Born Into Coal

The documentary Born Into Coal, I found to be rather pointless. I do understand that somewhere in the world and to many people coal is very important, however I was rather unmoved by the documentary. I am, though very sorry regarding the deaths of the 20+ miners who lost their lives at Massey, that was a very unfortunate and tragic event. I did grasp the importance of the coal industry and pageant to West Virginia and the families therein, from the documentary.

The documentary did a wonderful job of incorporating B Roll into the film, especially in the beginning. In the beginning you could hear the voices of contestants and them going through their introductions. Throughout the entire documentary it seems that it were solely interview based, however with the great B Roll imaging I missed this occurrence during my first viewing. The creator also effectively implemented close up shots and long shots. Showing the miners from afar and very dirty shows how realistic the job is. Also, how the miner comes home from work and is able to sit right down to eat without washing up, shows how reliant the family is upon the coal industry. He uses video footage of long shots transitioning to close ups almost as still images.

If we were to see this documentary in storyboard form we would first begin with the pageant then transition to the different families and the average persons view of the miners. The storyboard would end with a few images of juxtaposed text and videos and the young lady winning the pageant.