Major Project: Documentary Research: The Disappearance of Madeleine Maccan

As part of my research for this documentary it was important to keep my fingers on the pulse with what documentaires have been released. One of which being the new Netflix documentary 'The dissapearence of Madaline Maccan'. This documentary features the full story covering all aspects of the investigation, taking its audience on a balamced UNBIASED journey examining every suspect. In the end the audience is left to make thier own minds up as to what happened as nobody can say for certain. I would firstly like to explain visually I liked with this documentary.


-Drone footage included is very useful in not just GVs but also telling the story. We understand the streeds of portugal where the dissapearence took place. There are a lot of elements to this and it is interesting in visually constructinng the narriative.

-Archive is soemthing this documentayr was very fortunate to get access to as it really does help aid the story and the storytellign process. Having arcive news reports, press conferences and home video reallly does bring the narriative together. Especially when it supports what the interviewees are saying. One piece of archive that really got my attention was with the dog search where they filmed the dogs looking around sniffing for evidence and they bark when they find traces of blood or the scent of a corpse. We are guided through the story and the background of the dogs beforehand. it then reaches a point where the dog barks loud and akeeps barking and then the screen goes dark. This is the ultimate cliffhanger and it put a chill down my spine.

-Reenactments made to look like arcive at times
-Some reenactments clear
-Letterbox is cinematic, arcive is square aspect ration as televisions use to be square

Overall this documentary has been a great inspiraiton for me, especially with regards to the way recreations are shot and the use of drone footage. All the drone shots over the beach and holiday destination is important in the storytelling an reinforces to us as the audience the loaction and how this paradice turned into a nightmare. They were able to produce an interesting, informative documentary without two main contributors (the parents). This inspired me because in Assumed Guilty we discuss Jordans case without Jordan being interviewed. So Jan talks about it with the accompany of experts who can prove or disprove what she is saying and vice-versa.

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