This documentary examines the lives of prisoners serving life sentences. It uses a linear narrative structure to follow multiple prisoners. Scenes were filmed using techniques like fly-on-the-wall camerawork to capture the prisoners' environments and daily lives in prison. The documentary explores themes of murder, crime, punishment and redemption through interviews with the prisoners and archival materials like childhood photos that provide context into how they ended up in prison.

2. Type of documentary
Lifers is an example of a mixed documentary.
Themes
There are many themes shown throughout the
documentary; murder, crime, prison, regret and
paying the price.

3. Narrative Structure
• This documentary is a linear film which flows
through from beginning to end, with out any
jumps into the past.
• This is a multi-strand documentary as it
showcases many different prisoners and looks
specifically at different the different sentences.
• This is a open ended documentary as we do not
find out in the film what happens to all of the
prisoners that are interviwed.

4. Camerawork
• Fly on the wall- used to capture
everything in room, this could be to
show how enclosed everything is in
that room and to emphasise how
horrible it is.
• Handheld camera- they use a hand
held camera to follow the prisoners
around making sure they capture
their every moves.

5. • Wide shot- this allows
the viewer to see the full
picture and realise the
intensity of the prison.
• Close up- to focus in on a
certain detail that
contributes to the
documentary.

6. Mise-en-scene
• The main place of filming is inside the prison,
showcasing different rooms; the prisoners
cells, the shared rooms (such as eating area)
and different offices where interviews are
taken place.

7. Sound
• They used a formal male narrator, with an
informative tone to narrate the
documentary from the beginning to
introduce the programme and tell the
audience what its about as there is no
presenter.
• Also, to interest the viewers they used
actual news clips to make it more realistic
and dangerous, making the documentary
more exciting and interesting.

8. Archive material
• A photo of one the murderers as a child,
although they have committed an
unforgiveable crime, this possibly makes the
viewer feel bad for the prisoner and it reminds
them that they weren’t always bad.

9. Graphics
• There are titles of people when they are being
interviewed. Also, when we are introduced to
a new prisoner it tells us there name, crime
and when they are expected to be released.