Documentary Unit: 'Teens'

Today I watched the third (and only available on demand) episode of the Channel 4 documentary 'Teens'. The episode follows the lives of four teenagers, three of which are connected and one has her own story. The story of Shauna, James and Peter focuses on a bit of a love triangle, due to the fact that best friends James and Peter are both interested in Shauna. Whereas Melissa's story focuses more on sex/teenagers losing their virginity, and a love interest between her and her best friend, Shane.

I found the documentary to be very honest, it didn't ignore the obvious that most teenagers have sex, go to house parties and drink alcohol. In fact it even began by introducing each character at a drunken New Years Eve party. There's minimal interviews with the central characters throughout, for the most part they give their opinions on an issue or talk about their feelings in actuality scenes with friends. However, more documentary styled interviews do take place, but with disconnected couples sharing their relationship stories and friends of the central characters talking about them.

The unique part of the documentary is that throughout, the teen's texts, social network posts, internet searches and calls are often written out on screen. This has been seen before, for example in Sherlock Holmes, but I personally haven't ever seen such an interesting feature in a documentary and not to such an extent in any programme.

I found this documentary to have a very personal touch, with the commentary being done by Craig Roberts, he's rather young himself, so it felt like a documentary made for young adults, by young adults. It's also very easy to get invested in the characters, as the topics include sex, love and friendship, anyone can relate to it and sympathise with their issues.

Shuana, Melissa and James