9/11 Loose Change

This documentary is an example of an Expository documentary because it's main focus is on a historical event and has the commentator being the 'voice of god'. The themes present in the documentary are terrorism and violence.

Most of the camera footage in this documentary is handheld because the documentary contains a lot of archive footage to support and give evidence that there was more to the 9/11 incident than was let on to. Apart from this, there are also interviews employed into the documentary which conform to the standard style of documentary making as they fit to the rule of thirds. As part of these talking head shots, the interviewee also doesn't look straight into the camera but at the interviewer who positions himself on one side of the frame, so the interviewee is looking to one side. Furthermore, establishing shots are also used in the documentary to show the audience the location of either interviews or to highlight an important location which has some significance to the incident of 9/11.

At the beginning of the documentary, editing is employed to add quotations from people important to the 9/11 topic. The editing technique that is used is the scribbling out of quotes which gives the impression that the quotes are going to be proved wrong in the documentary. There are also multiple transitions used in the documentary to make the documentary more entertaining and also some are to show importance such as zoom.The fade technique is employed as a montage to show relevant images related to the topic. Editing is also used as titling; this is because the date has been added on multiple occasions to keep a chronological structure of the documentary. 

Animation is also employed as a feature of editing as an image of the earth. This is a method of transition to show the locations of all the events that are taking place in relation to the 9/11 incident. Jump cuts are used in interviews to highlight the important information and cut away any information that has little or no relevance to the event. Throughout the whole documentary, it is a mixture of images and archive footage. Archive footage is used because it makes the documentary more realistic and easy to relate when the audience can see what is actually going on.

The mise-en-scene represents the themes and topic of 9/11 by the use of reconstructions. For example, a reconstruction of a plane flying, shows the more technical aspects to one of the events leading up to 9/11. An how there were mysterious events before 9/11. In addition to this, professionals also appear in the documentary as part of the mise-en-scene. They represent the knowledge behind what actually happened, and allow the audience to draw conclusions from the facts given. The only acting in the documentary is the interviewees, and they are very serious because of the topic of the documentary.

The sound utilized in the documentary is non-diegetic and doesn't last for the whole duration of the documentary. At the beginning of the documentary, the sound is slow paced music to create a tense atmosphere and create a mysterious setting for the opening of the documentary. Other sound comes from archive footage, an creates a realistic atmosphere of what events were like up to and during 9/11. The tense atmosphere is also created by silence, this is employed to focus on important commentary facts and so the audience can follow the narrator without being distracted by music. This is another way the documentary focuses on being serious.