A legend in the making
The Heavyweight champion of the world Anthony Joshua, saw off the challenge of Takam in front of a 78,000 people in Cardiff. Continuing his meteoric rise in the sport and ultimately in the public eye.
Joshua who started boxing relatively late, grew up on the Meriden Estate in Garston, Hertfordshire and nobody could of predicted his monumental rise. His story when looking back on it lends itself perfectly to that of a Hollywood Blockbuster. From his humble beginnings to achieving Olympic gold at London 2012, to then turning professional and developing into the undefeated heavyweight champion we see plastering our screens today.
His figure and stature lends itself perfectly to a social media dominant society. He has often been referred to as ideal role model and this is used frequently in his promotion.
The Joshua effect is very similar to the Tiger Woods effect, where people who are not so interested suddenly become interested, where young people become aspirational to follow in someone’s footsteps — promoter Barry Hearn
Anthony Joshua is a huge character with a large following and has had now two separate and successful BBC documentaries following the build up to his fight and then reaction to the fight. They way in which the narrative flows and is told in the personal perspective shares many similarities to that of the popular vlog style youtube videos.
Casey Neistat’s video even before clicking play has an incredibly clever hook in the title ‘THE $21,000 FIRST CLASS AIRPLANE SEAT” and similar to Joshua’s piece with the ‘Fight of my life’ both fulfill the curiosity gap, the title and the the introductions structure infer that there will be some sort of conclusion and more importantly a discovery and answer.
Many video conventions are presented in the Joshua documentary to keep the viewer entertained. The continued use of Joshua as the effaced narrator and even directly questioning the audience, as if he is having a personal conversation. The movement continues to flow throughout with a simple linear flow to the eventual fight millions around the world tuned into.
Simply a sequence of events has a somewhat inherent aspect of suspense to it. Even though the audience had already seen the event unfold and even if they hadn’t there was a recap of the result in the introduction. Hearing something as a sequence of actions has an effect of feeling like you’re on a bus, and in turn a destination expected, so the audiences interest is certainly peaked.
The settings such as his hometown gym, Wembley changing rooms, his humble training camps are places many may have seen before but not in the POV of Joshua and his team, a behind the scenes view, a personal view.
“I don’t want to be a boxer that’s so detached with the public that they say “He’s good but I can’t achieve that” … I want people to think they can achieve it because they see I’m still a local kid … who can pop to Finchy and give some advice or have a little word, I’m accessible” — Anthony Joshua
Ira Glass when commenting on storytelling refers to the continued “overarching question” a reason to “why the hell you're watching?” There must be something manipulated when telling stories. Consistently raising and answering questions.
Joshua’s story lends itself well to the documentary style but also in the shorter form of Instagram videos. His social power garners millions of views without any text, questions are raised by people's intrigue into the power of the athlete, hence the later popularity in his longer documentaries. Ira Glass refers to a ‘gap’ in which needs to be fulfilled, the viewer wants to know more.
His popularity and the intrigue into his remarkable rise has led to people even trying to emulate the man. His story is still the overarching hook, but is then personalised with the use of the ‘civilians’. The narrative in this piece of video differs to the previous documentary, possessing more of a martini glass structure, hooking us with the challenge for the men to compete then the eventual action of them taking part in the challenge.
This form of narrative lends itself perfectly for something short and sweet, nothing profound is offered apart from the raw information. It offers information for the unfamiliar viewer, perhaps to improve more facts and figures could be included to increase the information given.
The documentary is far more in depth, structured more in an hour glass form, the main event is highlighted, then throughout the piece is delves deeper with a smooth linear narrative. The piece offers a view not seen before but negatively it is still primarily framed by either the main subject (Joshua) himself or persons close to him who may lightly address the troubled background but ultimately offer the positive angle, maintaining the redemption story.
Perhaps to increase the validity and break from the POV and more inclusion of the outsides view in and a further delve into the fighter's history to truly know what created the man that sells out stadium after stadium.
