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Analysis of documentary production of the online streaming service Netflix
Spěváková, Klára ; Štoll, Martin (advisor) ; Kruml, Milan (referee)
This thesis, titled Analysis of the Documentary Production of the Online Streaming Service Netflix, aims to describe the characteristics typical of Netflix's documentary production using a selection of films from 2015 to 2022. The films included in the analysis are American Murder: The Family Next Door, Schumacher, The Social Dilemma, The Tinder Swindler and David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. Based on semiotic and image analysis, it examines the various elements of film language used in these films - mise-en-scene, camera, editing and sound, including the narrative mode and structure of the film. The thesis also focuses on describing the key features of Netflix production, its use to influence audiences, and the search for the reason behind the popularity of this production. The thesis also includes a quantitative analysis of Netflix's documentary production.
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Food Waste as a Disease of Our Times
Sochorová, Anna ; Géla, František (advisor) ; Lokšík, Martin (referee)
This bachelor thesis consists of two parts. The practical part is a document called Food Waste as a Disease of Our Times, which maps this problem mainly in the Czech but also in the international context. It presents this social issue in a broader context and offers different insights into food waste. The documentary features experts on the issue, i.e. university professors, the founder of a non-profit organisation, a sociologist and a head of a food bank. Part of the film also focuses on activists who cook for the homeless or do dumpster diving. The film also includes representatives of supermarkets and their approach to food waste. The theoretical part deals with the description and definition of the film documentary. It introduces the different steps in the making of a documentary, from preparation, to production, to post-production. It also describes the specificities of the television documentary. The next part of the theoretical part presents a research on the topic and illustrates the issue of food waste with statistics and expert studies. The last part is a description and reflection of the production itself.
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Letters from Milada Horáková - their path and media coverage following 1989
Váchová, Nina ; Groman, Martin (advisor) ; Vlček, Tomáš (referee)
This bachelor thesis focuses on the letters from Milada Horáková, their journey from writing to getting to the hands of her family and their publication, and the associated post-1989 media coverage. The thesis thus aims to describe the different stages of the letters' path and to uncover a part of their journey not known to the public. Furthermore, it sets out to analyse the post-1989 media coverage of the letters up to the present day, using qualitative content analysis of documentary films and series that mention the last letters and were produced after 1989, and relevant national print media articles published after 1989. Along with this, it compares the description of the path of the letters in the analysed material to the one in this thesis. The introduction contains a historical context in which the topic is set, the life of Milada Horáková, and the political trial, therefore the events leading up to the writing of the letters. The following chapters cover the contents of each letter and their publication in 1990. The journey of the letters is further detailed in the thesis, along with the fact that the letters were secretly taken from the General Prosecutor's Office and safely hidden by JUDr. Lubomír Štěpán for twenty years, before their handover to the bereaved family, information not yet...
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Vít Klusák's films - manipulation or author's originality?
Šipanová, Marie ; Štoll, Martin (advisor) ; Horký, Petr (referee)
The thesis deals with Vít Klusák's documentary movies. Klusák is currently among the most prominent documentarists in the Czech Republic and is also a pedagogue at the most prestigious Czech film school, FAMU. Several main characters of his documentaries, social actors, accused him of manipulating them into talking or acting in a way they would not normally perform. In the past, several journalists opened the topic of manipulation of social actors. Moreover, it is also a topic of the commentary section in the Czech and Slovak online movie database (ČSFD) and in Czech Television iVysílání (online streaming platform) discussions. The aim of this thesis is to find out what makes Klusák's work this specific and whether we can claim that he manipulates social actors, or if it is the author's original and unique approach to documentary movies. To describe the specifics of Klusák's work, I will make a qualitative content analysis of six films that he directed or co-directed (Klusák usually co-directs with Filip Remunda). The focus will be on the director's work with social actors as well as theme inspiration, sound work, and others. The analysis will show what features are typical for Vít Klusák and whether any of them can be called manipulation.
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Making more space at the table: how The New Yorker portrays family dynamics in its audiovisual content
Novaes Buffa, Fernanda ; Miessler, Jan (advisor) ; Géla, František (referee)
The purpose of this study is to generate a debate about the portrayal of immigrant families in The New Yorker documentaries. The general objective is to understand how visual framing and the use of mise-en-scène elements such as set design, lighting and space, play a crucial role in communicating the representations of immigrant families and influencing the viewer's perception towards this group. In this study, the method used is close textual analysis on shots where family dynamics unraveled in seven documentaries featured in The New Yorker: Ale Libre; Guanajuato Norte; Seasons; Sing Me a Lullaby; Team Meryland; The Prince of Luna Park; and Yves & Variation. Findings indicate that immigrant families are, mainly, shown: 1) indoors, during the day; 2) with high-key lighting; and 3) with positive, closed, and deep space settings. The camera distance that appeared the most is "medium close-up". The findings advance how immigrant families are framed through mise-en-scène. This study contributes to the understanding that the portrayal of immigrant families in documentaries is a result of not only economic, social, political, and cultural tendencies and shifts, but also of elaborated constructions through mise-en-scène elements in a frame. This study has implications for research on film studies,...
