Backwell Agency
P1 - Research Analysis
The Apology Line
Purpose
The 'Apology Line' is where members of the public can anonymously confess to absolutely anything, over the phone. This can uncover some deep secrets and emotions they wouldn't be able to share with others around them or confess to themselves. It also helps to create peace of mind as letting out emotions can help people come to terms with what they have done. This was inspired by the original apology project in New York, the apologies are uncomfortably honest, sometimes funny, occasionally shocking, but always fascinating.
Form & Style
Designed as a truthful short documentry which is stylised to a real experiance. It is naturalistic filming people doing their day-to-day life whiles the audio of someone talking over the phone is played. Some parts of the documenry is staged to be filmed like the man getting dressed compared to other parts of where it is more naturalistic.
Content & Meaning - Starting at 4.25 and Ending as 5.34
The overall content is different shots of towns and appartments at night time. More indepth appologies contain their own perticuallar scene where something tries to represent what they are feeling at that perticular moment. The video shows loads of cut aways of everyday people going about their everyday life and the audio presents the stories of the people withing the comunity that we do not normally see.
Denotation
In this perticular scene there is a man geting undressed and re-dressed for bed. He is sat in his bedroom and he is of an older age. His face is not seen throughout the scene and he doe not move from his position on the bed. There is an audio of a destressed woman talkign about her appolpgy, about the revrend and how she hasn't told the truth about her difficulties. The camera angle stays the same as a static view shot.
Connotation
I belive the man represents the woman's feelings and how apolgising like this shows some confidence on her behalf. The old man undressing presents how she has come out of herself, how she has began to open up her feelings from within her. The old man himself may suggest that everyone has there regrets and things to appologies for no matter how old you are. Positioning the camera in the same place and cutting off the mans face out of shot, connotes that no-one will ever know who this women is, the man is a secret just like the women, it also doesnt destarct the audience from the audio.Making the scene audio based and life like sounds of the phone getting hanged up on implies that these are real life people that have these problems, and people do not seem to take notice or understand there is more to a person.
Genre
It is a reality documentry genre full of reality drama with a bit of comedy to show that there are different aspects of peoples lives and how they view the world. (Using the line as a joke). Maybe a bit of horror to shock the target audeince.
Target Audeince
I do not think there is a particular gender that this is aimed towards as this can effect anyone, no matter who they are everyone seems to have something to confess. They will probably someone who takes the world for granted and doesn't see the bigger picture around them. I think this film is aimed at a younger generation more teenagers as they will appreciate the circumstances these people are going through and how it could affect them as a person. The stories told are quite shocking and someone of higher education maybe C1/C2 class will understand and grasps the message behind the film. However, it could be aimed at lower class to give them the sense that people need to work together to achieve a full life, being part of a community and helping people be truthful and not hide away from their fears. Their more than likely to live in built up areas and maybe cities like London as these are the people that focus on themselves and do not understand the lives and stories outside their workplace maybe even their lives.
Frequency
This short documenty is a one off documentry to educated as many people as possible. It can be found online like youtube and vimeo so it continuously educates anyone who even watches it for 2 minutes. It is a slow paced film that changes tempo when different people are speacking. The actuall shots are slow paced the audio quickens depending on the situation.
Production Process
The Apology Line—inspired by Allan Bridge’s (aka Mr Apology) 15 year long, New York-based, conceptual art piece the Apology Project—encouraged members of the UK public through flyers and a billboard ad to unburden themselves anonymously to an answering machine. The public nature of The Apology Lineproject, talking, and in this case, confiding to an answer machine is inherently a private act, one which is imbued with the expectation of one-to-one-ness from years of conditioning, which was of obvious benefit to the project.