers because it adds credibility to the story as the people interviewed are usually either experts on the topic or people being directly affected by the topic. With the first doc being about the existence and future of Dubai and going back in time to visually show how the flow of water became possible, the documentary director who is not present on the screen has decided to get in touch with a professional who has a lot of knowledge on the issue. We can see a couple of interviews starting with the first one being a Geologist who is an expert in the field and this instantly makes the whole documentary more believable as we have a real expert who is a geologist and professional. There is also another interview which is with an architect that is building skyscrapers therefore he has a lot of knowledge on how it is possible to for example build skyscrapers on soft sand as well as get water running through all floors of the building.

 Culture and development of Iran has a slightly different approach to the interviews, we can actually see the presenter on screen as he is facing the interviewees asking them questions as well as whenever he is walking and the camera is tracking him from the front. With this doc, the people interviewed are not professionals but actual local people who have been living in Iran their whole life as they are seen to be protesting, they are getting asked different questions such as why do you protest and against who. It shows us that the documentary crew has decided to get information from the locals themselves as it would be from their own point of view, from someone that has experienced it by living there, it is seen to be the realest point of view when making documentaries.

Archives – Proper archives of old footage was not to be seen with creation of Dubai however it was heavily CGI based, almost the entire episode was full of Dubai being recreated on computer using CGI to show different sketches and graphs of the city as well as recreate how it was before and to show what is under the ground keeping the buildings together as well as how everything’s constructed. This isn’t possible without the help of computers which animates everything making it easier to understand for the viewers along with the voiceover of the narrator resulting in an interesting and engaging documentary.  

Culture and development of Iran  does not have any archives as all the footage is shot on location and directly presented to the viewers without introducing any footage that isn’t shot by the film crew or shot from a while back.

The music slightly varies with the Dubai doc, it is heavily based on the commentary as well as foley SFX, but has a very subtle melody in the background which sort of enhances the whole visual experience and brings it together as the animation is shown of the recreation of architecture and so on. 

The Iran documentary does not have any non-diegetic music at all, and it still works quite well because it is heavily dialogue based therefore this could be one of the main reasons for eliminating the use of soundtrack to enhance the voice of the narrators and make sure everyone is able to hear them properly. 

Editing – The edit in Creation of Dubai is we can say very complex, being almost entirely full of animations/CGI, the editor must’ve spent crazy amount of time combining actual footage together that have been shot in the actual locations around Dubai along with interviews and combining this footage with the generated CGI one and match it. There is a lot of fade in and out shots as well because they've tried to combine the cgi and real life footage by merging it together to show what Dubai's skyscrapers that are in the making will look like as well as to show what the place looked millions of years ago. Culture and development of Iran  has simple cut on action cuts where the speaker turns their head or does a simple hand gesture which is an excuse to make a cut and make the transition between shots less obvious and more seamless.  

Culture and development of Iran is a very straight forward editing style, it just consists of simple cuts that lead on to the next shot. This is because the two have completely different styles and focus when it comes to theme. The creation of Dubai is focusing on how Dubai has built their architecture in such difficult place, the what used to be middle of nowhere 20 years ago and how they managed to get water in one of the driest places of the world. We are being shown computer generated footage that wouldn’t be possible to be filmed as we are also shown Dubai millions of years ago and how it used to have rivers and be a very wet place, turning into one of the driest on earth, to comparison with the second documentary which explores Iranian culture, locals, their approaches as well as how the country is developing throughout the years.