COMMISSIONS UNIT: Research - Louis Theroux

As a massive fan of his documentaries, I could not pass up the opportunity to do some research into Louis Theroux and his documentaries. I also thought it would be relevant to our documentary to do some research into Louis Theroux as his documentaries follow him exploring different subjects as the presenter. We also plan on making a presenter based documentary so researching Louis is perfect as it may help us to better understand how to present a documentary as well as how to film it.

Louis Theroux has many documentary series:

- Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends (3 series)

- When Louis Met... (2 series)

- 28 BBC2 specials 

- LA Stories

- My Scientology Movie

Louis has quite a unique presenting style. He doesn't seem to go into the interviews with any sort of obvious bias although he has his own opinion on the matter - he allows the interview subjects to speak their mind and then explores the thoughts they present. Although he may disagree with what the interviewees are saying, he allows them to express their opinion. For example, in his documentary 'The Most Hated Family In America' - he begins by explaining the subject of the documentary whilst displaying actuality footage of the family protesting with their placards. Whilst this does set up the family as 'the most hated family in America', throughout the documentary Louis attempts to understand their beliefs and why the behave in the way they do. He does this by asking the simplest questions which almost trick the subjects into giving him the information he wants. Theroux almost goes into the situation with a false display of naivety. He asks simple questions such as "What do you mean?" which makes him out to be a very naive person - when in actual fact he is trying to extract more information from the subjects. 

Louis shows very little emotion on camera as "The viewers need to be a judge of what they find emotional. [He] really do[es] try not to emote. [He] do[esn't] like seeing it on documentaries - it seems a bit unprofessional." This allows the audience to form their own opinions and judgments on the subject matter of the documentary - it seems that Louis just presents the facts and the situations and allows the audience to judge the situation themselves. 

Louis Theroux's documentaries have a very casual style. The interview subjects always seem relaxed around Louis. Louis has admitted to spending a lot of time with the interview subjects of his documentaries prior to filming and during the production. This helps him to establish a bond between himself and the subjects and enables him to gain information that they otherwise may not share. 

Although Louis is the presenter of his documentaries, he is not in every single shot. Some shots will just focus on the interview subjects, others will establish the location. There is a lot of actuality footage in his documentaries. For example, in 'Louis and The Brothel' there is actuality footage of the brothel's newly opened saloon. Actuality footage seems to be more present than sequences - this also helped to give Louis's documentaries this natural, causal and simple feel as most of what we see is naturally occurring. 

Much of the footage included in Louis Theroux's documentaries is handheld. This contributes to the natural / casual vibe of his documentaries. It also helps to place the audience in the documentary. As Louis tries to avoid putting too much emotion into the documentaries himself, he immerses the audience in the documentary which allows them to experience any emotions first hand. 

How This Has Influenced Our Documentary

- As our documentary also has a presenter (Alex) - we needed to research how prevalent he needed to be throughout the documentary. Louis was in a great deal of the shots but not every single shot. We need to make sure that our presenter doesn't overpower the documentary - he needs to be present but not in every shot. Some shots will need to just focus on the interview subjects to give more weight to what they're saying. It would also be good for Alex to have some kind of relationship with the interview subjects in order to give a much more natural, conversational feel. Alex may also need to include some simple questions in his interviews as well as the more complex questions that will provide us with what we need to know. These extra simple questions will give us extra bits of footage that we may not uncover otherwise. 

- It may be a good idea to not force an opinion on the audience. Although we believe that prices for young drivers are too high when compared to the statistics, we should present the facts and allow the audience to decide for themselves. We should still make our message clear but ultimately allow the audience themselves to decide how they feel about young drivers and the financial issues they face. 

- Handheld shots are a great way of getting a lot of footage and adding to the natural feel of a documentary. During interviews, we should try and get some handheld shots of the interview subjects as well as a steady master shot. This will allow for a more natural looking, casual documentary.