Documentary Research

TransReality is a documentary series that features various stories from transgender (or third gender) people and their challenging daily lives in Russia. The series involves many trans woman such as Kira Sadovya, Russian trans model, and her struggle to persuade her family to accept her choice in a sex change operation. TransReality follows these peoples lives in the style of an observational documentary. I enjoy this observational style as it really gets you involved in these peoples lives and you are able to see what they go through daily. Each episode follows two or three stories that lead on into more episodes, like Kira's transition and eventual sex change operation. As we are making an investigative documentary. I think it would be interesting to show someone physically investigating into the campus cat in this observational style to make it more appealing, story-wise.




Reggie Yates presented a series on BBC 3 called 'Extreme Russia', a series within a series of 'extreme' countries. In the series Extreme Russia, Yates travels around Russia looking into issues such as homophobia and teen issues. In episode 3 he travels to Siberia to meet young girls aspiring to be models. He explores into the world of modelling auditions and follows two girls who had been 'discovered' and were starting their careers, travelling all over the world to places like Korea. I enjoyed this series as it is based on a topic I'm interested in and I have been watching Reggie Yates since I was young. The documentary was observational but involved a presenter which is often a common aspect in documentaries, especially series. A presenter can make a documentary compelling as you get to go on this journey with them and hear what they think about the topic. Presenters keep a consistency in documentaries and try to get as much information as they can for the viewer.

 

The documentary 'Interview with a Cannibal' follows the life of Issei Sagawa, a Japanese and who murdered and ate women. In the film Sagawa talks us through his life and why he believes he is the way that he is. He explains that currently, at this point in his life, he is alone and doesn't care if he lives or dies. Sagawa never truly accounted for his crimes and was quickly set free due to loopholes in the law. This documentary is much shorter than the other two but it solely focuses on one person. The film is mostly made up of interviews with Sagawa and archive material. The archive material really gave you an idea of how horrible this man was ranging from comic book drawing this man had drawn of the events to pictures of his mutilated victims. This is a technique in crime documentaries and recounts of peoples lives as it actually shows you what's being discussed and is visually very interesting.