This 10-minute BBC documentary examines the video game character Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider franchise. It discusses the media's portrayal of Lara Croft and issues like the sexualization of women in games and stereotypes of female gamers. The documentary has a nonlinear narrative structure, using interviews, game footage, and footage from the upcoming Angelina Jolie film about Lara Croft. It explores topics like representations of gender and the influence of popular culture.

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.
 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.  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.
 Music from the video game.
 Continuous fast moving electronic music throughout.
 Madonna’s song was playing representing her as also a idol like Lara
Croft.

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.
 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.
 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 film
distributor.

10.  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.