The Priory: Teenage Mental Health Uncovered is an expository documentary made by Hardcash Productions that follows an undercover reporter, Grainne Morrison, who worked at the High Dependency Unit of Ticehurst Psychiatric Hospital – a private institution owned and run the Priory Group. The documentary was aired on ITV on April 18th 2019.
The documentary shows what the day to day life is like inside a modern-day mental health hospital. Over the span of 3 months, Grainne was placed on the HDU (High Dependancy Unit) and had to face challenges with patients such as a total of 5 ligatures and 2 cases of patients consuming AAA batteries, along with many more extremely dangerous forms of self-harm. The documentary also follows the suicide case of Amy El-Keira, a 14-year-old girl who in 2012 managed to kill herself despite being in the care of Ticehurst House and The Priory Group.
A majority of the camerawork in this documentary is via a secret camera being worn by the reporter on her clothing. This means that most of the angles are awkward mid shots and close-ups, however, the audio allows us to understand more of what is going on in the documentary. The undercover footage was filmed at a slight low angle since the camera was on the reporter's clothes, around the area of the stomach. However, in the interview segments of the documentary is compiled of mid-close ups and are filmed in the traditional interview style using the 180-degree rule.
In terms of editing, the only thing that's been done is subtitles have been added, clips have been strung together and faces being blurred for legal reason. There is also a voiceover at the beginning of each section of the documentary which takes 10-20 seconds to explain the basic facts about the documentary and the cases we see within it. This voiceover isn't used to change or influence how the viewer interperates the documentary at all.
The lighting in parts of the documentary is just plain, yellow tungsten lights since everything was filmed in the hospital itself and was being secretly recorded. In the professionally filmed interviews, we can assume that lightboxes and natural lighting was used to film the subjects. Most of all shots use high key lighting and are well light.
There is not any specific colour palette for this documentary.
This documentary is shaped by the truth because it shines a light on how mental health patients are being treated in these facilities and how they seem more like profit factories rather than hospitals. This documentary shows how easy it is to be lied to by people and companies who have alterier motives, in this case, it was using patients with mental health problems for profit. Due to this being a secret camera expository documentary, we are given a sense of hyperrealism - showing the raw footage and giving us the real accounts of what's happened.
