Comic Book Superheroes - Unmasked

 For T.V Journalism we were asked to analyse a documentary, Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked.

He's my work:

Right from the get go, the documentary starts with very dramatic music. Throughout the entire length of it, the music changes to suit the mood of the subject. In the beginning the music has a very dramatic stance and when a topic of conflict is brought up it immediately changes to one of a more eerie nature. The use of this eerie music conditions the audience to take on the opinion of the speaker by showing that the conflict is eerie and something is wrong with it. For the introduction of a new popular superhero, the music picks up and becomes more upbeat and with a faster tempo. This causes excitement and so I found myself subconsciously excited for the announcement of the superhero without even knowing exactly why I was excited. When a topic of rebellion was brought up the music matched this with a slight Rock ‘n Roll feel, which embodies rebellion. I felt as if I could predict the nature of the topics before they were told because the music was so revealing and at times I found it was a bit repetitive and became less impacting. 

When it came to the different speakers, there was a good use of the Rule of Thirds, with a good amount of headroom. This made the image easier to look at with the exception of Michael Chabon, whose first frame is a close up and caused the sense of uneasiness. However they did correct this in the other frames of him. What confused me was that he was better lit than all the other speakers with his whole face basically lit. I first thought this might be because he is a comic author so is superior but then I noticed that most of the speakers were authors and most of them better known and prominent. The most popular lighting was the contrasting light which shadowed the one side of the face but kept both eyes lit. This avoided the audience losing a connection with the speaker as the eyes are usually the main focus and in a more clichéd manner, the ‘window to the soul.’ 

There was a good use of rim lighting to separate the speaker from the background, most backgrounds being big comic posters. The posters were shown with depth of field which helped keep the focus on the speaker but also made me think that there was more to comics than meets the eye, that because I could see the comic clearly, there was more I needed to know and this, I found out, was the message of the documentary.

As for colours used, I found that red and blue were extremely popular. This was in regard to the actual heroes and characters of the comics and to some of the underlying messages in the comics. Just as you get good vs. evil, I found that there was also a conflict with red and blue. The contrast of these two colours caused tension especially during the topic of villains in the comics and I felt that the evil guy was portrayed with tones of red and the form of justice or superhero was in blue. Another connotation I picked up on was the American flag being represented by these colours. Comics are American written and so it makes sense that they contain patriotic colours. Maybe a bit overused at times…

When a subject of comic failure or editorial mistakes was brought up, the comic cutaways were darker and poorly lit. Sometimes the images from comic books that were chosen were ones of dark and rainy nights which set a mood of melancholy. This made me root for the survival of the comic book without any prior attachment to it. I also wondered if it was a coincidence that all the speakers wore either black or dark navy blue. With the combination of their dark clothing and the shadows on their faces, I found myself staying detached from them. Perhaps this was an attempt to contrast the writers and creators to the actual comics, to show that there is another part to comics and again another reference to ‘more than meets the eye.’

There was a good use of visual effects such as video clips being a frame of a comic strip but I found that the cutaways got increasingly hard to keep up with. The images are very fast moving although is matches the mood of the documentary; it risked losing the audience’s attention as I found myself wandering off in thought. What I found quite successful was the use of quotes from the comic in question which helped reiterate a point. There was good use of connecting the comic book messages and real life situations. Issues of war, racism, drugs, weapons and terrorist attacks were mirrored with actual footage of the related topic and this helped get the point across that comics are more than men in tights and actually address current societal issues.

I found that it had good use of connotation, lighting, colours, visual and sound effects and managed to get the point across successfully.