Analysis of MY DAD THE SERIAL KILLER

First broadcast Friday 30th January 2009, MY DAD THE SERIAL KILLER documents the aftermath of a traumatic revelation on the family involved - the family of Levi Bellfield, who in 2008 was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of two women and the attempted murder of a third.

Unusually for such dark subject matter, the opening of the documentary is portrayed alongside largely upbeat music, a sharp and purposeful contrast to the information awaiting viewers. The idea of such bright footage juxtaposed with an uplifting soundtrack would suggest that this documentary is something other than a documentary portraying a serial killers crimes, as the title originally suggested - this documentary is about the people who survived the killer, and their attempts to live normal and fulfilling lives after the fact.

A voice-over begins, that of the central narrator and eldest daughter of the serial killer in question. She begins by introducing herself and members of her family as footage of each is portrayed taking part in every day teenage social activities. The theme of contrast continues, and an emotional response is built by these close-ups alongside information fed to the audience via the voice-over, introducing personal details and essentially building characters with which the audience can relate.

This fairly idyllic start inevitably heads towards the darker subject of the matter at hand within a minute - the voice-over states having deliberately not mentioned her father, an image of whom is then portrayed - recognizable to the majority of the prospective audience from newspapers and the national news at the time of the event. The tone for the majority of the documentary is then set, and footage cuts in of London at night, continuing to show several more clips of similar footage as archived narration of actual news coverage of the story is played, loose reenactments of the crimes themselves and police-evidence footage shown shortly afterwards to hammer home the sharp descent in tone.