Ross Kemp - Gangs

1. Breakdown of Existing Media
Teenage Gangs of South London
Sehrish Jabeen

2. Type of Documentary
This documentary is about teenage gangs in south London,
the purpose of this documentary is to investigate why gangs
are formed and why there are so many increasing within young
ages. Another purpose of this documentary is to entertain, just like any
other documentary (fitting in with the codes and conventions), as well
as making the audiences aware of what is going on with gangs within
South London.
Ross Kemp, who is the producer looks into a lot of gangs
to find out what has caused them to join the gangs and where
they get guns from, as well as looking at ex gang members to
see why they had wanted to change and start helping those
that are part of gangs and to come their fear of thinking that 'it
is safer to be within the gangs than to be out, as you become
the target when you are within'.

3. Introduction
• There is a lot of archival footage within it - inserts and
cutaways of ambulance and police cars, news reporters,
gangs, guns etc.
• The topic of discussion is not shown yet which allows the
audience to get some idea of what the documentary may be
about, the inserts shown indicate the its about gang crimes
and how they have affected the people around them.
• It also has voice overs of previous crimes regarding gangs
and how many deaths have occurred due to the attacks.
• Ross Kemp then tells us what he is doing and what he is out
to investigate.

4. Modes
• Participatory – The film maker becomes the
subjective of the documentary. In this case, Ross
Kemp is the subject that talks about the
gangs/guns/shootings/attacks. He does various open
interviews with gangs themselves, ex gang members
and members of the council as well as those affected
by the killings asking them the same questions.

5. Narrative Structure
• Closed narrative – A structured ending where the audience get to make a
judgement. In this case, the documentary had an interview with a councillor,
followed by Ross Kemp talking about how their having been various killings whilst
making the documentary and then him walking away.
• Linear narrative – a beginning, middle and end. Here it starts of with him
introducing the topic, followed by the middle which the conflict and then the end
which talks about a brief solution or answer to why gangs are formed and where the
guns come from. This fits in with what Todorov said about narrative structure, the
idea that all stories follow the same pattern. There are five steps to this –
equilibrium, disruption, realisation, restored order and then back to equilibrium.
• Multistrand – It focuses on two or more people and the audience is concerned with
the relation between the two. In this case, it focuses on loads of different
perspectives – the gangs, ex gang members (which are one side) and the council
and parents who were affected by killings (which are another side). There is conflict
between the two views but the camera focuses on both sides rather than just the
one.

6. Target Audience
Target audience is a particular group at which a product such
as a film or advertisement is aimed.
The target audience for this documentary would be those
between the age 16 – 19 as well as the government. Many of
the teens feel that the trigger for these crimes within young
gangs is by the government, which is why documentary has
used a lot of individuals part of the government as well
counsellors and helpers.

7. Codes and Conventions
• The documentary uses actuality, which is real life footage of events. An example would be the background
footage that was inserted every now and then of people in the public. It was mainly focused on black people
which fits in with stereotype that black people are usually associated with gangs.
• Interviews are used within the documentary, they allow people being filmed to speak directly about events,
prompted by the questions. He asked the same set of questions to different people (gangs, ex gang
members, parents) – Expert interviews were used to authenticate different views to be expressed in the
documentary. Such as, the ex gang member who was now part of council service, as well as a member of
the council itself and parents.
• Archival footage was used quite a lot, this is material obtained from somewhere else and inserted into a
documentary. There was cut in between interviews and the presenter talking which made it a lot less boring.
It had ambulance/police cars, footage of previous killings regarding gangs in the news, actual footage of the
people who got killed.
• Conflict was a part of this documentary, it includes different people with different beliefs with different
circumstances and opinions. In this case, it was shown through the gang members saying how because of
who they are(black, poor, rough) they’re not going to get jobs in good places so they would rather make
‘easy’ money. Whereas the council think the opposite and say that it is the gang members that are living up
to that name, and they can go opposite it, they choose not to.
• Music and sound effects are used to create an emotional response from the audience, in this documentary,
the music that was used was directly prompting the topic of the documentary as there were songs that had
lyrics saying ‘danger’.
• It had self reflected narration in the documentary as the presenter, Ross Kemp, acknowledged the presence
of the camera and often spoke directly to the documentary.