For research into editing styles, I decided to watch the 2003 documentary “Bowling For Columbine”, a film by Michael Moore.
This film focuses on the relaxed gun laws in America and how easily accessible it is to get your hands on a firearm. But it also focus’s strongly on the Columbine massacre, where two students open fired in a school, killing six people and injuring countless.
The way the piece has been put together is an interesting one, as although you get the sense that it is against the relaxed gun laws, it gives both view points of the for and against.
From the beginning the film uses a lot of archive footage, illustrating Americas relationship with guns and often shows the devastation that weapons have caused. It also shows archive footage of the CCTV footage taken from inside the school when the massacre took place, showing graphic images of bullets being fired, students being killed and the fear of the people fleeing for their lives.
One thing the film has defiantly succeeded to do is to make the audience feel something. Watching the devastation the massacre caused, really does make the viewer feel anger and sadness and makes you question, why this is allowed to happen?
When I think about it though, I feel that this film would have a different effect on the UK audience than the American one. Because although both parties will feel sadness, in America owning a gun is a part of day-to-day life. Whereas being a teenager in the UK, I have never seen a real gun out side of a museum, first hand in my whole life and probably never will.
The way the piece has been put together it a very typical feature length documentary style, it consists of archive footage, interviews with people involved and various factual information.
All that is shown in the piece is Relevant and cut together tightly. When creating my piece I feel that I will have to take these points on board to gain the most emotional and informative impact on my audience. Bowling For Columbine in my opinion is a very good factual piece, which is well edited together. After expanding my knowledge of documentary pieces which isn’t a piece of war or nature on the BBC, im a happy ive done this and will take inspiration from it.
. David Bird Media . 