Amy

Within the first scene of the documentary Amy, raw footage is used. There is a short clip of her and her friends in the very first couple seconds of the film. There is a close up shot of her in the middle of the frame. This makes the film feel more persona; to the audience as they feel as if they are “close to her.” The director uses this clip first due to her innocence; this is Amy before fame. She singing she’s happy. She’s doing it with her friends because she enjoys it rather than for an audience. She is caught off-guard by the camera.

The scene after this is again another raw footage film with her and her friends/management in the car. There is both non-diegetic and diegetic sound within the scene. The diegetic sound is quiet as the non-diegetic voice overs are played on top. This gives more context as those that are in frame are given time to elaborate what is happening.  There is a range of close up shots of Amy, many of these are slowed down so the audience have more time to look at her facial expressions.

More raw footage after this is used yet again. There is a recording of her and her manager messing around. This footage is used to show Amy more as person rather than the product that everyone in the future sees her as. After this short clip, there is then a recording of her singing and playing the guitar. There is a medium shot used. The director uses this to try to highlight how Amy started her career. She looks focused into the music.

There is a scene after this where she is recording herself and joking with the camera. It is an extreme close up to make it personal. The director uses this to show Amy’s fun side and sense of humor, he wants to show the real Amy, who she was before the cameras started filming her. In a way it is symbolic as she’s happy when she’s the one behind the camera.

There again is a voiceover to give context to the next scene as he begins to talk about Amy’s lyrics. The film is heavily reliant on these voice-overs to be plausible. After this there the non-diegetic music begins to play as her lyrics in her own handwriting are put into shot. The way she has doodles of love hearts on the side of the paper not only make it more personal, but also show her innocence and child-like mindset as she is still very young at this point.

Capaldi places these lyrics over more personal footage.  He does this a number of times throughout the film. The lyrics are significant as the often relate to what is happening in Amy’s life during the time. The lyrics also act as a way to get Amy’s point of view across and quite literally put it into her own words. The constant use of non diegetic music is also very important, this is as Amy is a musician and it is constantly surrounded by music in her life. Even during some scenes instrumental Jazz is played over. Most of the music that isn’t Amy’s within the film Antonio Pinto’s which was constructed for the film. The composer for the movie was Antonio Pinto.

“Can’t go anywhere, can’t hide anyway she needed an escape so the drinking start….” These quotes, taken from her bodyguard are on the screen with a picture of Amy drinking to give context. 

The next scene then is a live performance of her on stage. It is raw concert footage. It is low quality and filmed by someone in the crowd. This footage shows her stumbling around and refusing to co-operate with the musicians. This reveals the fact that she is heavily intoxicated because she did not want to perform.  The fact that these scenes are filmed on a mobile phone by fans is highly significant. “look at her!” “boo!” “sing” these are used by the director to highlight the overall opinion of Amy at the time. This footage was used towards the end of the film as we as an audience have an overall good opinion of Amy, therefore rather than disliking her in these scenes we feel bad for her. 

The end of the film has short clips and photographs of Amy. The majority of these are her smiling in close-up shots. The lighting in these scenes is high key trying to reflect the happiness she has in the moments these photos/videos were taken. These shots are slowed down when she is smiling and laughing to capture in her bets moments of time.


Through the clicking sound of the camera are used to emulate how Amy's daily life tended to be. These non-diegetic noises are exaggerated in order for us as an audience to recognise how severe it was. This is again highlighted through the white flashes that appear on screen. Her agitation is clear and we as an audience also experience what it is like to be photographed by paparazzi.