Gaming 4 life documentary. Analysis

Gaming 4 life documentary

The documentary starts with footage of a group of gamers playing video games and a narrator introducing the gaming industry.

When the narrator gives facts and statistics, they usually refer back to professionals from where they got the information. For example, “according to psychologists”. This is affective, as the audience knows that the facts they are receiving come from a reliable source.  

The background footage used is of gamers who have had a direct affect from violent video games. By having this type of footage it supports the documentaries argument and it becomes convincing to the audience.   

There are reconstructions of people going violent when playing video games. This is affective as it portrays the actions of video gamers and makes them realize how they look when they play video games. This is a good convention as it supports our argument of video games being violent and so we will consider using this convention. However a reconstruction may not give the same effect as a real life gamer getting angry as it may seem fake and the audience may think that the documentary are over exaggerating the argument.  

There is a diegetic sound of gunshots when an interview is taking place with a consumer of video games. This was appropriate as this shows that consumers of violent video games are exposed by these violent sounds. We my consider using sound effects to portray violence, however it may sound too cheesy and unprofessional. 

The informal interviews with consumers break up the formality of the documentary. Having said that most of the consumers who are interviewed did not have a professional occupation. The audience can see this as the professional people such as doctors and psychologist wore suits and lab coats. Whereas the gamers wear god of war t-shirt. This is a good convention and will defiantly use it as it distinguishes the expert interviews and the vox pop. 

The physical appearance of gamers is portrayed as unhealthy. For example the gamers looked stressed as they had dark eye bags. This appearance portrays the lifestyle of video gamers and how they don’t take care of their health.   

There is a good range of background music. A lot of the music is the same music that would be used in video games. In the expert interviews the sound level for music is decreased, most of the time there is no music being played.