Documentary analysis.

Looking at the documentary "Paul is Dead: Folklore 101" i notice a few things that differ from alot of documentaries these days. Most documentaries feature talking heads to present the story or arguement, however in this documentary a voice over was used. The docuemtary uses video footage, sounds clips, text on the screen and pictures to explain the story.
This type of documentary is effective because it sticks to the point and keeps your attention by offering a range of different media inside the documentary, in apposed to just having someone standing on screen talking all the way through.
I also noticed that when the voice over is talking, the documentary is showing significant pictures or clips which relate to what he is saying. This is a good aspect of this documentary as it keeps the viewers attention and is also a good way to allow the viewer to gain a better understanding of what the voice over is talking about.

My investigation.

It has been a while since i have updated my blogger on my finalised ideas for my investigation, so i thought i would just give it an update.

My finalised project in which i am studying into at this moment is: An investigation into the representations of consumers of virtual world computer games in print media and film.

This idea has been developed and tweeked for a while now, however it was finalised a couple of weeks back that i would be studying into the representations of consumers of virtual worlds or RPG's, so i now have come to a decision on my question.

I am currently looking into news articles from newspapers such as "the guardian" for articles regagrding virtual worlds. Also i have found a few articles on the internet regarding the subject matter.

I have produced a successful questionnaire and focus group that have both already been exectued well, however i have produced yet another questionnaire and i do need to produce another focus group aswell to this time be aimed souly at people who consume video games or subscribe to virtual worlds.

Form of a Documentary.

After looking into a documentary from the website play value i found that they use a standard structure much like other documentraies do to get their arguement or story across.
I looked at a documentary regarding the way computer games controllers have developed over time, and found that obviously they begin with the oldest to newest controllers going through history to inform viewers.
Like other documentaries this one does not stray away from the point and is put together showing that the people featured in it have clearly done their research to back up what they are saying.
The documentary incluedes talking heads, clips from games and pictures of console controllers, which are all neccessary features for this type of documentary.

From Rogue to Fallout 3 a casual history of RPG's.

We have decided to study into the history of RPG's and put all that we have discovered into a documentary explaining on how RPG's have developed over time.
We have found so far that, in documentaries, specifically documentaries that focus on the subject to do with video games, we have found that they are very similar to any other standard documentary that we have viewed in the sense that they have talking heads and clips from the subject matter. In these documentaries we have found that they express their own personal views on matters regarding the subject and discuss how and why certain things have or haven’t happened in the subject. For example in the subject of gaming the short documentary of “the fall of Atari” has all of these features.
We will now continue to research into the gaming industry, also look into other documentaries to get hints on how they are filmed and what aspects are used in these documentaries.

Textual Analysis of Atari vs. Nintendo.

I did a textaul analysis of a documentary style video I found on the website play value.
This video is related to my work because it is a documentary regarding the history of gaming institutions that I am going to be studying.
Firstly I found that because it was a documentary, the camera angles were mainly "talking heads", also there were some clips form old games made by the institutions being viewed.
The ideology behind the documentary is to show people what actually went on behind the scenes concerning the fued between two major gaming producers.
The genre of the documentary considers gaming.
Institutions behind the documentary are Atari and Nintendo, they speak about how they each attempted to out do one another in terms of releasing games before each other and legal terms regarding them.
The audience for this kind of documentary would be fans of gaming who are keen to learn more about the history of gaming and what happened to put some institutions out of buisness.
Regarding the narrative, events revised over in the documentary are put across in chronological order, starting from what first happened to start off the fued between Atari and Nintendo. Of course the narrative is in this way because it is a typical documentary.

EA Sports is an Auteur.

The Institution EA sports is evidently an Auteur. I know this because the institution uses similar styles of video games such as... FiFa and Rugby and FiFa Streets and NFL. Because EA sports use a similar style and theme of video games like these (sports games), it makes the institution an Auteur.

Applying Auteur Theory and a critisism.

The Auteur theory could be critisised because the director could be influenced more by the work of their peers rather than their own creative vision.

Because of my interest in video games I believe that me and my group who are planning on doing this idea of studying the history of video games would be able to elaborate on certain areas of the documentary.

Auteur Theory

The Auteur theory is when the director of a film can be assigned the role or "title" of an author.
"The strong director imposes his own personality on a film; the weak director allows the personalities of others to run rampant."
To be considered an Auteur, the film maker must have some kind of work which can be analysed for themes that are ongoing. These themes can be intentially or unintentially. An Auteur must have a differentiating style, which can be almost instantly recognisable.
The Auteur theory has many criticism's and problems with it.

Initial Ideas part 2

My updated ideas for my investigation is now to produce a documentary or a radio broadcast based around the history of video games.
This investigation could involve how video games have developed over time.

Initial Ideas

My initial ideas for my MS3 investigation are to either create a magazine or a radio show. I have also been thinking of looking into games within the media today.
Gaming is something which I am pretty interested in so I believe that I could do well when investigating into Games as it is something that I enjoy.
I thought about designing a gaming magazine, I first considered this when we had the lesson studying games. I found it interesting and it was helpful discovering that Media theories and key concepts can be applied to games the same as films and other media texts.