That Thing-Lara Croft

This documentary is a mixed one as it combines a voice over despite it only being a small part of the narrative with interviews which make up a majority of the narration and game footage of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

The themes shown in this documentary are Post Feminists and their opinions of how Lara is portrayed as a strong specimen of a modern woman who is completely independent and a role model to young girls, media effects and how Lara has evolved over time and from a character in video games to a global marketing product.

The narrative structure is fairly linear as it starts by introducing Lara Croft to the audience as a female hero and that the gamer will see the game through Lara's eyes. The middle shows how she has been modified to suit male interest, this being that Angelina Jolie was selected to portray Lara in the feature film of tomb raider, it also introduces the ideas of gamers becoming sexually attracted to her as she is a strong independent character. The end of the documentary explains that Lara is now classes as a good role model for girls to aspire to be like and is celebrated by both men and women, feminists in particular think Lara is a good female character as she is unmarried and is not oppressed by the expectations of the state as she goes on adventures carries weapons and doesn't need a man to be there to rescue her when she gets herself into a bad situation, she is the perfect self sufficient woman.

The camera angles used give the audience a sense of involvement as they see the game from an over the shoulder perspective of the gamer.
Canted camera angles are also used to make the interviews with the game creator and Angelina Jolie more interesting and the image of putting the clips inside a laptop screen frame is an obvious attempt to make the documentary seem more cool and in touch with the younger generation. The shot of peoples hands on the keyboards playing the game is used to show just how addictive the game is and how popular it is with young people.

The mis-en-scene is fairly surreal and abstract, the location of the gamers is dark and shadowed, this makes the audience feel like they are part of the game, this is relevant as the gamer feels like they are right with them playing the game and controlling Lara, the game footage also makes the audience feel like they are there as it looks very realistic and the only people who are shot in normal light are the game creator and Jolie, but their colour looks harsh and overly bright as they are such a contrast to the rest of the documentary.

Most of the sound used in the documentary was soundtracks from artists such as Madonna and techno music, and a large portion of the rest was game music such as Lara speaking in a British accent and making slightly sexual noises such as breathing heavily and gasping as she is jumping off things and climbing a cliff, there is hardly any natural sound and the only time natural sound is present is in the interviews with Jolie and the game designer.

The editing is very fast paced and modernised as the documentary is trying to seem cool and up to date, this would attract gamers who most likely play the game too as the editing is similar to the actual game.

The only archive footage used was trailers of the up coming film and game footage, this would attract fans of the game as it is furthering the Lara Croft storyline.

The graphics seem themed as the words "That Thing" are constantly used to describe Lara e.g. "Creator of that thing" "Fan of that thing" the titles also seem very basic so as not to distract from the interviews/game footage.