Documentary Idea's and Research
Initial Idea 1 - Human Euthanasia
Eutthanasia comes from the greek meaning of 'good death.' This refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life to relieve pain and suffering, which is mostly seen in animlas. However, recently there has been the issue with the expense on medical treatments to ill people who unfortunately may never recover and there has been significant debates between human rights organisations and the families of the suffering on whether Human Euthanasia should be allowed. Therfore, I felt it would make an interesting documentary to follow the famalies of suffering people around, who believe and fight for Human Euthanasia, as well as looking into the British Medical Association on why they are so against the act. Within the documentary I will debate whether it is selfish or fair to be able, by choice, to put someone to rest. I would also look into the statistics on how much money the government would be spending on letting people choose their death and compare it against how much it costs on medical treatment to people who unfortunately have no hope. The documentary would last 40 minutes, breaking it into two sections. 20 minutes on against euthanasia and 20 minutes for euthanasia. It would be in the style of a reflexive and a particapatory documentary leaving the audience to create their own judgement.
Research
Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, was a documentary based on Human Euthanasia which was shown on 13th June at 21:00 on BBC2. The documentary focuses on Sir Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2008, and his thoughts on ending his own life before the disease ruins him. The narrative strongly follows Terry's journey of when he travels to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland, where he witnesses first hand the procedures set out for assisted death. This leads to Terry confronting the moment at which he chooses to take the lethal drug.
Sir Terry said: ‘I am a firm believer in assisted death. I believe everybody possessed of a debilitating and incurable disease should be allowed to pick the hour of their death. And I wanted to know more about Dignitas in case I ever wanted to go there myself.’
The style of the documentary mainly focuses on the positive side on assisted death and looks at people who believe in euthanasia and who have witnessed it. The documentary starts off with Terry in an empty black room, with four strong lights behind him. To me, this signifies his mind, finding his way too the light (finding his way to heaven and his own death). The documentary uses diagetic sound ambiance of inside the house and for the outside to represent the different mise-en-scene. Although it is an emotional subject, the documentary uses positive music to enlighten the viewer on the subject. They also use silence when a woman tells the story of her husband dying for impact and reality. The majority of close up's on the people have a shallow deph of field, allowing us to feel personally innvolved and have all our focus on the subject. However, the secondary topic amongst the documentary are the political issues with making asissted death legal in the UK and we are informed of the law not specifically clear on the subject either. Therefore leading a performative, expository and political mode to the documentary becuase the audience are made aware of the issue and it's meanings to different people, as well as Terry's voice being the "Voice of God narration". Within the documentary, there is also a brief use of photo's, which reperesnt the memories of different people. The word 'memory' is used a lot throughout the documentary, symbolising Terry's Alzhiemers and why he's taking this journey, The documentary finsished with Terry ending his journey. We know he's ended his journey because the repeated mise-en-scene of the black empty room now appears as a beautiful holly bush covered in snow.
Initial Idea 2 - The Untold Story of the Mafia
The word mafia originated from the Sicilian adjective "mafiusu", meaning to 'boast' or 'brag' and roughly translates into the word 'swagger'. Most known Mafia groups are American-Italian famalies who can also be known as clans, who own a large amount of territory due to their wealth. For years people have spoken of the Mafia, however how much of what we hear is real? From this, I thought it would be interesting to create a participatory documentary investigating the reality of The Mafia. I would include interviews with people and their experiences of the Mafia, as well as trying to hunt down people who claimed to be in The Mafia and what it's really like. However, I thought that getting video footage of The Mafia may cause problems, therefore 50% of my documetary would be a series of still frames.
Research
Richard Kuklinski was sent to inprisonment on December the 17th 1986 after being charged with five counts of murder, six weapons violations, as well as attempted murder, robbery and attempted robbery. However what the dectectives werne't aware of was how many people Kuklinski had actually murdered.
The Iceman: Confessions of a Mafia Hitman, was one of HBO's Speacial documentary's and looks into the double life of Richard Kuklinski, a hitman for Newark's DeCavalcante crime family. The documentary is an hour long, and the majority of the documentary takes part in Trenton State Prison in New Jersey. The documentary starts with an establishing shot of a long hallway inside the prison, where Kuklinski walks towards the camera so the audience can identify him. The only sounds we hear at this point is the use of non diagetic slow pased music, building tension and setting an eerie mood for the documentary. Simular to other personal documentaries, all of the interviews with Kuklinski are extreme close ups, allowing the viewer to really get innvovled with his life story. When telling his background story of how he became a hitman, we are introduced to when he was a child and he begins to tell us the weak relationship with his family. To follow this story, compression devices, such as flashbacks, of old video footage and old still photos of his family and himself are shown to the viewer so we can identify the characters and see the reality behind his story. Kuklinski explained to the audience that he learnt one thing from his family, "If you hurt somebody, they'll leave you alone. Good guys finish last". Other then shots of Kuklinski and his family, there are interviews with people who were involved with investigating the horrific murders. Once again, they are telling their side to the sotry, so close up's are once again used. In a few scenes you can hear the interviewee asking questions to kuklinski and pursuading him to tell us his most dramatic stories to get a reaction from the audience. Therefore, the mode of this documentary would consist of particapatory, reflexive and political reflexivity, as the documentary also focuses on the struggling life of the middle class.
