Dreams of a Life Analysis

Documentary Type

• This documentary is a mixed documentary because it features; interviews, archive footage/images, reconstructions and narrations. The documentary follows the story of a woman named Joyce and how she was found dead in her flat 3 years after her actual passing, the documentary shows how this story shocked the nation and how the media called for help from the public to gain information about her.

Themes

• The documentary mainly focuses on the life of Joyce. We hear stories about her that her friends have told through interview, reconstructions are then created to present these events to the viewers. The documentary also sheds some light on Joyce's childhood, although no one knew much about her childhood. Joyce was known as a mystery as she told many different things to many different people so the documentary tries to uncover the truth to it’s audience.

Layout• The beginning of the documentary introduces the story the documentary

will be investigating. The audience sees CCTV footage of the real Joyce before her passing. The documentary also asks questions that it will investigate which intrigues the audience as they begin to question the same thing e.g. ‘why was no one looking for her when she was missing?’

• The middle of the documentary is mainly interviews. It investigates the questions posed at the beginning in depth and creates controversy as we hear different peoples recollections of events. The documentary goes into detail about Joyce's home life and childhood and how events that happened in the past effected her relationships which may have lead to her never being looked for.

• The end of the documentary begins to conclude the ideas investigated fully in the middle. All the ‘pieces’ get put together and create a bigger picture which explains why people never looked for her. The audience hear a final interview from Joyce’s friends, where they explain their regrets and what they would have done differently to help Joyce.

Camera Angles• High Angle Shot – This was used when CCTV was being presented. • Close ups – These were used when the audience looked at evidence, Joyce’s

belongings and the news paper articles that wrote about her story.• Panning shots – There were panning shots of London, this allowed for the

audience of the documentary to view the area Joyce lived in.• Long shots – Some long shots were used during the reconstructions, this could

have been to show Joyce’s isolation as she was presented as lonely and distant throughout the documentary.

• Mid shots – These were used during interviews, it allowed for the audience to see the heads and shoulders of those being interviewed. The shot was close enough to the person for the audience to accurately see the persons facial expressions, this allowed for accurate reactions to be viewed as people reacted to the articles and evidence provided.

Mid shot used during interview.

Mise En Scene• There were a lot of dark colours and shadows in

this documentary, this gives connotations of isolation, loneliness and desperation. Joyce was presented as being alone in this documentary and the use of dark colours strengthened the point.

• When reconstructions of forensics were used the scientists were dressed in white overalls with a blue mask, this made them look official and easily identifiable to the audience as a forensics team.

Know it’s forensics team straight away. Dark flat (lonely.)

Sound

• There was a mixture of digetic and non digetic sound used in this documentary.

• The digetic sounds used were the interviews as they explained the story. There was also some music played in reconstructions if the characters were at a party.

• The non digetic sounds were the narrations over the top of the reconstructions. There was also some backing music used to add tension or sadness to back up the themes in the documentary. (isolation, loneliness)

Archive Footage• There was only some archive material used as there was not a lot

available. The documentary presented newspaper articles from the time as they investigated Joyce’s story. There was also an advert from the newspaper shown that was asking people for information about Joyce as they could not fathom why she had been left undiscovered for three years.

• There was a short audio clip played of a phone call from a police officer again asking for information on Joyce.

• There was also a small CCTV clip of the real Joyce walking through London alone. This could back up the idea of her being isolated or to add mystery to her character (why was she alone? What was she doing?)

• Images of Joyce herself were also presented, this gave the audience an idea of what she looked like, it also backed up what people were saying when they described her. CCTV of Joyce

walking through LondonArticle shown in

documentary.

Editing

• Superimposition was used during this documentary. They had recreated Joyce’s flat and there was an old TV in the corner, it showed Joyce sitting on her sofa watching the TV and she was watching someone being interviewed telling her story, the camera would then zoom into the TV and the interview would then fill the screen. This will have been done to reinforce evidence, Joyce’s body was found on her sofa watching the TV.

• Interviews would fade into reconstructions as the person being interviewed would tell their story, it made it look like the audience was seeing their memory come to life.Superimposition used,

man being interviewed in TV

Graphics• When a person was being interviewed their name was

presented at the bottom left of the screen, this allowed the audience to know who the person was and what relationship they had to the person the documentary was about.

• A title card was used at the beginning of the documentary which showed real images of Joyce against a black background with the ‘Dreams of a Life’ in white writing, which will haunt the viewer to see real pictures of a woman who was almost ‘invisible’ as no one searched for her.

Title then fades in ‘Dreams of a Life’