Notes of Jaws Documentary

In The Teeth of Jaws

Themes

The main theme of the documentary is about how Jaws was made, following the initial ideas for the movie.

Structure/Narrative

There is no narrative within this documentary. The interviews with various people has been edited together to form a story telling of how Jaws was made. 

Graphics on screen
The names of each person who is being interviewed appears on screen for around 5 seconds, which is just enough time to take it in. The role of the person also appears at times, such as ‘The actor’ or ‘The Director’ The on screen graphics all appear in the same place using the same colour and font. Later on in the documentary it shows the same person previously known as ‘The actor’ but this time it shows both his name, and the name of the character he played. The documentary title is stylised similar to that of the movie title. It uses the same font and is also red, the same as the movies font.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene for all of the interviews has been well considered, each person being interviewed is in front  of something relevant. For example, Richard Dreyfuss who plays ‘Matt Hooper’ is positioned in front of a large shark with it’s mouth open as though it’s going to eat him.

Camera

People being interviewed all follow the rule of thirds. They’re either positioned to the left or the right hand side of the screen and never look at the camera, they all look past the camera and stare into ‘space’.

Archive Material

A great amount and variety of cutaways are used through out the documentary. They cut away to relevant things which relate to what the interviewee is talking about, for example whilst someone is taking about the novel they cut away the front cover or pages within the book. Again, when talking about the script It cuts away to the first page of the script. All cutaways are relevant to what is being spoken about. When names are being mentioned (for example casting) It cuts away to pictures (from the time 70’s) of the people being mentioned.

Editing

The questions being asked never appear on screen, nor do you  hear the interviewer asking them. The people interview simply talk back the question being asked to them. The documentary is cut so seem as if everybody is telling one big story.