Bowling For Columbine Documentary Techniques

‘Bowling for Columbine’, a documentary about how guns give a bad influence on American people, rather than providing them safety by portraying the Columbine High School massacre on 20th of April in 1999, which led one teacher, twelve students to death, twenty-four people injured and other acts of gun violence. This documentary was written, produced, narrated and directed by Michael Moore and realised in 2002. Moore foregrounded people who have horrible experiences with guns by using techniques such as interview, sound effects and camera shots.

Sound effects used in this documentary helps the audience to understand the tragedy caused by guns. There was a scene when one teacher from Columbine High School called ambulance saying that some students are shot and murderers are in library. The audience are able to hear the sounds of gun shots through the phone call and the teacher’s shaking voice. This call allows the audience to feel the fears. There was another emergency call from primary school saying six years old boy has shot a six years old girl. This scene showed black background and audio was mainly focused. This effect leads the audience to listen to the conversation and give a strong impact on the viewers as no visual effect would distract them from understanding the

Moore asked Heston questions such as why other countries don’t kill each other at the same level as American people kill each other with guns. In this scene, the audience are able to listen to the arguments from people who support the possession of guns and people who doesn’t support it. However, this documentary marginalised the answers from Heston by asking only negative impacts of having guns as Moore is able to lead his viewers to believe that Heston’s idea is unclear. Those sound effects allow the viewer to understand the tragedy caused with