The Meth Epidemic

The Meth Epidemic is a crime documentary, which has a formal mode of address and is investigative and direct. The most common themes in the documentary are crime, punishment, legislation and abuse.

The use of camera in the documentary conveys the standard layout of a documentary. This is because rule of thirds are applied in interview shots to give it a professional look. Normally, when rule of thirds are applied, it is to showcase something of importance in the background. However, the external talking head shots used in the documentary which have conformed to rule of thirds appear to have bland backgrounds with no relevance to the topic.

Elements such as close ups are used to tell the story. This involves images of drugs being in a close up, or having them in the depth of field foreground to show the importance of the image and to let the audience see what the drug, as the main focus of the documentary, looks like. In addition, to give the audience a realistic view of what it is like dealing with meth addicts, handheld footage is used. An example of this in the image is a man confronting a meth addict who gets on the bus. The camera follows him onto the bus to make the audience appear to be apart of arresting the man.

In order to follow the story, difference locations are used to show bad area’s of drug abuse or where the specialists do their research. When the camera goes to a new location, an establishing shot is used to make the audience aware of where the camera is going and hint towards the kind of people that are going to be interviewed.

The editing of the documentary adds to the style of the documentary being a crime documentary. It begins with the opening titles which are rugged and give a distressed impression, like the victims who have suffered from the drug. In addition, further editing features include cutaways and jump-cuts to make sure the relevant image/footage is on screen along with the commentary and also transitions are employed to make the documentary more excited. A common transition seen in this documentary is 'Fade', because it is basic and stresses the seriousness of the topic.

There is a creative style of editing used to make the mundane more exciting. For example, a photographic montage of before and after images are used to show the effects of the drug. This along with archive footage allow the audience to develop a deeper understanding of the drug. Finally, the pace of editing is fast paced because it almost signifies the 'rush' people get when they take the drug. It moves the documentary on quickly to not dwell and bore the audience.

There are numerous sound features in the documentary which link to the style of documentary. Firstly, the sound bed played under interviews and archive footage generates an emotive response from the audience. This is because the music is synchronous to the sympathetic events happening in the documentary. The audio employed is non diegetic. The soundtrack sticks to conveying emotion and sympathy until investigation scenes and scenes of conviction, this is when the music becomes tense and discordance. This is because it represents what victims are doing is wrong, an no sympathy should be given for the crimes they commit to get drugs or money for drugs. Finally, a main feature of sound in the documentary is the 'voice of god' commentary. This commentary leads the audience through the story from beginning to end, adding facts and statistics but never telling the audience what to think so they can draw their own conclusions from the documentary findings.

Mise-en-scene displays the standard characteristics of a documentary. In this documentary lighting is important, especially in interviews because the interviews with victims have dark lighting. This represents that they are in a dark place and are suffering. Furthermore, drug paraphernalia is used throughout the documentary because of the topic. This lets the audience associate the drugs they see with the effects and facts given to them by the specialists used in interviews and also the commentator. Parts of the documentary are also reconstructed to enhance the story and importance. An example of this is when someone is scrolling on a computer, and it shows images used previously in the documentary. This puts the focus back on the effects of drugs and how important the message is to get across that they are a real danger.