Commissions | Contextual Research: Louis Theroux

Dubbed as the "king of documentaries" by Kasia Delgado of Radio Times, Louis Theroux stands as one of the most recognisable and distinct documentary filmmakers of the last 20 years.  I wanted to research into Theroux, not only as he is my favourite documentary filmmaker, but also because of the idea that I would be presenting our documentary and I wanted to see what it takes to present a documentary as effectively as Louis Theroux.

From watching Louis' documentaries for BBC Two, I have noticed a very distinct factor of his presenting style - the story we follow throughout always focuses on his journey to find out the truth, as opposed to merely telling us what the truth is.  His documentaries will follow him travelling from place to place to talk to different people; they are very much documentaries about Louis finding out a topic rather than just about the topic.

Whilst Louis is very much the central focus of his documentaries, he never speaks directly to the camera, only through voiceover, in interviews with the subjects of his documentaries and on some occasions to his director which gives his documentaries a sense of self-awareness.  I feel this is what makes his documentaries so fun and watchable, as we feel as though we are a part of the production process, as if we are standing there with Louis.  There is an exception to this in his documentary 'Savile', in which he speaks toward us, but does not directly into the camera.  This is because he was reflecting on how he conducted himself in the original 'When Louis Met...' episode on Jimmy Savile.  This was done to highlight himself as a subject, as Savile manipulated him through how he presented himself in their time together, and so he is essentially providing his own personal views.
In our documentary, I feel we could learn a lot from Louis' style to present the narrative and since I will be presenting the documentary, Louis' style is certainly one to take note from.  The subject matter of our documentary does not necessarily just rely on the interview subjects, as Louis' documentaries do, and therefore I feel we would be able to shoot pieces with me presenting to the camera.  This will allow me to add more background information and statistics directly to the audience.

We will certainly make use of commentary in our documentary to provide insight on top of what we can see, much like Louis does in his documentaries.

I think that the most important aspect of Louis' documentaries is his warm and likeable personality combined with his ability to ask hard-hitting questions.  This is something I will need to work on: making myself, at least appear likeable on screen.

Bibliography:
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-06-18/what-is-it-about-louis-theroux