Documentary Analysis: JLS Revealed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qha1kXp4bJ8

On the 7th November 2011 JLS Revealed was first aired on ITV2 at 9pm, this is under prime time; airing a programme at this time hopes to maximise the number of viewers who watch the programme. This documentary follows all four members of JLS one year after coming runners up hit ITV show 'The X Factor' in 2010. Here we are shown highlights in their career over the year including touring with Lemar, getting their first number one and attending the MOBO awards. Amost their success we see interviews with close relatives and the management team to emphasis their joy for the boys success.  This documentary is a comliation film which is the same type as I hope to produce it includes previous videos of performances and interviews, which I hope to mimic as well.

I feel the target audience for this documentary is very similar if not the same to the members of the band. Stereotypically fans of boy bands are young-teenage girls as the members are portrayed to be teenage heart throbs. From footage in the documentary we see the audience at concerts/appearences are primarily young girls therefore this is the reason I feel that young girls are the primary audience for this documentary. These type of people fall under the C1 and C2 catergory people of this age catergory don't tend to have a sustantial income, therefore the money they gain can be spent on leisure and not for responsibilities that adults may have, for exampple paying for bills/morgages. They are an appropriate age range to target as they are able to spend the money they have on merchandise/commerical products which will boost the advertisting/populairty of the band JLS, meaning it is more associated with the target audience as it would appeal to them. The secondary audience for this documentary I believe would be parents as many young girls don't have access to a television in their room apart from the main television in the living room.

The documentary uses a wide variety of production techniques making it successful. May of these aspects I hope to imitate and use in my documentary in order to make it too successful. One technique ‘JLS Revealed’ uses is the Voice of God (VOG) narration, I have been very keen to feature this from the beginning after doing initial documentary research. Below is an example of VOG in the narration. Working with the non-diegetic soundtrack it has a very powerful impact on the audience as it describes the reasoning behind the actors performance which here is a sensitive subject. I hope to use this technique in my documentary at different points e.g. when describing Emma’s actions/ highlighting her successes.  

Watching the documentary I felt the opening scene was very powerful and it is something I would like to experiment trying for my opening scene of my documentary. The overlap of various radio broadcasts/ interviews emphasis the fame and successful of the band JLS. This is non-digetically being played over a series of different footage edited together showing supporting fans, performances and appearances, which further highlights their success. I feel this opening scene is very powerful as the Voice of God narration is explaining the fortitude and determination the band have to become successful and is giving the viewer an insight on what the documentary will include; and it is made clear to the viewer from the outset that the documentary looks at the rise in fame over the past year. 

As well as the footage shot I was very fond of the animatic side of the documentary. Each section of footage is divided by an animatic title which describes what the next set of footage will be about e.g. video shoot. This breaks up the documentary and doesn’t make it drag or appear as boring. Each section is an in-depth overview lasting approximately 5-10 minutes including interviews and old footage. This is a strong technique I feel as it covers a variety of subjects in 45 minutes. As my documentary is only going to appear as ‘Part 1’ of an hour long documentary I feel as if this is a technique I could use as well as ‘after the break’ and ‘coming up’ as there is a lot going on in my documentary and I don’t want it to be appear as crammed/busy. In addition to these titles I felt the name labels were powerful as they are associated with the documentary genre of music and were visually appealing but still readable. This is another technique I hope to mimic when producing my documentary.