Chasing Coral: Devastating Consequences of Climate Change

Introduction

Jeff Orlowski's Chasing Coral was an educational documentary about the disappearances of coral reefs and how people must do something now. Throughout the documentary, he is trying to show the audience how this problem needs attention because coral reefs are important to people and their disappearance is happening fast. He does this by being informative, using professional people, and using visual images.

Imagery in Chasing Coral

The documentary purpose was to get the attention of the audience to show them the major problem with coral reefs so Jeff decided to do so by showing visual images such as time-lapse. Throughout the whole film, images of coral reefs then and now are displayed throughout the scene. Plus, he also shows time-lapse videos of how coral reefs are disappearing. For example, he shows pictures and a video about how the Florida Keys in the 1900s used to be this beautiful, colorful reef and now only .01% of the reef is alive. By displaying pictures, videos, and time lapses, the author was able to show a visual picture to the audience that change needs to happen quickly because coral reefs are on the verge of extinction, This also shows why some people may want to keep these beautiful sights

Credibility and Emotions in Chasing Coral

In addition, the documentary is very informative and educational to the audience. For instance, an important executive person Richard Vevers decided to leave his life and devote it to coral reefs, Richard Vevers loves coral and the beauty of it brings to the ocean so he decided to get a crew full of researchers and underwater photographers to document the process of coral bleaching. The importance of coral reefs to humans not just for scenery but food, they provided shelter for fish, fish we eat. In Addition, the author also displayed information by displaying facts along the screen which made the audience read these facts to learn true real-life problems that can affect anyone and the logic behind everything. The point of being so educational was to inform reader and provide them with logic about why one should help coral reefs.

Most importantly, in his documentary, he uses credibility as a main source to get the attention of the people and other people as well. The film shows off a team of people that are very passionate about the coral reefs. In his documentary, he shows off Zackery rago, who is a young researcher who calls himself the “coral nerd”. The director purposely displaced this little name-captain to show how important and how meaningful coral reefs have become to people, zackery even made a name for himself. By doing this he wants to connect the surgiéndonos to their emotions to help out this issue. To add, mentioning Richard Vevers again, the director Jeff included his personal story about how he has been diving since he was 16 years old to see a certain species of sea horses but he noticed the disappearance of seahorses and said, ‟Well if it’s happening to one of my favorite creatures, what else is it happening to?‟ He purposely showed off this story and like because he wants to show the audience how personal this issue has become and to show sympathy. Furthermore, he also uses many credible people in interviews such as marine biologists and underwater photographers to explain the change over the years in coral reefs. As you see, the director used important people to connect to the audiences emotions to help out this issue, he also does this to provide credibility to his information provided.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the documentary Chasing Coral by Jeff used different techniques to help get the audience's attention to convey the main message or purpose of this documentary; to help out the crisis of coral reefs. Jeff used imagery such as photos and time-lapse, credibility sources and people in interviews and stories, and information to educate the audience on facts. First, he used visual pictures of coral reefs throughout time to display the beautiful scenery provided. Then, he used facts, details, information...etc to show the logistics of this problem. Lastly, he connects to the emotions of the people and their logistics by providing credible people in interviews and providing real-life examples of stories and experiences with coral reefs. Overall, the documentary was well organized by Jeff Orlowski to get to the audience and make them realize the crisis going on and to get their attention to help out. Jeff was successful in catching the audience's attention by doing the 4 things; information, credibility, emotions, and visuals and he was able to tell them that coral reefs are in danger and people need to do something now.

Works Cited

1. Orlowski, J. (Director). (2017). Chasing Coral [Documentary]. United States: Netflix.