This documentary follows the life of singer Amy Winehouse, from her early passion for music to her rise to fame and eventual demise due to struggles with drug and alcohol addiction. It uses archival footage from her childhood and interviews with friends and family to show her talent and love for music, as well as her personal struggles that she expressed through songwriting. The documentary aims to provide a deeper look into Amy's life beyond her public persona and the struggles she faced with fame and addiction.

1. Research into
existing
documentary :
Amy

2. This documentary is about the rise and
fall of Amy Winehouse. It is linear and
follows her life, chronologically. It
features archival footage from her
younger years, interviews with her
close friends, and unseen work of hers.
It begins with her passion for music,
and follows her journey to success,
before ending with her demise, fuelled
by drugs and alcohol.

3. It is immediately known that the
predominant theme is her music. She is
singing in one of the opening archival
footages at a very young age, and this is a
very powerful clip as it shows her love has
always been there for music. It is then
intertwined with her relationships and
fame, but the most prominent theme is her
love and talent – singing.

4. I believe the overall message was to show
a raw and emotional side to Amy and give
viewers a deeper insight to her struggles
and life behind closed doors. I think the
use of archival footage helped to deliver
this very well, as it presented in a very
innocent light. This contrasts with the
loud and brash Amy that the media
constantly mediate and portray.

5. The lyrics and on screen words helped to
make the documentary more emotional.
This is because they helped us make a
connection between Amy’s writing and her
real life. It showed how she dealt with her
personal struggles, through her emotional
outlet- song writing and singing

6. I believe the target audience is people who
were fans of her music when she was in
her prime. It is also people intrigued by
her, as she was a very complex person.
There are many codes and conventions
used within the documentary…

7. • Archival footage
• Narration
• Off screen presenter
• Interviews
• Montage
• Mediation
• Expert interviews

8. The documentary is essentially
observational, as we are observing
Amy’s life unfold in front of us. As it
follows the real time pattern of the
events, this is a good mode to use as its
almost like we sit back and look at the
events unfold in real time.

9. How did the film represent people?
Friends : It made them look very supportive, but worried about
Amy. They were there for her through everything and made it
clear they were not happy of her drug habits. They were
portrayed as being very loyal and loving to her and the
friendships between them all looked very genuine and deep
Dad : Made him look extremely controlling and selfish. He looked
like he was living his life through Amy and was only using her
for his own financial gain.
Amy : Throughout the documentary, Amy is represented as
innocent and naive. The documentary wants people to pity her
and feel bad, even though she is in control of a lot of her actions.

10. Mediation
Mediation is prevalent throughout the documentary.
She already smoked weed, which is know as a gateway
drug to harder things. However, they twisted it to make
it look like Blake got her involved into harder drugs,
when infact she was likely to have got into them had
she been left to her own devices anyway. The
documentary brushed over this, and it was possibly an
attempt to make Blake look like a bad influence on her.
The mediation made it look like it was all Blake’s fault,
which may have been done in order to make the
viewers pity Amy.