Research 

• Recent developments in America have led to a masked vigilante unmasking himself to the public [Link]
• Through further research into this subject I have also found what is called the world superhero registry. This shows many different masked vigilantes from around the world who we could contact including many examples from the United Kingdom. [Link]
• Birmingham has it's own banker turned superhero. He would be good to get in contact with especially if we could email him. [Link]
• While looking through the superhero registry I found a member called Black Arrow. She operates in the UK and has a myspace page. I have messaged her about what she does but I have yet to get a reply.
• This website shows more information about superheroes including what they call 'The Creed'. It holds a lot of information and is brilliant when it comes to finding out more about them. [Link]
• Through this, I have also discovered that we should be able to film these people. According to the website, Superheroes are not vigilantes and therefore they are not breaking the law. Here is a direct quote from the website: "-Are real life super heroes vigilantes?
  
  It is the civic duty of every citizen to uphold the law, and real life super heroes are no exception. We always seek to work within the confines of the law. We believe in due process. We do not take the law into our own hands. We have no desire to endanger the public or ourselves. In short, vigilantism is against the law, and we are certainly not vigilantes.
  
  This doesn’t mean that real life super heroes are powerless to stop crime. Many real life super heroes help fight crime by doing safety patrols, raising awareness, starting or joining neighborhood watches, and by supporting their local law enforcement in any way they can."
• Superheroes in the UK are:
• The Statesmen
• The Dark Spartan & The Black Void (Below is Dark Spartan's promotional video)
• Noir
• Black Arrow
• Swift
• Lionheart
• Vaugue
• These are just a few examples of some of the known superheroes in the United Kingdom. 
• Channel 4 ran a documentary about real life superheroes in August 2011. It is currently unavailable to watch on 40D but there is a small amount of information about it online. [Link] (There is a youtube video below which is a clip from this documentary)
• This clip shows that the documentary uses many formats. It appears to be using:
• Expository
• Observational
• And Reflexive documentary format.
• The clip shows a voice over so we have a narrator telling us more information about the life of this superhero. It also shows the superhero engaging in activity's while the camera crew stand by. And finally it is telling a story and developing the audience awareness of the subject as well as actively engaging with issues of realism.
• More about the Statesmen and others operating in the UK. It also talks about an author called Krulos who has been researching real superheroes for years. [Link}
• Discovered that a group of superheroes in England have a team. It is called the justice union and they run a Facebook page specifically for people

 Documentary Reviews

Undercity: New York Urban Exploration Video 

This short documentary is all about the forgotten parts of New York City and one mans (very Illegal) attempts to find out more about them. Steve Duncan is a urban historian and spends his time exploring parts of cities that usual people wouldn't see. The documentary follows a participatory style of documentary film making meaning that the film maker is directly involved with what is going on and helping the subject out with what he is trying to do. Due to the active engagement with realism in the documentary, it also shows that the film maker is using reflexive documentary technique with this short film. 

As a documentary film maker, I can take a lot away from watching this documentary. I like the participatory style of documentary film making and would like to use that style within my film with possibly the added element of voice of god narration over the top. This film also explicitly says that what they are doing is without permission therefore the activities that are shown on film is illegal. This is a breach of OFCOM rules and if we were to follow this style we would be in direct violation of these rules. Therefore it is not a good example in that respect. 

Superhero Me

This documentary follows the journey of one man and his quest to become a real life superhero. The documentary follows the participatory mode as the filmmaker is directly involved with the project. It also features voice of god to allow the film make to narrate certain parts. This documentary is very useful to me as it focuses on the same topic which I am looking into and also shows a good mode in which to tell the story.

 28 Up

The Up Series is a series of documentary films that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964. Every seven years, the director, Michael Apted, films new material from as many of the fourteen as he can get to participate. The documentary combines a use of archive footage from previous filming, interviews with the people about how their lives are now and also certain points it uses a voice of god to explain certain things in a little more detail. The mode for this documentary is mainly observational with aspects of interviews as well. The fact that it uses voice of god on occaision means that is does sometimes slip into the expository mode and is directly adressing the audience.

Frozen Planet 

Frozen planet is a recent nature documentary shown on the BBC. As it is a nature document it follows the observational mode with a voice of god telling the story of the animals we are looking at. It has been in the news recently concerning a controversy which arose because they had staged part of it by using zoo animals. This could be considered to still be true documentary though just ontological rather than decisive moment. This idea of ontology is something we as a group could consider to make our own documentary more exciting. [An example of newspapers covering the event can be found here on the guardians website]