2. What makes this a mixed documentary?
This documentary is classified as a mixed documentary due to it having a
combo of interviews with significant people linking to the topic (caravans) as
well as archive footage of old photos from the beginning of the caravan craze
and videos of people travelling with caravans.
3. Themes
The most noticeable theme of this documentary is caravans and holidays as
when they were first made they allowed families to go on holidays while also
bringing their homes with them. Another theme is freedom as it allowed
people to travel around the country without limitations.
4. Narrative
The documentary begins with a brief overview of the history of caravans and
how they became popular. Then leads onto how caravans developed i.e.
Sprite who were the most popular caravan distributers during the time period
as well as the owner of Sprite (Sam Alper) making caravans as affordable as
possible and showed this through driving the caravan across Europe. The
documentary goes through the peak time for caravans then leading to its slow
decline, instead of families travelling across the country or abroad, caravan
parks were made as well as the development of aeroplanes made travelling
abroad much cheaper than caravans. The caravan business is still suffering in
comparison to what it was like before but is still a family thing as a cheap
way to holiday.
5. Camera
There are medium close-ups of the people being interviewed, the people in
the interviews stare into space rather than the camera.
There are point of view shots of people driving their caravans around the
countryside as well as handheld motion in the cars.
There were also medium long shots of people in the caravans and the
motorway.
6. Mise-en-scene
The interviews take place in their own caravans making the interviews appear
more natural (homely). As well as shots from a caravan convention.
There are handheld and point of view shots showing the British countryside
and the motorway while caravans driving along them.
There are shots of camp sites and archive footage of exotic places during the
time period of the 1950’s.
7. Sound
There is diagetic sound of people talking in interviews and narration over
archive footage.
There is nostalgic music referencing the time period of caravans at their most
popular, the 50’s and 60’s which helps relates to the target audience that
would be watching the documentary.
There is also a music bed with jazz instrumental music.
8. Editing
There are cutaways to anchor meaning for what is being said about caravans,
during the interviews with people.
There was also a montage of people caravanning included in the
documentary.
9. Archive Material
There are old images of people caravanning during the time of peak
popularity for caravans.
There are videos of people towing caravans around the countryside as well as
children playing while on holiday.
Also shown is people holidaying abroad due to planes being cheaper than
caravans.
10. Graphics
Graphics are only used to show names of people being interviewed.
They are kept simple and plain in white so they don’t attract attention from
what is being said.
