Ivory Wars

1. How did things like music, lighting, editing, statistics, expert opinions, news footage, celebrity opinions, testimonials (characters directly addressing the camera) and the various conventions of documentary affect your opinion of what you were viewing? Describe an element from the film that demonstrates one of the conventions of documentary film making.

The different elements effected the way I viewed this documentary because it helped to keep my interest in the documentary and effectively conveyed their message. Without the conventions of a good documentary I would still have found this documentary interesting because I care about this topic and have an interest in learning more about it, however adding the conventions of this documentary overall made this documentary more appeasing and in my opinion it captivated the audience. An example of one of the conventions of the documentary that was used in Ivory Wars was statics about where elephants travel to eat the fresher and more abundant sources of food. It showed how when the elephants left the reservation, their numbers started to automatically dwindle. Hunters and poachers would attack the elephants for the ivory that is in their tusks, but the only way to obtain the ivory is to kill the elephants when they are travelling to a place where their food sources are abundant at certain times of a year. The statics showed how the elephant numbers are decreasing every time they leave the reservation for a different/more plentiful source of food. The statics are used to help relay the message help protect the elephants for poachers and hunters.

  


This is the link to the documentary:
  http://mediastorm.com/publication/ivory-wars-last-stand-in-zakouma