This is a blog where I put my final critical reflection of our crime documentary project.
Final Critical Reflection‧₊˚ ⋅.𖥔 ˖
The documentary project required students to produce a 3-5 minute opening sequence for a crime documentary. Our group developed “Fatal Fixation”, a documentary focusing on a stalking and kidnapping case involving two teenagers.
Branding is how audiences recognize and differentiate a product from its competitors. It’s important because it makes the product more unique and appealing. In our crime documentary, the thumbnail and the documentary itself collaborates to create this sense of branding through dark color grading. This element carefully sets the tone and mood of our documentary. The thumbnail’s purpose is to grab attention and make people curious, pushing them to click on the documentary to find out more. In this case, our documentary itself is the main product that audiences watch for entertainment or information. Hermeneutic codes are used to create mystery. For instance, the stalker’s hidden identity and dark clothing. When these two are combined together, they raise questions that keep the audiences engaged and wanting to know more. According to Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory, most audiences are expected to take the dominant reading: stalking is wrong. The audiences should easily come to this conclusion because we tried our best to represent the victim (Angel) as an innocent and fragile young lady, meanwhile the stalker as someone threatening and dangerous. However, some viewers may negotiate or disagree with this reading after taking notice of other possible meanings in the text. Discordant music when the stalker appears builds fear and unease, a classic move when it comes to crime documentaries. This guides audiences toward the preferred meaning, which is something we strive to achieve.
My research on Netflix’s “Lover Stalker Killer” and “Can I Tell You a Secret” helped me understand how our documentary used or challenged crime documentary conventions. These documentaries also gave me ideas for shots. According to Steve Neale, media texts tend to repeat the same conventions to make it recognizable, but also stir things up to make it interesting. Crime documentaries often use dutch angles, close-ups, establishing shots, long shots, over the shoulder shots and CCTV footage. They also show blood, photos of the victim, dark clothes (criminals) and typically female victims. For audios, they usually implement chilling music, creepy sounds and phone calls. Our documentary followed most of these and created a sense of realism through them. We subverted conventions by making the kidnapping victim male (Steven) instead of female. This challenges the stereotype that women are weaker. Additionally, using a bizarre pinboard instead of a criminal’s face as a thumbnail is also a subversion as it is unique and different.
Our documentary connects with the audience by focusing on late teens and young adults (16-25) who like mystery, crime stories and investigations. By using teenage actors as victims and criminals, our documentary interests our target audience and makes it easier for them to relate to. It also adds drama in the relationships, which happens often to young people. The thumbnail attracts viewers by showing a pinboard with torn pictures followed by messy handwriting and a creepy, obsessive collection of the victim’s belongings. This makes the crime feel personal and raises questions about why and who made the board. According to the Uses and Gratifications Theory, our documentary can act as a diversion (entertainment for the audience), surveillance (expanding knowledge about crimes) and personal identity (relating to characters).
Our documentary shows a detective, a male teenager as a kidnapping victim, a female teenager as a stalking victim and the kidnapper. The issues being covered are stalking and kidnapping of young people, implying that this stuff doesn’t just happen to adults. The dominant reading is that these crimes are forbidden. The detective (Candra) is smart and professional, which can be seen from his glasses, his short hair and the jacket. Steven wears casual clothes as he acts careless when walking alone at night while on a phone call, making him look powerless. Angel wears proper, feminine clothes as well as her school uniform that shows purity. Additionally, her messy bedroom makes her feel real and relatable, especially after going through a rough time. The kidnapper wears a black jacket and mask which adds to the mystery. The contrast between the stalker and the victim was done on purpose to make the viewers feel sorry for Angel, who did not deserve to go through such a terrible crime. It was also done to make the viewers resent the stalker for hurting the victim and her boyfriend. Overall, we made sure to balance stereotypes and subversion to maintain variety.
