Genre Analysis-Documentary Analysis- Who do you think you are? (lisa Kudrow)

BBC 1 documentary
Type of Documentary

• Expository because there is a 'Voice of God' and images that match and explain what he is talking about.
• Factual based.

Themes

• Family based, because she is finding out about her family.

Narrative structure

• Starts with her knowing a bit about her family but she wants to find out more, so she goes to see different family members and people who can help her on her way, at the end she has found out more about her family.

Camera Work

• Establishing Long shot of her and her father at the table in her fathers house in the kitchen, shows the old fashioned look of the house and all the pictures and family trees on the table whilst they are looking through them.
• Shot reverse shot with her and her father to show the audience they are having a true conversation, its like the cameras aren't actually there.
• Close-ups of important details such as death certificates, birth certificates.
• A point of view shot through the window of a woman's house as Lisa walks up to the door makes the audience feel like we are there with her on her journey.
• Establishing shots are often used whenever she arrives at a destination she can get information from.

Mise-en-scene

• Interview at the beginning with her garden in the background, all interviews with her have comfortable mise-en-scene, e.g her garden and her living room.
• There is also an interview almost like a 'vox pop' with her great grandmothers childhood home behind her as she talks about her.

Sound

• Male narrator (mark strong), makes the documentary serious.
• Lisa alos narrates but it is more of an interview with cutaways over it, or when her and her father have finished their conversation and are sitting in silence.
• The non-diegteic sound used is meant to represent the mood; music that goes with travelling, sad music when talking about the death of her great-grandmother.

Editing

• Cutaways when Lisa narrates (interview)
• Slow editing
• Goes from long establishing shots to mid shots, so go through shots to make the audience feel as though they are nervous and excited for her to find out about her family.

Archive material

• Pictures from friends when explaining about her.
• Old family pictures- pictures of her father as a boy, grandmothers.
• Old videos of her great grandmother playing.
• Video of hitler during the war surrounded by German followers.

Graphics

• Faded blue background and white text on the caption, consistent throughout.
• Family tree has the same text used in the caption, the background is a sky with light clouds.