Secrets: The Turin Shroud
Mystery Files: Pope Joan
Ancients Behaving Badly: Caligula
Ancients Behaving Badly: Cleopatra
Ancients Behaving Badly: Nero
The Most Evil Men in History: Caligula
Discovery: Royal Deaths and Diseases
Nat. Geo.: Finding Anastasia
Out of all of these, The Ancients Behaving Badly series was probably my favorite, just because of the graphic animations it included. It has a feeling of nostalgia about it since the animation style is similar to the one used in "Blackwater Gospel". (I used that video as inspiration for my rotoscope design last year for my Design Color class.) Here's the video for reference, it's creepy, but beautifully put together:
In the Ancients Behaving Badly series, I liked how they put the subject of their documentary on a scale to compare his/her behavior to other famous psychopathic killers and rulers from history. I found it much more enjoyable than the other documentary on Caligula that I watched, which included too many shots of statues and did not give the viewer a sense of his environment like the Ancients series did. In that series, the reporter actually visited the ruins of the palace Caligula was held captive in and we get to see the underground passageways he took right before he was murdered. Granted, the two documentaries were meant to serve different purposes. The Most Evil Men in History was created to be a brief summary of Caligula's life and the atrocities he committed. The Ancients Behaving Badly documentary, on the other hand, provided an in depth look at evidence implying Caligula's mental health and possible causes of his madness. All in all, I think I have to do some more research before choosing a topic for my documentary.
