The documentary examines the video game character Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider franchise. It explores media portrayals of Lara Croft and issues like the representation of women in games and gender stereotypes. The documentary features interviews with industry experts and footage from the games and the upcoming Angelina Jolie film about Lara Croft. It uses a nonlinear narrative structure to discuss these topics.

2.  Lara Croft is a fictional character from the video game series
Tomb Raider. She is presented as a beautiful, intelligent, and
athletic British archaeologist-adventurer who ventures into
ancient, hazardous tombs and ruins around the world.
 That thing.. Lara Croft is a 10 minute mixed documentary that was
aired on BBC 2.
 The documentary was about Lara Croft the video game, how the
media view the video game and Lara Croft as an fictional
character, the stereotypes surrounding ‘girl gamers’ and the
gender representation of Lara Croft as an idol.
 The documentary was aired during the time that Angelina Jolie
was about to feature in a major Hollywood movie featuring the
character of Lara Croft.
 This is another mixed documentary with a non-linear narrative
format. It is a single strand and also a closed narrative.

3.  The themes used throughout the Lara Croft documentary
consisted of:
 Virtual vs. Reality.
 Representation of women.
 Feminism.
 Power of the media influencing society.
 Gender representation.
 Rapid change of popular culture in the UK.
 Stereotypes of ‘girl gamers’.
 Lara Croft represented as a idol.

4.  Narrative structure consists of the traditional parts of a story and
the order in which the reader encounters them; these provide a
framework for the unfolding of the story.
 The narrative structure in the Lara Croft documentary was closed,
single stranded and non linear.
 Consists of interviews and camera shots.
 Non-linear as it doesn’t go in chronological order.
 Closed narrative as all the questions are answered.
 Single strand as it focuses on just one topic throughout which is
the video game, Lara Croft etc.

5.  Camera work is the process by which cameras are used to film a
motion picture or television broadcast.
 Interviews are filmed in medium close up and framed in the left or
right hand side of the screen, however there is a big close up on
Angelina Jolie in her interview.
 There is a tilted frame shot in the interview conducted through the
computer screen.
 POV shot of somebody playing a Lara Croft video game.
 Panning across people playing the video game.
 Zoom in on magazine covers.
 Conventional interview structure – medium shot, close up, bog
close up, interviewee to left or right of screen.
 Canted angle on laptop webcam interview.
 Tracking and point of view shot when going into cyber café.

6.  Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design
aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means
"visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways
through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in
poetically artful ways through direction. Mise-en-scène has been
called film criticism's "grand undefined term“.
 For the mise-en-scene green screen (chromakey), and visuals of
the game being played was placed behind interviewees.
 Front projection was used when the game is projected onto
peoples faces.
 Everywhere shown in the documentary had something to do with
computers, to anchor the theme of the documentary. (Front
projection: projection on to face of person and background)
 Green screen is used to show video game in the background.
 Interviewee is in front of projector as the screen is on his face.
 Interviews with the game creator are superimposed onto a
computer screen.

7.  Sounds include music, sounds effects, dialogue, non diegetic &
diegetic sound.
 In the documentary there is a voiceover at the start, which is the
voice of the target audience, an English male with no accent.
 There is music used throughout the whole documentary. (This is
music used from the game and also dance music)
 In the documentary there is a section where Lara Croft is related
to Madonna, a Madonna song is used there to anchor that point.
 SFX’s are also used from the video games.
 Interviewee doing the voice over.
 Music from the video game.
 Continuous fast moving electronic music throughout.
 Madonna’s song was playing representing her as also a idol like

8.  Mostly the editing just consisted of simple cuts to make sure that
the information in the documentary is not detracted from by
fancy editing techniques.
 The creator (Toby Gard) of Lara Croft was edited in a computer
screen and in tilted frame to make him seem different to
everyone else.
 Green screen was also used.
 Fast motion is used when the scene shows someone going into
the cyber cafe.
 They used a comparison with film footage vs. game footage.
 Cutting from one shot to another.
 Fast motion with cyber café suggesting it’s a fast moving
programme as gaming is quite intense and fast.
 The background is out of focus occasionally.

9.  Archival materials are information objects that serve as evidence
of past events.
 The archive material used in the Lara Croft documentary
consisted of :
 Lara Croft game footage.
 Lara Croft film footage.
 Angelina Jolie interview.
 Websites.
 Magazines.
 Adverts.
 Footage of the upcoming film adaption.
 Interview with actress Angelina Jolie which was provided by the

10.  Simple white font.
 No capital letters by using title in graphics anchors relevance to the theme of
gaming.
 Speech bubble title which suggests the programme is based around peoples
opinions.
 Each interview is accompanied by text in one of the lower corners of the screen.
 The text is always in a simple white font with no capital letters included.
 Frequent use of the title ‘That Thing’ in the graphics.
 This is used in the descriptions of the subjects relevance to ‘That Thing’ which in this
case is the Tomb Raider franchise.
 All of the font is lower case.
 The title is used for relevance a lot because it is prove that everyone is related to Lara
Croft one way or another.