Thursday, 30 January 2014

'The Truth About Depression' Interview Sequence.

'The Truth about Depression' is a 2013 BBC documentary where Stephen Nolan meeting and interviewing a few people who have experienced depression first hand and examines the science behind this life-threatening illness.

I am going to look at the interview between Stephen Nolan and Denise Welch, who is an English actress, dancer and TV presenter, best known for her main roles in Coronation Street and Waterloo Road. (29:01 - 34:30)

The documentary starts by introducing the interviewees by having them tell the viewers what depression is in their own opinion with Stephen Nolan introducing what they are talking about and within the first couple of minutes Stephen Nolan tells the audience a statistic that 1 in 4 chance that it will effect them in their lives, which draws the audience's attention as it may effect them and keeps the audience interested and watching the rest of the documentary.There are a few cut a ways that cut to an actress driving a car in the rain with the lighting being very low-key and dark, which isolates the driver and makes it look like that no one is around to help and she is all alone to face this illness of depression. The cutaways help give a visual explanation to match what the interviewees are saying and to make it less boring to having the interviewees talking at the audience the whole time. The slow, sad piano music also fades in and out before and after the voice over and the interviewees talking, this creates an effect to make the audience sympathise for the interviewees.

Half way through the documentary, they introduce Denise Welch by playing the Coronation Street theme tune and the voice over tells the audience that she has suffered from depression for most of her life and kept it a secret by after getting over the illness she wrote an autobiography telling the public how she over came her illness and her addiction to alcohol and drugs. Before they started the interview they had a hand held shot of Stephen Nolan knocking on Denise's door and entering with a hug and a joke to liven things up with the audience, as it is a very deep subject to talk about so they will need a few second break every now and then. It cuts between medium close up shots to close up shots of Denise and then an over the shoulder shot at Stephen, the close up shots of Denise are to show the feeling and emotion that she is feeling at that moment in time. The over the shoulder shots are to show reaction shots of how Stephen is reacting to Denise when she talks about her illness that she had. To make the documentary less boring they would have a voiceover or the interviewee talking over a VT and different cutaways like a two shot of them both on the sofa. The interview then changes to the next person so they aren't all talking in one go, as they would make it very boring but the next woman; Heather Keough carries on from what Denise finished with so they do not repeat what has already been said. 

The sound in the beginning of the documentary is only non-diegetic sound of the mood music, the voiceover and the interviewees speaking but then as we get further in the documentary a bit of diegetic sound is played in certain scenes. There is very minimal editing in documentaries, as they are shown to give the audience information. 


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