Because I’ve seen tons of sport documentaries such as ESPN 30 for 30’s and some other random ones that I’ve seen on netflix before I decided to go with something of a different topic yet still something I found interesting. With that said for my documentary I decided to watch Stink which was released in the end of November of 2015. Something interesting about this film was that it was directed by the guy who was the main interviewee and narrator.

 

Stink is about how father of two little girls, Jon Whelan, examines the different types of dangerous chemicals used in the United States and how they pose major health risks to the population. Jons curiosity was sparked by a strange scent coming from his daughters pajamas he order from Justice for christmas as well as his wife's death from breast cancer. His initial progress started when he called up a variety of workers of Justice to ask them about the chemicals they spray or use in their clothing and he just contained getting the answers like,”that information is proprietary to the company”. So Jon had to take matters into his own hands because he wasn’t getting the answers he needed so he sent the pajamas to a laboratory so they could run tests on it and what the results should multiple chemicals used on the pajamas, two of them being extremely harmful for the body. From that point on we are taken through Jons experience of trying to talk to different company officials about their labeling on consumer products as well as getting up close and personal with some legislatures about his feelings towards their complete transcendence with the public about how they have enacted laws that go around the importance of sharing information about chemicals.

 

Although I enjoyed the story this documentary was telling there were some specifics in the way it was pieced together that I found interesting. First of all I really liked how the narration was being told by Jon, who was the main actor, because it felt like you were connected throughout the whole story and wasn’t confusing bouncing back and forth between differing views. Although with that said something I didn’t like was the amount of people who were interviewed. I felt as though there weren’t enough and I would’ve liked to see some people getting interviewed directly on the side that was “in support” of keeping the labeling on consumer products the way they are. To start off I enjoyed the beginning a lot with all the different animations of the chemicals tubes and spray bottles; it worked really well as an interesting comic b-roll. Something things I noticed were they changed the interviewing angles a lot so they could keep it entertaining so most of the time they would apply rule of thirds but they would change which side the interviewee was speaking to, and then other times they would put them more centered to change things up for the viewer. Something I thought was very strategic and important was the incorporation of interviews that weren’t staged. What I mean is they included a lot of b-roll of past interviews with different people from big meetings and conferences what fit in really well and gave the viewer a nice change from direct questioning to recordings. Additionally the background for some of the interviews was really cool because it matched the theme of the movie where it would either be some bubbly science looking animations or in one case that really stood out to me was when they were interviewing one of the scientists and the background was his actual lab with all the test tubes and beakers behind him which was really cool. Further into the movie they used an animation of getting all these different newspaper headlines to pop up one after another on the screen which was awesome because it had the date and which newspaper it was exactly and they stayed on the screen long enough to read each headline and then move onto the next one that would show up.

 

I would definitely recommend Stink to just about anyone because it’s super insightful and could really have an impact on the way you decide to buy products in turn being a lot for cautions with you health. This movie uses a very strong appeal to pathos, with the storyline of the dad losing the wife to breast cancer and now trying to help out families, along with his own, understand what the put into their bodies and homes. Not only is the storyline a good one the cinematography is great and on a side note I think if someone wanted to go into graphic design they should check this movie out because they use so many different cool animations and things all around that are visually very pleasing. Overall I’m glad I wanted this film and I look forward to watching more.