KONY 2012 was a documentary that focussed on drawing attention to the catalytic, dangerous and horrific group called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in order to stop them. This group was commanded by Joseph Kony and brought disaster and suffering to anyone that they passed on their Crusade throughout South and Central Africa. The film was presented by the CEO of Invisible Children, the company who ran the campaign. The presenter of the informative film was Jason Russell, who had been involved in previous projects by Invisible Children in order to draw awareness to a certain topic. The project was all set in the year 2012 with a final date in mind in order to push the effort of the people across the world. This documentary was released on the 5th March and displayed the achievement that had been reached at that point, using motivational music and clear and simple points to follow. Doing this encouraged as many people as possible to follow the event and get involved. Since the release of the video, the documentary gained over 101 million views world wide and has managed to capture and arrest Joseph Kony along with other LRA leaders and members.
The documentary was created in a serious and formal style in order to appeal to as many people as possible that would be interested in raising awareness for the cause or to help participate in the promotion that would eventually lead to the end of the LRA and Joseph Kony. This documentary was created in this way to hit the emotions of the people. Using facts, statistics and real life footage to suggest to the viewers the proportion of the situation and that help would be needed. The documentary also uses footage of an eight year old boy displaying his opinions on the matter. The use of this results in the viewers being informed of the struggling situation and worried that the tragic situation had spread so far that even a young boy was getting involved which helps to put the whole event into perspective and as a result viewers would be more likely to help the cause where they can.
The purpose of this documentary was to raise awareness about the LRA and Joseph Kony in an informative way so that people all across the world get involved in order to put a stop to their devastating and disgusting campaign throughout Africa. Providing factual information was a key part to raising awareness as it makes certain that the viewers believe what the film was saying and if correctly persuaded the viewers would be more likely to get involved. Raising awareness to the issue was the main purpose of the video, this was because the more people who knew about the organisation known as the LRA, made it more likely that the American government would get involved and would then would remove the organisation by force and have the members arrested.
The impact the documentary raised, brought awareness to people all over the world of the tragic events that were taking place in Central and Southern Africa, Most importantly, the recognition of the situation that was taking place in Africa, reached the heart of America. The President at the time and other important government officials, heard what was going on and signed a contract to send military soldiers and to aid Africa in the capture of Kony and to disband the LRA. The presenter of the video would have become well known over the world with his help on the project and would be welcomed on any similar projects in the future. The audience , after watching the documentary, would be very likely to get involved with the project due to the emotive tone the video took and as a result the audience would be moved by the expectation and anticipation of the world to get involved to help, remove the threat.
Throughout the documentary, several techniques were used in order to attract potential viewers and promote awareness of the horrific events that had taken place in Central and Southern Africa in order to stop the LRA. The first of these to be used was the music. In documentary many topics were covered, many included the destruction that Kony and LRA brought on the people of Africa. When discussing these topics the music used in the video often represented the feelings of those who had been damaged by the tragic events. These music tracks also were used to make the viewer feel emotional about the events and passionate about stopping them from happening again. This helped to spread the word and slogan of "Kony 2012" and made the chances of stoping the lRA for good, a high possibility.
Jason Russell was the presenter of the documentary and he covered the project using narration in the form of voiceover. Jason Russell was present throughout the entire documentary and used voiceover to control the programme. This technique was used so that the address of the project was more direct and almost spoke out to the audience, not using Jason's face or body within the programme was significant because the use of this created a different type of attention the audience members needed to use to focus with. Rather than making one way eye contact with the presenter and watching his mouth move, the audience needed to listen to what was said and therefore the audience was more involved and engaged. A clear example of this was at 12:30 in the documentary where Jason talks about the number of criminals in the world and how Joseph Kony was number one. As shown by the screenshot below:
Throughout the documentary a number of found footage was used. Found footage is a type secondary data that was not taken by the director. This was often used in the programme to illustrate a point that was being made. The location of the footage came from news broadcasts at the time of the event being mentioned or other documentaries. An example of this technique in use was at 8:29 . This found footage was of Earth from out in space. This clip would have been part of a previous documentary about space and a screenshot from the clip is shown below:
Joseph Kony and the LRA have destroyed many lives and left many damaged in their wake. A number of interviews take place within the documentary to capture opinions on the LRA from a series of different people. The use of this helps inform the viewers so that they can make their own opinion on the topic and help out if they deem it necessary. The list of interviewees are as follows: A victim of the LRA, the presenters eight year old son and a member of the Internation Criminal Court.
To smoothly change one topic to another and to make the documentary aesthetically pleasing a series of graphics are used throughout entire programme. Most notable, graphics are used in this video when the presenter scrolls through Facebook and shows his photos on his timeline and the camera zooms into a world map where the footage cuts so the footage looks like the map zoomed all the way in to Uganda where the narrator begins to talk about Jacob. This technique helps to engage the viewers.
Documentary two: Rehab : Lives Addicted
Rehab: lives Addicted is a documentary on BBC Three and informs the viewers about the hardships that drug and alcohol addicts face when entering a rehabilitation centre in Somerset. The documentary was released on the 7th of June 2017, during anti-drug use in the UK, and was directed and produced by Philip Wood. Wood has been involved with and directed many other documentaries which includes "Chasing Dad:A longlife Addiction." The programme manages to cleverly capture the perspectives of the lives of the patients in the help centre and helps to shed light on how difficult their lives have been up to now.
The Documentary was created in a formal and serious style. This had been done in order to successfully and creatively facilitate the information necessary for the programme in an interesting a respected manor.
The purpose of the documentary was to show an insight to an area of the world that very few people had ever seen inside off. This allowed a range of different type of people to find out what life was like in a rehab centre and feel like they knew the people that were in the rehab centre at the time of the programme by the level of detail on each of the personalities onboard. Knowing the people and the tragic reasons for their situation would impact the viewers choices and as a result it would make the viewers less likely to take harmful substances and they would now see the real dangerous sides of the drugs and alcohol that may not have be seen before. This documentary also provides information on the rehab centre and those who had attended the centre. This helped to make the story of the documentary and of each person living there, believable for the viewers which would make the documentary seem more interesting and appealing for potential viewers.
The impact of the documentary raised awareness about the life in a rehabilitation centre and the impacts of being addicted to substances. A major impact of the programme would have resulted in the utilisation of healthy conversations that normally would have been socially ignored. This would lead to more people seeking help, advice and assurance from rehab centres such as the one in this documentary. It would all start with one conversation and this video may have emotionally made viewers ready to confess and start a new. Furthermore the impacts of these events would have decreased the amount of people in the audience who used the substances after the programme and as a result there would be higher amount of people who would not end up in a centre for help.
Rehab: Lives Addicted used a range of techniques in the entire programme to captivate and engage viewers into the topic of the video and to raise awareness around the topic. The first technique used was the use of a voiceover. Between segments and to give the audience an incorporated feel, a narrator gave information regarding the current topic and situation of the participants. This resulted in the viewers feeling more involved in the documentary. Philip Wood's voice was used for the voiceover, Philip was also the producer and director of the programme and by including this he made sure that no viewer of any kind would get lost or confused with the structure of the program and so would know what was happening when and where.
The documentary features Philip Wood and the camera man creating a series of interviews with the patients within the rehab centre during their three months filming. The interviews did shed light on how the ex addicts began to react after their bodies were forced into detoxification and withdrawal. The interviews informed the viewers of the pain and suffering, becoming addicted causes to the body and therefore viewers around the world were less likely to take substances. Another result of this was that the viewers were involved of the tragic past of the people inside the centre and so the audience would have become more involved in the topic and focussed more on the output of information of the documentary.
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