Documentary Analysis

1. Chicken's, Hugh and Tesco Too / Series 1. Episode 4.

Channel 4, Tuesday 26^th January 2009, 9pm

I will begin analysing the documentary from 1:34, as the programme recaps with clips of the what Hugh had done in previous documentaries. I have decided that I will watch this documentary for five minutes and see what common conventions and techniques are used.  The target audience of this documentary is middle aged mum's and their families, as the documentary is primarily focusing on supermarkets and trying to get them to change how they produce and sell poultry. 

Title screen. Iconographic Tesco colours are used.

The programme begins with a shot of a free-range chicken farm blurred while a logo of the title is clear in foreground, the viewer therefore knows exactly what the programme is about. It proceeds with establishing shots of chickens. This already shows a sharp contrast to the chickens that were shown in the recap of past episodes in the series, mainly due to the lighting  and the emotive intentions behind the camera shots. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall narrates over these camera shots, giving many statistics, such as how many chickens reared for meat in the U.K. This is a very popular documentary convention, as documentaries are seen to be very factual films. This then follows on to a shot of Hugh walking around in a supermarket and chickens, packaged up in a supermarket freezer. These camera shots will build a relationship with the viewer as they can probably relate to visiting a supermarket and buying cheap, battery farmed chicken. Hugh continues to narrate over these shots and talks about how the meat industry has changed since he was a child. These series of clips are then followed by shots of chicken cramped in a battery farm, a sharp contrast to the clips prior. These shots are very emotive and the lighting is very dark, connoting the dark, grimy and disgusting lives the chickens have. The camera shots of the battery farm are accompanied by non-digetic music, adding a certain mood and making it, again, more emotive and saddening for the viewer.

Contrasting close-up shots of chickens in a battery farm and a free range farm.

Within the first minute of watching the documentary,  I can see that there are very strong connotations and messages coming through this documentary. Hugh does this through the use contrasting lighting in the scenes at the free-range farm,the supermarket and the battery farm and also through a very emotive and statistical narrative over the clips, and also the choice of non-diegetic music behind the clips. The supermarket shots of chicken are lit brightly, however this is by artificial light, thus connoting that it is not real and definitely not how it should be.

Close-up of cheap battery farm raised chicken in a supermarket.

Jamie Oliver, a popular chef with mothers and children in Britain, is then introduced in the documentary. Hugh and Jamie are at a battery farm and both verbally show their disgust at this farming method. Through using a popular chef, Hugh is now bringing his message through to other audiences. These clips are again narrated with several facts and statistics which then move on to Hugh and Jamie talking about them. 

Medium shot of Hugh and Jamie Oliver in a battery farm.

We then move on to shots of supermarkets who have phased out selling chicken that has come from battery farms. These are considerably more lighter than the supermarkets seen before and the non-digetic music behind the clips is more upbeat. Hugh then interviews Andrew Nicholson, the quality insurance manager of Co-Op about their decision to stop selling battery farmed poultry in their supermarkets. This connotes yet again that buying free-range and organic poultry is the better thing to do. 

Medium shot of Hugh interviewing quality assurance managers at Co-Op.

We then see Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall visiting a farm at Freedom Foods. Although there is sound in the clip, Hugh still narrates over it and tells the audience what he is doing at the farm. The lighting in this shot is much better than the farm we saw before, however it is still quite dark. This connotes that the farm is better, but still not as good as it needs to be in terms of farming poultry. At this point, I reached the end of viewing.

Over-the-shoulder shot of Hugh and the owner of Freedom Foods farm.

Through this documentary Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall visited a variety of different locations and through the use of narration and talking in the shots he told the audience what he was doing and his main objective. The clips were also lit very differently in accordance to how Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall would have viewed them and the non-digetic music used was for the same reason. Hugh also used lots of iconography in order to relate to his target audience. He used logos of popular supermarkets, such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, Co-Op and M&S.   


I like how the documentary contrasts the darker shots of the battery farms with the much brighter shots free range farms, connoting a big difference in the farms. I will think about including some similar shots into my documentary. I also like how the documentary is based around Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall's mission to abolish battery farm chickens being sold in supermarkets, and how he narrates the documentary. I may do this in my documentary, as it builds on pragmatics, and creates a good relationship with the viewer.

2. An Inconvenient Truth

Produced by: Paramount Classics

Released: 24^th May 2006 

I will be analysing the first five minutes of this documentary as I will only be doing five minutes of a documentary for my coursework. I have chosen this documentary as it is very different from the other documentary I chose to analyse. This film's target audience is much larger because it is a Hollywood film. It's also feature length, therefore because of this, and it's intended audience, it needs to be appealing and viewable, and not seem boring. 

An establishing shot of a calm river. Used to illustrate Al Gore's point. 

The documentary starts very unusually as it begins with shots of a calm river on on a Summers evening. The shots of the river have a narration over them. Narration is seeming to be a very common convention in the documentary genre, it was also used in the Channel 4's Chicken's, Hugh and Tesco Too. The narrator is Al Gore, a very well known American politician, therefore making this film appealing to the American audience as they will want to know what his opinions are in this documentary. He describes the river and finishes with the line "Oh yeah, I forgot about this." This is a very important scene as many people love to visit places such as rivers on quiet days out and what Al Gore is saying already is that if we carry on the way we are these places will disappear. 

