Major Project: Research-Meru

Major Project: Research-Meru

As part of my ongoing research for this documentary, I continued to seek out similar source material to draw inspiration and learn from. One of these was the documentary Meru. Below you can read the research notes I made from watching it.

• Great use of establishing shots at the start.
• We are actually introduced to the presenter by his wife, a unique way to show our main contributor.
• We get to hear the wife's perspective straight away.
• Lots of unique shots and camera angles in this documentary. good inspiration for the cinematography in our doc.
• Use of stock photos to emphasise a point/story. This is a useful technique i've noticed before and would like to implement somewhere in our project.
• Some really effective transitions edited into this documentary they help show the passing of time.
• This documentary adopts a video diary sort of style.
• The use of handheld camera helps us feel more connected to the presenter, like we are on the journey with them. This will be a key choice that we may make in our documentary.
• Nicely framed and set up interview scenes (use of plain background to keep the focus on the contributors).
• The narrative has a very reflective feel to it, as if the presenter is looking back on their journey. This is the tone we may want to consider for our project.
• There is a simple but effective soundtrack, the style of music used here will likely be similar to what I end up using in our film.
• The narrative can get very slow and tends to drag at times.
• There scenes where the presenter looks at old photos, and we look with them. I'd love to be able to make a scene like this o=in our film, possibly putting it in the diary room or somewhere similar.
• Effective narration throughout the doc.
• There are moments of tension and we as an audience feel on edge.
• We have a series of quick cuts and fast-paced editing as we build up to the accident.

• We get to see footage of one of the presenters in a hospital bed.
• However, these shots needed to be longer and more drawn out in order to make us actually care.
• Although the soundtrack was nice it wasn't utilised well enough.
• We see the presenter go through physiotherapy and a lengthy recovery process.
• We get to hear from the presenter's friends and family.
• As I mentioned earlier the pacing of this documentary definitely needed some work.
• However, the narrative was actually pretty straightforward and easy to follow.
• The presenter needed to talk to the audience more often.
• Present uses narration to reflect on hard times.
• During PTCs the presenter often feels quite flat I needed to speak with more energy.
• Use of VFX
• Thanks to effective cinematography and use of narration we do at times feel what the presenter felt.
• The soundtrack gets better towards the end.
• The narrative has a successful conclusion and rounds off nicely.

Closing Thoughts

• This documentary had great cinematography.
• It had a similar style to our documentary but not quite the same.
• It had a simple narrative structure that was easy to follow.
• It had a nice range of contributors that helped push the story forward.
• It lacked energy and didn't hold our attention all that well.
• Underuse of sound design.
• We don't connect with the presenter/story as much as we want to.

Overall Relevance Score 6/10