Documentary Analysis

1. Minecraft: The Story of Mojang
Documentary Analysis

2. Type Of Documentary
The documentary is fully narrative, as a narrator
is used but not shown in the entire
documentary; the narrator is also interviewing
the interview subjects however he does not
feature in the documentary.

3. Themes
• The themes of this particular documentary are as
follows;
• Gaming
• Technology
• Independent Companies
• Phenomenon
• Culture
• Industry Innovation
• Inspiration

4. Narrative Structure
The narrative structure for this documentary is
linear; it’s linear as it documents the rise of the
successful independent game “Minecraft”. It
discusses the rise of the video game that started
off as an individual’s idea which blew up to be a
massive cultural talking point in the 21st century
within the gaming industry.

5. Camerawork
In the documentary the creators follow the creator of the
game to gaming events and film him meeting fans of the
game, this was done handheld for both mobility reasons
and also to provide a feel that the viewer is at the event
with them. It makes the audience member feel a part of it
and involved. In the documentaries where the subjects
are sat down and the interviews have been organised
they have been framed through the standard rule of
thirds shot so the viewer can see the background. They
also in other interviews stood the camera on a table and
filmed almost like a medium shot of the subject where
you can see the full surroundings of the subject.

6. Mise-En-Scene
In the documentary when filming the Minecon
event it shows a shot of the amount of people
waiting to get in to the event, this shot shows the
popularity of the game and how far it has come
since the very beginning. There is also a shot of the
creator of the game looking at the event as a whole
from the front almost looking stunned at what he is
seeing, This shows the genuine shock and surprise
as what he has done and created, the music at this
point also takes that further with it being very slow
paced and melodic as he looks around.

7. Sound
Throughout the documentary the games official
music which is very 8bit like is featured
throughout the whole documentary, this is
obviously fitting as it demonstrates the feel of
the game and the documentary.

8. Editing
In the documentary an art developer is shown
talking but his face has been covered by a face
from a game he created, so his face could not be
seen, the animated face can be seen talking
when the interview subject is talking so it
creates a suiting image of the documentaries
theme and character.

9. Archive Material
The documentary uses a large amount of archive
material when documenting the rise of the game
and the rise of the company, it has used TV exerts
and web shows exerts such as “Bytejacker – ep.
103” which is featured at 11:21. It also uses
YouTube videos to show the game off as a large
porting of the success of the video game is credited
to YouTube as YouTube commentators played it and
shown it to the world. The documentary also gives
the audience a look at earlier builds of the game to
demonstrate the evolvement of the game over a
rapid period of time.

10. Graphics
Apart from the graphics featured in the game it
uses what it seems basic graphic use when
displaying the interview subjects name but it
also uses a fade in underneath to show who the
subject is and how he links to the documentary
for example the following screenshot shown.