This document provides an overview and instructions for analyzing scenes from the 2002 documentary film "9/11" directed by Jules and Gedeon Naudet. Students are asked to watch key scenes from the film and answer questions about how the directors constructed the documentary using an observational style. They are also prompted to discuss how the film's commentary by Jules Naudet exposes details to viewers in the lead up to the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. Finally, the document instructs students to find examples from the film that both support and contradict the observational mode of documentary filmmaking and prepare a short homework assignment analyzing these examples.

1. Entrance Activity
YOU MUST select and recall the key elements associated to this mode of
documentary film making – DON’T RUB THIS LIST OUT!
Extension – YOU COULD talk about HOW they’re represented in the text.
Observational Mode (Nichols – 2001) of
Documentary

2. Title:
9/11 – Key Scene Overview
Tuesday 24th
February 2015
FM4:
Varieties of Film Experience – Issues and Debates
Section B Specialist Study 2:
Spectatorship Topics – Spectatorship
and Documentary

3. Why?
Aims & Objectives
• YOU WILL re-cap prior
learning.
• Your knowledge and
understanding of the
observational Mode will be
developed.
• YOU WILL also consider the
cross-pollination of other
modes within the examples
we analyse today.
• Review the learning.
AO1
Demonstrate knowledge and
understanding of film as an
audio-visual form of creative
expression together and
AO2
Apply knowledge and
understanding, including
some of the common critical
approaches that characterise
the subject, when exploring
and analysing films.

4. HOW have Jules & Gedeon Naudet constructed this documentary?
Are there other enigma clues (Roland Barthes – 1975) like this in the lead up to
September 11th
?

5. FM4 – Section B
‘9/11’ (2002 – Jules & Gedeon Naudet)
• “The accidental documentary”
• 2 French Brothers filming a ‘Probie’ (Rookie) firefighter Tony Benetatos
• September 11th
2001 – The shift in the focus of the documentary changed.
"They always say there is always a witness for history. I guess that day, we were chosen to
be the witness."
- Jules Naudet

6. Observation v Fiction Film

7. Task 1) – 10 minutes
YOU MUST watch the 2 key scenes and complete the Questions on the
worksheet provided.

8. FEEDBACK

9. Task 2) - 5 minutes
Go onto the Public Drive and YOU MUST find a defining example of the
Observational Mode of Documentary from the text:
WHY?
HOW
YOU SHOULD establish what scene it is and – through picking out
relevant micro feature(s) establish WHY and HOW by recording them
into your exercise books.

10. FEEDBACK

11. FM4 – Section B
EXAM BOARD EXPECTATIONS
What does Jules Naudet’s Voice of god commentary ‘expose’ to the
spectator in the lead up to the first plane hitting the WTC?

12. What have you learnt?
Revisit the list – YOU MUST add x2 new areas you have learnt today
and x1 that you need to investigate further to extend your
understanding.
Observational Mode (Nichols – 2001) of
Documentary

13. Homework
AO4
Observational Mode – the recording of events as they
happen through an unobtrusive camera.
Find x2 examples from the documentary – ONE FOR – ONE
AGAINST – This Observational Mode convention
Due: Next Lesson – Thursday 26th
February