- Visuals - Television is a visual medium. The programme needs to be visually stimulating and maintain the audience's interest.
- Archive Material - Would include stock footage, e.g. street scenes, open countryside etc... There could also be historical footage, extracts from other TV programmes, TV, film, radio, newspaper front pages etc..
- Interviews - The most important aspect of a documentary. They can be held anywhere, but the mise-en-scene is important in relating to the interview to the topic/issue.
- Vox Pops - (vox populis) The voice of the people. Ask one question to lots of people then choose the most interesting/entertaining answers to use in the programme. It can get a good cross section of the audience. (reflects the audience).
- Voiceover - Can affect or alter meaning. It anchors the meaning of the visuals. Acts as glue, holding the narrative together.
Media Theories:
- Gatekeeping - is the selection and rejection of information for inclusion in the text.
- Construction of Reality - by editing and gatekeeping media producers construct and artificial picture of reality.
Types of narrative structure:
- Open - There are questions left unanswered at the end so the audience is left to make up their own mind about the issue.
- Closed - There are no loose ends, everything is tied up at the end, there is a definite ending. e.g. 9/11 documentaries have a clear ending.
- Linear - Programme is in chronological order such aas 9/11 documentaries.
- Non-Linear - There is no chronological order. Time is disrupted in some way, e.g. flashbacks.
- Single Strand - There is only one narrative thread (storyline).
- Multi-Strand - More than one narrative thread in the same programme. These may overlap. E.g. Corrination Street
- Circular - At the start a question is posed. The narrative explores the question then returns to it at the end. E.g. at the end the programme returns back to the question posed at the start.
Documentaries can be a combination of the above.
Fully narrated:
An off screen voice over used to make sense of the visuals and dominate their meaning. e.g. Natural History documentaries. The narrator always seems authoritative and is referred to as "Voice of God".
Mixed:
Uses a combination of interviews, observations and narration to advance the topic or the argument.
Fly on the wall (cinema verite):
The camera is 'unseen' or ignored and simply records real events as they happen. There is often no narration leaving the audience to reach their own conclusions.
Self-reflective:
When the subject of the documentary acknowledges the presence of the camera and often speaks directly to the documentary maker.
Docusoap:
These documentaries follow the lives of individuals. Usually with designated occupations.
Docudrama:
A re-enactment of events as though they actually happened.
A mixture of a docusoap and a docudrama is mainly scripted, so it is made to be more entertaining. Examples of these include: Made in Chelsea and The Only Way is Essex.
- A documentary is documenting something that has actually happened, therefore real life events.
- They provide the audience with an insight into a topic they may not know about
- Documentaries have a main purpose to inform but they can educate an audience about a topic
- However this must be done in an entertaining way to sustain the audiences attention and interest
- John Grierson came up with the term documentary in 1926, in the same year the BBC turned corporation
- Today the audience has more choice because of audience fragmentation due to both digital and satellite television
- Moreover from narrow casting there are specific channels devoted to documentaries such as Eden and Natural History.
Brief
For our A2 coursework we had to get into groups of three. We were then given a brief, whereby we were told we had to create a 5 minute extract from a TV documentary programme, with the rest of the programme planned. Moreover we need to create a radio trailer to promote the documentary, a newspaper advert to advertise the programme and finally a blog to record all our work.
