Documentary Analysis: The Worlds Fattest Man

Documentary Analysis: "The Worlds Fattest Man"

For my research I have chosen to analyse the documentary "Worlds Fattest Man". It was documentary's like this that first inspired the idea for our documentary. Since obesity is such a relevant topic this was great to look at.

The documentary follows the "fattest" man in britain, where it shows his life or rather living conditions over a period of time and his journey to receive a potentially life saving opperation. 

The documentary starts with comentary (By an un seen narrrator) and a series of "stock footage" of obese people in britain, while the narraotor delivers a series of statistocs about obesity in the UK. This not only establishes the subject of the documentary but also establsihes the location and nature of the programme. This is something that I picked up on in a number of documentary's and I think its a very effective tool that I will utalise in my documentary. 

After a breif intro we are qucikly introduced to our "Character" and are given some context about their life. This means the audience has a full understanding of who and what they are looking at. 

As the documentary progresses we are given more context about our characters situation and how he got to the position he is in today. We are then introduced to the other majour people in his life. Meanwhile the narrator explains their relation to the character and provides more statistics and comparisons. This is intercut with cut aways of footage that matches the commentary/dialouge e.g. shots of othe robese people, shots of surgery, shots of people eating etc. 

In terms of music and sound since this is a documentary, verry little sound effects have been added in post to maintain reality. However a soundtrack is put in the background durign moments of "drama" or tension. It is aslo underlayed while commentary and cut aways take place. This is something that I picked up on in a few documentarys but not all, it very much depends on the genre. e.g. a nature documentary will almost alsways have music since there is little dialouge. It helps keep audience attention at key moments. 

Anotehr thing I noted while watching this documentary is that the "character" answers a series of questions throughout the documentary; however we never hear teh question actually being asked. This is likely because they dont have a presenter, and is not something you'd see in all documentarys. For example a Louis Theroux documentary which is more interveiw driven.

I intend for my documentary to lie somewhere inbetween.

Stylisticly the camera work is interesting on this documentary, it is primerilly handheld which is unusual for a documentary of this sort. It tends to use a 1 camera set up and tend to cut away to other footage (that matches the dialouge) rather than change angle. 

Naratively the story is easy to follow, primerilly driven by the narration, this is effective and allows the audience to easilly keep up with the events. I intend for my documentary to be driven by a mixture of PTC and comentary. 

Overall this documentary follows some of the conventions e.g.comentary, cut aways, underlying soundtrack etc.

But the rest is rather inconsistant e.g. the use of graphics is inconsistant, as with the change between handheld and static shots, and lack of lighting. 

I intned for my documentary to maintain consistancy, especially with graphics, tripod shots, interveiws etc. But I did pick up some useful ideas. For example this documentary follows a very seriouse topic and maintains that tone throughout. I intend to keep a light hearted tone and while we touch on obesity we will be looking at an obscure angle of weight loss such as life hacks witht he ocasional grounding in the serious.