Documentary – Street crime in Glasgow d.Adrian Harrison

The producer of this documentary uses a lot of different factors to make his short documentary effective and worthwhile to the audience. Everything you would expect from an informal educational documentary is covered here with the additional few new things as well. Although packed into a short period of time the documentary is a typical yet biased view of the streets of Scotland.

An example of this particular editing technique was the part when he interviewed some of the gang members of one group asking them why they were doing what they were doing they replied by saying it’s something to do on the weekend and that there is nothing else to do, the reason he makes this bias is that one this is a typical documenters trick to the public by editing what is said for all we know they could have said alternatives afterwards or someone in the background could have said something of use but it might have been blocked out. Secondly he failed to actually show alternative legal things that Scottish youths do on their weekends like play football and go to cinemas.

Another thing that the producer has done is used natural lighting when needed for instance when conducting his interviews with a Scottish resident living in danger you could tell he used natural lighting due to the lack of windows reflecting the light coming in. So in the interview it remained dark with only one window bringing in a portion of light this made it more realistic and beielivable while at the same time keeping the interviewees identity anonymous which is essential for not only their safety but for a good documentary as a whole.

The voice over in this documentary is not as one sided and strong as Donald McIntyre and Michael Moore. Voice over’s are used to grab the audience’s attention so they listen and take in info like stats and facts so they are learning visually and through audio , the producer who gives the voice over does exactly that in grabbing the audience’s attention.

Adrian Harrison lets everyone convey what he puts in his scene to keep it fresh and realistic from the most irrelevant thing to the most important this is significant to the mise en scene which worked really well in the fire scene when he captured some of the police in action and peoples horrified expressive looks when watching the fire unfold.