Analysis of:‘Steve Jobs: Billion Dollar Hippy’BBC 2, 2011

Type of Documentary• Mixed;

Narration Archive Footage Interviews Actuality Footage

An Interview Archive Footage Actuality Footage

Themes• Innovation

• Steve Jobs Biography

• Hippy Culture

• Apple

• Aesthetic Beauty

• Success/Failure

• Consumerism

Narrative Structure• Closed – Full history of Steve Jobs at Apple covered all the way until

his death. No questions left unanswered

• Non Linear – Although documentary pretty much follows time order, interviews are chopped up to suit what is being covered.

• Single Strand – Purely covers Steve Jobs and Apple. Although over technology covered too.

Camerawork; Interviews• Framed conventionally to left or right of centre of the screen.

• Medium Shot, Medium Close Up and Close Up used.

• Follows Rule of Thirds.

• Interviews conducted sat down.

• One interview has a pan towards a mans jeans in order to discuss a topic.

Other Camerawork• Tilt used on footage of Apple Campus

• Establishing footage of California Desert

• Footage of apples

• Extreme Long Shot of men walking into former computing club auditorium

• Footage of Jobs’ old home/garage

• California establishing shots

• Apple campus/silicone valley footage

• Footage of auditorium from original Mac reveal

• Footage of elevator

• Shots out of car driving in California

• Birdseye shot from helicopter of California

• Various establishing shots of San Francisco

Other Camerawork; Continued

Mise-En-Scene• Spacious and simple modern rooms used to conduct the majority of the

interviews. This links to the topic as Steve Jobs believed in things being as simple a possible.

• A lot of White and Grey is shown on screen, especially in the background of some interviews, which again links to the topic as this was another of Steve Jobs’ ideas.

• Two interviews are conducted in a boardroom which links to the big business aspect.

• Interviews usually conducted at home or place of work.

• One interview conducted at an interviewees home shows lots of old 80s/90s technology in the background and lots of books. This links to the topic of innovation and Steve Jobs himself.

• Overall, the interviews are conducted in quite affluent areas.

Mise-En-Scene; Continued

Sound• Non-digetic sombre music is used as a music bed in the opening

sequence which talks about Steve Jobs’ death. However it does build up to be more celebratory as the opening montage progresses as Steve Jobs’ is celebrated for the things he achieved even though it was cut short by cancer.

• During the opening 10 minutes there is some music by Bob Dylan used as a music bed. This links to the era being discussed and Jobs’ background as a counter-culture hippy. Also an interviewee states that Bob Dylan was Jobs’ favourite musician.

• There is also use of other music to match the era being discussed.

• Non-digetic guitar music is also heard whilst the credits play at the end of the documentary.

Sound (Narration)• The narration of this documentary is spoken in standard English and

delivered calmly and clearly. This makes it easy for any English speaker to understand very easily and it also does not detract from the subject of the documentary.

• It is used to make sense of the visuals, especially some of the archive footage which is shown.

• In this documentary’s case, the narration is delivered by someone relevant to the topic. In this case, although he will have never met Steve Jobs, it is delivered by the voice of BBC’s Dragons Den – Evan Davis. He is relevant to the topic due to the business aspect of both of the programmes and he is also a recognisable voice due to his TV work.

• The narration in this documentary also carries the exposition, plain and direct, as it is quite bias towards Steve Jobs being a visionary.

Graphics• A white sans serif font is used for graphics which show an

interviewee’s name and also their relevance to the topic. Upper and lower case is used.

• Also, graphics are used to explain the year of some of the archive footage. Again, this is shown in white sans serif font.

• The title of the documentary is super imposed in a white sans serif font at the very beginning of the programme in all upper case.

• The credits of the programme are in a white font at the end.

• The fact that the graphics are white is very important for 2 reasons; A) it makes it clear for the viewer to read against almost all backgrounds and B) because of Apple/Steve Jobs’ frequent use of the colour.

Graphics; Continued

Editing• The most common editing transition is a simple and straightforward Cut.

This is due to a documentary being focused on the subject matter rather and anything else would distract the viewer.

• There is a strange inverted colours editing technique used when the narrator describes Jobs’ use of the drug LSD during his hippy years. This is used to give a ‘psychedelic’ feeling to the shots shown.

• There is also various montages used in the documentary which show Steve Jobs at various points in his life and also various Apple product releases. The most notable is in the opening minutes.

• Most questions, except from one, are edited out of interviews. The one that is left in is there in order for the interviewees answer to make sense.

• Cutaways are frequently used during interviews to show archive footage of what the interviewee is talking about. These are used in order to keep the audience visually stimulated and also to avoid jump cuts which occur due to the interviews being chopped up and moved around.

Editing; Continued

Editing; Crackle Effect• Another key feature of this documentary is that a lot of actuality

footage has been given an aged look by using almost a crackle editing effect which makes it seem like it has been shot on an old camera. This is pictured below.

Archive Footage• Newspaper covers from around the world.

• Apple product launch footage.

• Various footage of different Apple products.

• Interviews with Steve Jobs throughout the years.

• 60s/70s Hippy culture footage.

• Old photos of Jobs with various interviewees.

• Footage of old computers.

• Footage of California during the 60s/70s.

• Silicon Valley footage.

• Old footage from an arcade.

• Computer adverts

• Footage of various computer parts and components

Archive Footage; Continued• Footage of Macs – adverts, being built, in use etc.

• Old photos of various Apple employees.

• Footage of old Apple HQ.

• Footage of New York in the 1980s.

• Footage of Apps.

• Footage of Steve Jobs speech.

• Interviews with musicians about iTunes.

• Footage of Apple Shops.

• Footage of Bill Gates/Microsoft.

• & much, much more.

Archive Footage