Documentary Analyse

Research for a Moving Image film

 Task 1.b): documentary/News analyse

Full title: Sex, Drugs & Murder: Life InThe Red Light Zone

Episode 13: And The Beat Goes On

The Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p05hln4n/sex-drugs-murder-life-in-the-red-light-zone-13-and-the-beat-goes-on

This documentary is a one of series of 13 episodes and I have chosen to analyse episode 13. The series is about women and girls that live their lives on the streets of Leeds in the “red light zone”. The location takes place in an area of Leeds called Holbeck and it is the first place in Britain to be legally reserved for prostitution and has been titled the Red Light Zone. The term ‘red light’ comes from the time when people used red lights to indicate that there were prostitutes in brothels.  Prostitution in Holbeck was legalised in 2013, and the sex workers can work from the 7pm to 7am in the morning.  ‘Life in the Red Light Zone’, follows the lives of four women who sell sex to pay for their addiction to drugs. The documentary portrays the daily lives of Sammi Jo, Stacey, Debi and Kayleigh, who work to fund their addictions.

The purpose of this documentary is to educate and inform the viewers on the lives of prostitutes and how about they go about their lives. It also educates viewers about how the girls went into prostitution and how drug use can affect the way you live.

The platform for broadcast for ‘Sex, Drugs & Murder: in the Red Zone’ is BBC iplayer. To access it, you need to be covered by a TV Licence or download the BBC programmes on iPlayer – live, catch-up or on-demand – on any devices. You can also download the full 13 episodes and watch it at a later stage without needing any internet connection.

The target audience for this documentary is 18+ because it contains strong language and the subject is very delicate and can affect some viewers, but it is either for male and female consumption. However, females may engage or be more intrigued by the topic as it is about women. I think this documentary has no class or ethnic boundaries as everyone is free to have their own opinion. The documentary is set in Leeds and people living in Leeds might be more interested to watch it as it may give them a sense of realism and proximity. But I think this would not narrow the target audience and that Leeds is a big city like London and the same things may be happening here as we speak.

In this documentary, the key techniques used are interviews and an observational style.  Observational style is to capture the real life situations and observe the subject. The director conveys this by using camera techniques, such as hand held camera. Using the hand held camera gives the audience a sense of being with the subjects at all times. In ’Sex, Drugs and Murder in the Red Light Zone’, the observational style is used when Sami Jo was outside in Holbeck waiting for customers to pull up and viewers observed how she negotiates when it comes to talking about prices for her services. The viewer witnesses this without a voice over explaining – this gives a sense of realism.

Another key technique used in the documentary is interviews. Interviews were used in the documentary but they were not highly structured. For example, when Sami Jo was explaining how she went into working as a sex worker – you couldn’t hear or see the interviewer and a hand held camera faced her – to capture her emotion and to make it feel more honest and real.

The narrative structure is linear because there is a structure within the episode 13 with a beginning, a middle and an end. In the beginning of the episode it summarises what happened in the previous one, in case the viewer may have missed it which I think it is a nice clear structure. The documentary’s narrative looks into how the women started to work as sex workers. Every woman has a different story or reason why they got into prostitution and drugs for example, one of the workers who I feel had an interesting story was Sammi Jo was abused by her parents, then she went into foster care travelling from foster home to foster home and then, she was put in prison. It is when she came out and thought of starting a clear new chapter in her life that she sadly got raped. That made Sammi Jo feel even worse and triggered her to believe that she is worth nothing. The root of the problem is the fact that as a child she never received love from her parents but instead got abused by them and then by being moved around from foster home to foster home has not helped her to have a sense of stability and also have the time to attach herself and bond. This chaotic upbringing has impacted on her emotional development. As a result, to survive she got into prostitution even though she is not seeing herself as a prostitute.

The documentary is also multi strand because it shifted perspective from different girls and their stories. In this episode Sammi Jo was the main focus but it still explored how the other girls got into prostitution – for example Debi and how she got addicted to drugs at the age of sixteen and now at the age of twenty nine she has started methadone and goes to a chemist regularly to take it but may be able to take it at home after two weeks if she is regular at the chemist.

Also in the documentary, there were voiceovers made by an unseen male presenter. He had a deep voice, did not have a Leeds accent and was fairly formal in his tone. After thinking about this, it has added a different dimension to the documentary because he is not from Leeds and he is a man. I would have expected a woman to be the voiceover.

The programme I feel is trying to be objective because of how the observational style was being used and trying to take a step back and show viewers the situation the girls are in.  However, some viewers see the documentary as being biased because the documentary was mostly focusing on the drugs and bad habits and how the sex workers worked, instead of focusing on why they are working as prostitutes which might be because of poverty which is caused by the government cutting benefits and austerity.