The Music Bizz – Marketing of Meat LoafAnalysis

Type, themes, narrative structure

The Music Bizz is a mixed type of documentary as it includes a variety of interviews, archive material and actuality footage.

The main themes that are portrayed in the documentary is the music industry, marketing music and success. Also the power of the media to influence the audience.

There is the voice of God narration who is a male and does not have a particular accent.

The documentary is non-linear as it does not follow a chronological order instead it just jumps around the different events.

The documentary is closed as it does not leave any questions unanswered, it’s also single stranded as there is one narrative thread.

Camerawork There is a variety of different shots used

throughout the documentary.

An establishing shot has been used at the beginning which sets the scene and shows the location.

Mediums close-ups and close ups are used during the interviews, the interviewees are also set of centre (rule of thirds) which follows the documentary codes and conventions.

The camera is also set up that the eyes of the interviewees are a third way down the screen which again follows the rule of thirds.

Tracking shots have be used to follow people which makes it more realistic.

There are point of view shots to show the people views and emphasise opinions on certain topics.

The use of zoom, crane shots and crane shots make the documentary more visually interesting.

Mise-en-scene Most interviews have been set up against a green screen so then the background could be edited to different graphic backgrounds this is something that is not traditional.

All the interviewees are smartly dressed to show that they are important professionals.

The background during the interviews anchors the relevance of the person talking about a certain topic.

Variety of images of Meatloaf have been used to show his importance and that the documentary is about him.

Stills from magazines and album covers have been used to emphasise the points being made.

Sound

There is voice of God narration, who was a male and spoke standard English, he also had a calm tone of voice. The narration holds the narrative structure together and explains the points being made.

There are songs used from Meatloaf’s album which is relevant to the topic of the documentary.

The is dark non-diegetic music playing in the background over the video footage.

Other sound tracks have been used such as YMCA, Village people, Mr Blobby and Jingle Bells, which are relevant to the topics talked about at the time.

Editing

There is a use of cutaways to make the documentary more visually interesting, and also they help to avoid jump cuts when the questions are being cut out.

There is a dissolving effect used of the interviewee into the shot.

There is a montage used at the beginning to engage the audience also it attracts the audience and keeps the audience interested as it makes the documentary more visually interesting.

The use of regular cuts is used to move the documentary along more quickly.

Archive Material & Graphics

There is a variety of different archive material used it includes things such as:

Footage from Meatloaf’s music videos, concerts, behind the scenes footage, archive photographs and interviews. Also footage from the Brit Awards, Grammy Awards, numerous magazine front covers, posters, album covers and websites.

All of those things are used to illustrate what is being talked about and illustrates the topic.

Titles are used to anchor who is on screen and the relevance to the subject.

Graphics are used to anchor location.

Not conventional opening titles have been used, titles to the programme is within the series.