BLACKFISH

 Blackfish is a documentary highlighting the issues with keeping Orca whales in captivity. Out of most of the documentaries I have watched this so far has definitely been the most interesting and has definitely engaged me the most. It is an expository documentary meaning it is what you think a 'typical' documentary would look like as its got elements like interviews and archived footage a long with it trying to put a very strong point across to the audience. 

Although it could be argued that a documentary is probably not supposed to be very biased to one side and show both points of view to a certain degree, this does the opposite. There is the constant theme of anger and sadness towards Sea World. It uses time and dates a long with the archived footage mentioned before and this just helps it feel more real and believable that things like this actually happen and organisations like Sea World get away with it on multiple occasions. 

I think the uses and gratification is very relevant here, I watched it to learn about the structure of documentary but I think that even if I wasn't doing media A level I would have chosen to watch it because it interests me and I found myself switching off from what was going on in the room, I was that engaged. 

I also think that because you never hear from a current Sea World employee or any superior of their company you are only portrayed with the side of the ex workers and a specialists. This could perhaps be unfair but the fact they chose not to participate in the documentary could maybe highlight that they knew they were doing wrong but if they choose not to speak to any media they have more of a chance of getting away with it. 

I learned lots from watching this documentary, I feel like the fact I completely 'escaped' from the real world shows how good it was and that is something I would really like to do in my documentary because I think it highlights how good it is. I also think that interviews can be very boring on their own but when used from multiple accounts and their opinions and what they say being reinforced with footage helps back up the point.  I am really looking forward to trying out interviews as I think its a very tough task to do and apart from interviewing Neil Armstrong I haven't had any practice so its something I will look to further practise in the weeks to come.