Born Into Coal Response

Born into coal was much more interesting than I expected and even caused me to feel sympathetic for the families involved in the coal mining lifestyle. The beginning of the documentary shows a girl by the name is Ariana participating in a pageant in what seems to be her hometown. The documentary did a great job of expressing the pageant environment by showing the audience at the pageant, the contestants, and a close up of the girl’s dresses and shoes as well as Ariana speaking to the audience. After we get a glimpse into the pageant world, the documentary shifts to Ariana swimming in a pool in her backyard and she begins talking about she was born into a coal mining family. Seeing where Ariana lives and where she participates in pageants showed a great parallel between being a coal miner’s daughter and her pageant life. Throughout the entire documentary I felt that the picture was very vivid and helped make the audience feels like they were there. I also liked how there was no annoying, unnecessary music playing in the background to distract from the individuals speaking. When they were interviewing some of the people they used a harsh light on the side of their face which caused a shadow on the other and brought a gloomy feel to what they were saying. This was relevant because the people were talking about the problems and issues that come along with living in a coal mining family. I think that each scene was planned out to flow nicely into the next, like story boarding, and gives the audience a good idea of what really goes on in a coal miner’s world. There were also good facts and statistics shown through text that were insightful that included a subtle moving background that did not distract from the text.  The documentary beings and ends with Ariana’s pageant life but later explains how she decides to stay at home and continue protesting coal mining and the dangers that come along with it.