The Meth Epedemic

In class we watched The Meth Epedemic, a documentary on crystal meth and the following is what I found:

Type Of Documentary:
The Meth Epedemic was an Investigative documentary as the police were hugely involved in investigating the hows and whys of meth using.

Themes:
Major themes that can be seen in the documentary are; drug abuse, addictions, crystal meth and the dangers and long term consequences of drug taking.

Narrative Structure:
The Meth Epedemic had a linear narrative and the documentary focused on police searches and the effects that the drug has on people and on children.

Camerawork:
Whilst watching the documentary I noticed; lots of talking heads when the experts were talking, lots of handheld shots especially when the raids were shown, many cutaways of objects that were loosley associated with what was being spoken about, close ups of a hand taking tablets from a pharmacy shelf, focuses on the flashes of the police lights, conversations between the police and others and hides identities, lots of focus on meth websites, and also lots of images of drug traffickers cooking up the crystal meth.

Mise-En-Scene:
There were many shots of packets of sudafed tablets, as they contain the same ingredients as meth, there were lighting flashes of the police cars, actors as policemen, and also, two photos of meth criminals were shown on barbed wire, representing the link between the smuggling of the drug substances and also the dangerous and negativity of the two criminals.

Sound:
Throughout the documentary I noticed that there was sad, emotional music when stories were being told that were negative or about peoples misfortunes, there were many voice overs through the video and there was a lot of serious music, to reflect the serious subject of the drug and to provoke emotion from the viewer.

Editing:
There were many voice overs throughout the documentary that led the viewer through and narrated along the way, there were also many cutaways that were used to further focus on the subject.