How the Other Half Live

 

How the other half live is British documentary series broadcast on Channel 4 . The documentary aims to inform, educate and advise.There has been two series, the first in 2009 and the second in 2009. The series has also been closely compared to 'The Secret Millionaire' another British documentary series which was made by the same team.

 The documentary follows two very different families, one poor and one rich. The documentary aims to show the audience different aspects of reality and how life is for others. The audience is positioned to receive this broadcast in a way in which they feel sorry for the poor, and are maybe persuaded into helping others. The documentary focuses mainly on the poor family, to emphasize the fact that the rich have life so much easier compared to them, and give them more of an idea of how the other half really do live. The documentary also makes the audience understand and realise what some people have to go through on a day to day basis, and even if you are not rich yourself it makes you feel sorry for them that they have to live this way. 

The documentary represents the poor people as very vulnerable sad and weak on a day to day basis.  However, at the same time they are also shown as kind, well-mannered and respectful people which enables the audience to warm to them abit easier, possibly making them feel even more sorry for them and persuading them to help more people who are living a poor lifestyle. It also shows a lot of footage of the children belonging to the poor family which is more likely to pull on the audiences heart strings, making them feel sorry for the young children who grow up without the best childhood. In comparison with the poor family, the documentary also shows the lives of the rich children, and really emphasizes how lucky and greatful the children should feel for their lifestyles. 

The documentary uses many contrasting camera angles through out the documentary. For example, there is one scene where the child from the poor family is looking out the window, onto an estate type scenery and a man who has been injured. All she can see is police and paramedics tending to the injured man. She also says that this happens often, and it is scary to look out of the window because you never know what you might see, this also makes the audience feel for the young girl because this is not the desired lifestyle for any young child. The documentary then shows a scene of the young girl from the wealthier family looking out of her window, where she is overlooking a beautiful piece of land with many trees and completely peacefull. Showing these two views in comparison really emphasized the difference in their lifestyles to the audience and to help them understand the struggle of day to day life for poor people. There are also contrasting colours between the two families, perhaps to further emphasize the differences between the two. The scenes containing the rich family contain many bright colours, big white spacious rooms and brightly coloured clothes, where as the poor are filmed in there small dingy and dull coloured rooms, often wearing duller coloured clothes too. This could also be emphasizing the feelings and emotions of the two families, happy and uplifting colours for the rich but dull and dark colours to represent the sad emotions of the poor family.

The documentary contains many close ups of the people from the poorer family, to emphasize there facial expressions and emotions as they are speaking, but many long shots of the richer family to show the audience the difference between the two places the contrasting families are living and the wide amount of land and space they have. The children are represented in a way which shows that they do not have a grudge against the rich children, just because of their contrasting lifestyles, and are instead very kind and just normal children who are very well mannered and polite just like the rich.  

There is a voice-over at the beginning of each part of the documentary, recapping what has previously happened. In my opinion, I think this is done not only to inform viewers who possibly weren’t watching before what is happening, but to continuously remind the viewers of what they have been watching to enable it to stick in their heads more. Leaving a lasting impression on audiences will mean that the documentary has been successful in raising awareness for poor people and encourage individuals to help the poor as much as they can.

Towards the end of the documentary, there is a lot of footage which shows the poorer families lifestyles and attitudes towards life picking up. The children from the poorer family are offered places in private schools to enable them to get the best education they can, and the richer family generously give a cheque to the poor to help them out. The scene shows the poor families reactions as they receive it which shows lots of smiles, happiness and gratefulness. This also touches the audiences heart and possibly makes them want to bring happiness to someone else’s life by helping them too.