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Reinventing the blurry oval: Practitioner perceptions of deepfakes as a tool for anonymisation in documentary film and video journalism
Weatherald, Nathalie Alice ; Lábová, Sandra (advisor) ; Silverio, Robert (referee)
In 2020, the documentary film Welcome to Chechnya disguised the sources it portrayed using deepfake-like 'digital masks', to wide acclaim: many described the use of the technology in this way to be game-changing for the industry. This qualitative study examines documentary filmmakers' and video journalists' (practitioners') perceptions of the benefits and limitations of the use of deepfakes, or AI-assisted synthetic media, to anonymise sources in their work, in the context of theoretical understandings of photographic realism and applied journalistic ethics. Through one unstructured interview with the film's visual effects supervisor, Ryan Laney, and eight semi-structured interviews with practitioners who have previously visually disguised sources, the study identifies four key themes of practitioners' views about the use of deepfakes as a tool to anonymise: the impacts on practitioner-source relations, practical considerations, aesthetic impacts of synthetic media and broader industry implications. Overall, practitioners emphasised the limitations of the potential use of deepfakes in this context, much more than the benefits.
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Documentary Film from the Copyright Point of View
Fořt, Ferdinand ; Křesťanová, Veronika (advisor) ; Holcová, Irena (referee)
The aim of this thesis Documentary Film from the Copyright Point of View is to explore and evaluate copyright specifics of documentary cinema. Chapter One describes documentary film as a culture phenomenon with peculiar relationship to reality. It shows possible definitions and classifications and outlines some of the ethical questions connected with the documentary cinema. Then follows a brief excursion into the history of copyright protection of audiovisual works (both in the Czech Republic and in the international context), with emphasis on speciality of documentary films protection. Chapter Three examines terms audiovisual work and authorship of an audiovisual work as defined in effective Czech Act No. 121/2000 Coll. on Copyright and Rights Related to Copyright and tries to mark boundaries of these terms and its possible interpretation especially in relation to the documentary and other non-fiction films. Next chapter deals with the legal nature of protagonists of documentary or social actors which differs from legal nature of the actors in fiction films, because social actors does not perform artistic performances as defined in Czech Copyright Act. Subsequent Chapter Five analyzes protection of personal rights of social actors in documentary films which is governed by general protection of...
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Changes of documentary films distribution at local cinemas in digital age
Černý, Martin ; Czesany Dvořáková, Tereza (advisor) ; Bauer, Šimon (referee)
(in English): This thesis deals, in frame of new film history, with the changes in Czech film distribution system connected to cinema digitalisation in the Czech Republic. Generally, the paper focuses on the influence the technological changes have on film distribution and its development in the Czech Republic. Considering the recent emergence of new genres and types of films, the work examines, on the example of documentaries, what effect these changes have on the variety of the Czech digital cinemas programme offer. The case study contained in the thesis explores a process of creating film programme in cinemas of average size Czech cities which do not have to compete with multiplexes. Selected programmers of these cinemas were interviewed in semi-structured interviews in terms of qualitative research, with the aim to determine the decisive factors influencing programming of documentary films in these cinemas. As seen from this thesis, the range of films in the distribution circuit has extended in two ways after the emergence of digitalisation and this development considerably affected the work of cinema programmers. Namely the wider availability of commercially successful films, generating great numbers in box office became a competition for the alternative films (documentaries included). Unlike...
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Czech television's documentary series - Czech Journal
Prokopcová, Nikola ; Štoll, Martin (advisor) ; Lokšík, Martin (referee)
Bachelor thesis The Documentary Cycle of Czech Television - The Czech Journal focuses on the first three series of this cycle (premiere between 2013 and 2015). Fifteen documentary films (Život a smrt v Tanvaldu, Rozezlení, Pančovaná republika, Spřízněni přímou volbou, Svobodu pro Smetanu, Dělníci bulváru, Gadžo, Zločin pana Chytila, Já, horník!, Obnažený národ, Pět zrození, Matrix AB, Ubytovny, Blízký daleký východ a Má vlast Afghánistán) are analyzed in terms of qualitative, quantitative, form and genre. In particular, exploring the genres of individual films is crucial for the work. The starting point for exploration is the genre fluctuations of the Czech Journal between the television journalistic reportage and the documentary film. The three chapters of the bachelor's thesis evaluate this topic first from a terminological point of view, then from a formal and ultimately analytical one. The methods used for the chosen examination are represented by quantitative content analysis of the films (list of identifying features, etc.), but especially by qualitative analysis. For the purpose of qualitative research in this work, fourteen interviews with the authors of the Czech Journal were created. The film analysis also represents a qualitative element of this thesis. This bachelor thesis research...
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Annotated Czech Translation of Selected Chapters from "Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction"; Patricia Aufderheide, New York 2007
Hradilová, Helena ; Mraček, David (advisor) ; Kalivodová, Eva (referee)
The present bachelor's thesis deals with the book Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction by Patricia Aufderheide. The aim of this thesis is to translate a part of the first chapter of the book and to comment on the translation. The commentary describes the main parts of the translation process. It is divided into four parts: profile of the target text, analysis of the source text, translation problems that had to be tackled, and translation shifts that arose from the translation. The text was translated with emphasis on the style of film publications, which is examined at the beginning of the part Translation problems. Key words translation, translation analysis, translation problem, translation shift, documentary film
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