Aileen; Life and Death of a Serial Killer by Nick Broomfield

QUESTIONS 

• The types of footage which are used in the opening are; archive footage, photo's, news footage and police footage. Different types of footage have been put in the documentary because it keeps the audience interested and it makes the audience believe it more. and the photo's of her when she was younger makes the audience feel sympathetic towards her.
• The documentary techniques i can identify in the sequence are; voice overs, archive footage, interviews and exposition
• The information given in the voice over is just either news reporters, presenters and nick broomfield documentating what happened. 
• The central subject is that she was the first known serial killer in america, and she killed 7 men, and we find out the consequences of her actions.
• The opening sequence of the film is very similar to what you would see on a opening scene of a fictional film in a few different ways. firstly it shows a picture of Aileen as a little girl, then jump cuts to a car driving down a forest lane, which is quite dramatic way of introducing a character and setting the scene. another way the opening is similar to a opening of a fictional film is the flashing news clips talking about what Aileen did which grab the audiences attention rather then the director just reading out what she did.

1. Name of documentary: Aileen: Life and death of a serial killer
2. Date of production: 2003
3. Film maker/Producer? Nick broomfield 
4. Sub-genre(s)? Crime, mystery, thriller 
5. Context of Production: America 
6. Purpose or Purposes? The purpose of this was to investigate the why she has the death penalty which was against her, and if it was the right thing to do. 
7. Other relevant contexts? Political - yes because it has an underlying theme of if the death penalty and if it is still politically correct. Social - Yes because society apparently failed her.
8. Use of selection: Only Aileen point of view and the news side where shown on the documentary but police facts and interviews were not shown on this show. so some viewers watching this show could maybe feel more emotional to Aileen than they actually should. 
9. Narrative sequence and editing?  The way the film was edited was good because it showed nick broomfield interviewing her and then switched to news footage about her throughout the documentary.
10. Narration/commentary? There was quite a high amount of narration from nick broomfield in this documentary which was presented in the voice of god way which kind of made it like every other documentary. 
11. Use of interviews? There majority of the documentary was full of interviews, which were good interviews because they had a live feel which made you feel as if you were there. 
12. Presence of crew? The only presence you got of the crew was nick broomfield talking in the interview or his voice of god narration. 
13. Non-diegetic sound and use of music? the music which was used was 80's music at some parts which are heard with clips or pictures of her past,  and at the end of the documentary the song that was played at her funeral was played. The effect that the music had was good because it made it more emotional.

http://youtu.be/rExhihAZGxg