Documentary: I Can't Stop Stealing

So i've just watched this documentary following the story of 3 shoplifters and how they got into it and how their 'habit' made them continue. I found it quite interesting in how each individual told their honest story about shoplifting which at first I thought would be just a bunch of lowlifes doing it because they had no GSCEs and what not. Actually the people were genuine (if thats the word to use) and were not necessarily bad people. One of them came from a rich background which shocked me but it was a way for him to put his mind away from his fathers death.

This brings me to my next point in that for once it wasn't exactly a biased documentary; something that the Americans are good at. Like I said it showed how each of the shoplifters got into it and their life around shoplifting. Even though they stole, they wouldn't have stolen from any friends or family and when listening to the stories you sort of have sympathy for them...Probably just me though.

Another point in how the documentary captures you is how they describe shoplifters shoplift using techniques explained by peoples job it is to stop the these thief's with footage showing random shoplifters in action. This gives a variety of stories within the documentary that dip in and out of each story so you are always left wondering whats going to happen. There are also explanations of how shoplifters approaches to stealing goods which I found interesting....

The documentary is led by a narrater to guide you through the stories reinforcing what is shown on screen. Music is also used to keep the pace and were always relevant to the documentary listening to the lyrics of them. The music positioning was used quite a lot for transition purposes between stories and make it easier for the viewer to know that there has been a change to another story.

The style of camera work used was roughly in this general structure which most documentaries use:

- Transitions between stories - Mid Shots, long shots, wide shots for establishing purposes. The editing between the shots paced more during these transitions to keep interest for the next story.

 - General interviewing and storytelling - Mid shots and some close ups when in their house or building etc.

- Intimate story telling - Close ups in order to capture emotions were mainly used for this.

The length of the documentary was just under an hour, and I think there was a lot crammed into the time that made it interesting and kept viewers watching e.g. Me