Liverpool FC and England legend Steven Gerrard celebrates scoring his 100th Liverpool goal against PSV Eindhoven in 2008. This milestone is the primary focus of Steven Gerrard: Centurion.
Type of Documentary
Steven Gerrard: Centurion is a mixed documentary, and includes many features commonly found in documentaries of this type; archive footage, interviews, cutaways and a voice over are all present. The voice over also acts as the interviewer, and unlike in most documentaries that interviewer can actually be heard speaking to the interviewee.
Archive footage played a pivotal role in the documentary, as the main focus of the documentary was to be a retrospective of Steven's career so far, with archive footage used whenever possible mixed in with interviews, cutaways and voice overs to give examples.
Themes
Themes in Steven Gerrard: Centurion include Steven Gerrard and his career and goals, Liverpool FC, football in general, records (such as scoring records), and success. Most of these themes can be linked to each other and they seamlessly merge into one another.
Gerrard, Liverpool FC, football, success and records were also central themes of Steven Gerrard: Centurion - all of these topics link together well to make for a clean and polished feel to the documentary which viewers would find appealing.
Narrative Structure
Steven Gerrard: Centurion has a linear narrative with a clear beginning, middle and end, like almost all documentaries of this type. The beginning of the documentary gives and introduction to what is going to be covered in the rest of the documentary as well as the story behind Steven's 100th Liverpool FC goal. The middle of the documentary contains the bulk of the footage, going through different goals and situations (such as the 2005 Champion's League Final) and using archive footage and interviews with various people to back up the stories being told to create a retrospective view on Steven's career. The end of the documentary acts as a conclusion, with Steven discussing any future targets (for example; what trophies he would like to win in the future and future goal milestones), leaving the narrative open for the interpretation of the viewer who is left to decide what is next for Steven after this monumental achievement.
Interviews with people such as fellow Liverpool FC legend Jamie Carragher (above) were used to break up the archive footage and to help tell stories of Steven's career to help lead the narrative. In the middle of the documentary, many different topics were focussed on and in theory these topics could've come in any order as many do not lead on from one another, meaning that the narrative is not truly linear.
Camera Work
Close ups were used in interviews to bring attention to who was speaking and what they were saying. Big close ups and extreme close ups were used on Steven Gerrard to draw even more attention towards him and to make him seem more important than everyone else that was interviewed in the documentary. Sometimes, pans and zooms were also used when looking at Steven. Shots were also apparent in archive footage: footage from football games included extreme long shots and long shots of the pitch and the crowd, tracking shots of players to draw focus to them, and also zoom and pan shots to draw attention to certain things or to show a vista within the football ground.
Zoom, pan, and close up shots were mainly used on Steven Gerrard to make him stand out from the rest of the interviewees to make him appear to be more important and significant than them.
Long shots were used from within matches to show a lot on screen at one time: for example, in this shot nearly all of both teams as well as much of the crowd, the goal, and the ball can all be seen in one shot with it still being clear what is going on in the shot.
Mise-en-Scené
During interviews, a quite ordinary background was used to help draw attention towards the speaker and their words. The background was black with a red tint, which was topical as red is the traditional colour of Liverpool FC. In the background of Steven, a liver bird - the traditional symbol of both the city of Liverpool and Liverpool FC could be seen which also represented Liverpool and Steven's connection with it and made Steven stand out from the rest of the interviewees. In archive footage, many things could often be seen on screen at once (such as in the image above) to give the viewer a realistic understanding of what was happening in the shot and close ups in archive footage showed things such as various player's reactions to things. People were also seen to be wearing significant clothing in interviews - for example, then-Liverpool FC manager Rafael Benitez is seen wearing a Liverpool FC tracksuit whilst football pundit Martin Tyler is seen wearing smart work clothes which reflects his role.
An image of the traditional mascot of Liverpool - the liver bird - could be seen behind only Steven which created a connection between him and the image and made him stand out more from the other interviewees, as he should do.
Sound
Diegetic sound was present in Steven Gerrard: Centurion. This included interviews and the voice over/narrator; who spoke in an official and relevant voice. Ambient and natural sound from football matches and events in archive footage was also present, such as the crowd cheering. Non-diegetic sound mainly from within archive footage was also included, in the form of commentary. Relevant music was also used in the documentary; fast, electronic music was used during fast paced montages of clips whereas more epic music such as orchestrated music was used to back more intense and epic circumstances; such as cup finals.
Editing
Cutaway shots were frequently used during Steven Gerrard: Centurion, with some including facts during them to help break up the action whilst still providing the viewer with some interesting information. Fast and slow paced editing were both used, depending on what was being shown on screen - for example, fast paced editing was used during montages and slow paced editing was used during interviews. Montages of goals and other footage were also frequently used in the documentary. Certain images were edited so that they were made to look red or have a red tint, which was relevant to the theme of Liverpool FC as their traditional colour is red. Slow motion was also used to bring extra attention to certain things such as shots and goals.
Montages usually consisting of archive footage were used as cutaways to split up the action on screen to keep the experience varied and consistently interesting for the viewer.
Archive Material
Footage from football matches was the most obvious use of archive footage, with goals, celebrations, assists and general footage of Steven and Liverpool FC playing were used frequently throughout the documentary. Footage of pre and post match analysis was also used, such as the presentations of trophies and warm ups. Some interviews were also examples of archive footage. Archived sound such as commentary was also used in Steven Gerrard: Centurion.
Archive footage from sources such as the BBC and ITV archives was used to help create a more realistic retrospective of Steven Gerrard's career by showing footage of him from throughout his career; for example, this particular image is a screen grab of a piece of footage from 2001.
Graphics
As with almost all documentaries, white text on a black background was used as it stood out without it being too distracting. Some images were made to be red or have a red tint which made them relevant to the theme of Liverpool FC. A graphics was also used to introduce each new section so that the viewer did not lose track of the narrative. Blurs were also used on in-match graphics to merge two shots together.
A montage of clips followed by graphic like this one was used to introduce each new section to the viewer.
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