I have recently watched a very well produced documentary on the National Geographic Channel, Jungle Siege is part of a series called 'Banged Up Abroad' which follows Brits that find themselves in difficult and even life threatening situations in foreign countries. In this particular episode Major Phil Ashby (Ex-Marine) is at the mercy of Colonel Boa, a vicious Sierra Leone militant, and his child soldiers. The situation is made particularly dangerous due to Major Ashby's role in Sierra Leone, as a United Nations representative he has been assigned to disarm the Militants. As the documentary progress it becomes clear that Major Ashby is not welcome due to his objectives and skin colour, being a UN representative means he is unarmed and has no way of defending himself. One evening his base is attacked by Colonel Boa and his soldiers, Ashby and other UN officers find themselves hiding for their lives. Ashby is aware that its common practice for the militants to eat humans that they capture. Ashby plans a daring escape with his comrades, after tracking through African Jungles for a week with dangerously low levels of water he finally leads his team to another UN base over 80 miles away.
The documentary not only had an entising storyline but there were shots that broke documentary conventions, a lot of the action scenes were edited and filmed like a drama, for example, there is a shot where Ashby is running from the militants and the director has decided to use a handheld camera that follows him through narrow streets, it really involves the audience in the action, this is an unusual trait for documentary makers. There were however parts of the documentary that were very standard such as the interviews being filmed from on one side of interviewee and exact time and dates graphics on screen.
The link below will take you to the NatGeo video player, there are episodes of 'Banged Up Abroad' which are filmed in a similar way:
http://www.natgeochannel.co.uk/video/