A picture of Earth. This shows the beauty of Earth, along with the establishing shot of the river.

Then there is jump cut to a picture of the Earth on a computer screen that Al Gore is using for a presentation. Al Gore then goes on to say that the picture on the screen is the first picture of Earth ever taken. The documentary then cuts to a series of clips of Al Gore giving his presentation in many countries around the world and within this selection of clips are shots of the reactions on spectators faces and Al Gore giving the presentation. Behind these clips is quite atmospheric non-digetic music, this is used to create a tone for the film ahead and engage the audience. We are then introduced to grainy clips of Al Gore and his presidential run. This gives the audience an insight into the background of Al Gore and his importance. 

Shots of grainy television clips of Al Gore's presidential run.

The documentary cuts to shots of melting icecaps, tall trees and a drought landscape. This is followed by a series of contrasting shots of gases being pumped into the atmosphere and fires. The shots of the fire and gases are considerably darker than the shots previous. This connotes that what are doing to the planet is bad  and the fire could even connote that it is a living hell. The shots are spilt up by shots of Al Gore looking out a car window, connoting that he is witnessing all these things happening but is unable to do anything. This is followed by videos of hurricanes and sounds of children screaming. This connotes that it will be the younger generation that will suffer because of the mistakes the adults have made. Again, we see Al Gore but this time he is viewing these clips on computer, again connoting that he witnessing these events but is unable to do anything. From this it cuts to the title and then to Al Gore presenting.  

A close-up shot of Al Gore watching videos of the cities devastated by hurricane Katrina.

The shots are very fast in some of the documentary in order to appeal to an American audience. There are lots of very distressing shots which contrast with the calm river we saw at the beginning of the documentary.


I really like how factual and straight to the point this documentary is and Al Gore creates a relationship with the reader through using shots that the audience will be able to relate to, such as beautiful calm rivers and shots of his presidential run that some viewers may remember. It is very interesting how the entire film is based around a presentation Al Gore is giving and how he backs up any points he makes with videos. It is very similar to the last documentary I analysed, as it is based around one man and a mission. Al Gore has the objective of changing people's life styles in order to prevent global warming by happening. He does this by telling them shocking statistics and backing them up with shocking videos. 

3. Supersize VS Superskinny / Series 2. Episode 1.

Channel 4, Tuesday 20^th January 2009, 8pm

Again I will only be analysing this documentary for five minutes. I chose to analyse this documentary because firstly, it's about food but secondly because it is a very popular documentary series in the U.K. 

Long shots of a seriously underweight woman and a seriously overweight man.

The documentary starts off very fast paced with several long shots of over weight and under weight woman and men. The show is very fast paced due to the audience it is targeting, teenagers and young adults. The shots are narrated by a women, who gives a brief overview of the show and gives a few facts and statistics about Britain's eating habits and obesity numbers. This is followed by a cut shot to Dr. Christian Jessen, a doctor who has been in other Channel 4 documentaries such Embarrassing Bodies, The Joys of Teen Sex and The Sex Education Show. He is a well known face on television for teenagers and young adults. The camera shots of overweight and underweight people are accompanied by up-beat atmospherical music, again this is appealing for teenagers and young adults. Following this is a preview of what is coming up in the show and then to the bright and colourful title screen, which is again appealing to its target audience and it contrasts image 

Opening title screen. This shows the contrast in body shapes.

The audience is then introduced to one of the contestants, 'Superskinny' Jillian. She is introduced through a variety of shots of her body and the narrator tells the audience a little bit of a background story about her and says that she is in 'dire need of help'. Accompanying this narration is darkened camera shots of her body, connoting that it is not healthy or right to be in this shape and she is in a dark period of her life. This is followed by shots of Jillian at home and then being interviewed by Dr. Christian Jessen about her eating habits. 

We are then introduced to 'Supersizer' Phillipa through a variety of shots of her body and close-ups on certain areas of her body including her stomach, her legs and her arms. This cuts to a shot of her talking about her eating habits. There is also close-ups of lots of fatty foods that she would usually eat. In the background is a rock song by Marilyn Manson is playing. This is very different to the music before as connotes that there is a huge contrast between the two contestants. 

The two contestants then meet and talk about their eating habits, however they are in their underwear, this shows the extreme difference in their body sizes. The lighting is much brighter and almost medicinal, thus connoting that they about to head into a better direction in terms of weight and health. 

Medium shot of the overweight contestant and the underweight contestant.

This documentary is, again, very different to the documentaries I have watched previously. I think this is mainly due the target audience. The documentary is full of many fast-paced shots and lots of music, as well as many camera shots that could be considered rather gross. 


Again, this documentary used sharp contrasts to make points. I really like how this done in this documentary as it is done through dark and brighting lighting as well showing extreme bodies, through use of close-ups and long shots.