Documentary Genres/style analysis

Expository

• Style created by a 'voice-of-god' - narration which is directly addresses the viewer.
• Voice over anchors the maining of the images being shown.
• Images illustrate what the narrator is saying.
• These documentaries are usually centered around a problem that needs solving.

Observational(fly-on-the-wall)

• This style began with the 'direct cinema' techniques.
• Lightweight camera equipment allowed crews to film right where the action was.
• Creating dramatic excitement.
• Avoids voice oversor commentary.
• Camera is as unobstrusive as possible.
• Close to a 'window on the world' idea.
• The audience is allowed to see an unmediated reality.
• Indirect address to the audience.
• Diegetic sound.
• Relatively long takes, demonstrating nothing has been cut/edited out.
• Focus on a specific individual, during crisis or drama.
• Event offend unfold in front if the camera.
• Led to a greater interest in the personal and the intimate.

Problems with the style :
Im possible to create a genuine 'window on the world', focus on personal issues means many are superficial and apolitical, they are edited like other documentaries so they are full of bias and subjectivity.

Docusoaps

• Docusoaps are a hugely popular hybrid.
• Long-running documentary series.
• Fictional soap opera follows a group of characters chosen for their quirkiness and entertainment value.
• Docusoaps have been based in institutions.
• They were made possible by lightweight camers equipment.
• Have an episodic, soap-like structure.
• Several interviewing plot lines.
• There are a relationship between characters.
• If the characters play up to the camera, we know it is part of the style.
• Everyone accepts the breaking of the natuatlist illusion.
• The 'shallowness' of the genre has prompted criticism.
• The intrest of the genre is ordinary but they create and promote 'stars' because of the success.
• The genre doesnt tell us anything about society
• Sometimes the characters become nationally know personalities.
• Audience get to know the characters.
• nothing serious happens to the main characters so the genre remains toungue-in-cheek.

Reality TV

• Factual TV characterised by a high degree of hybridsation between different programmes.
• Referred to as 'infotainment'
• Combination of entertainment and the provision of useful information.
• Often in prime-time and re-and-post-watershed slots
• 'Reality TV' hs become used to describe the most high-impact of the new factual televsion.
• A mix of 'raw', 'authentic' material with the seriousness of an information programme.

Reality TV is characterised by:

Camcorder, surveillance or observational camera work; first-person or eye-witness testimony; studio or to-camera links and commentary from presenters.

• Popular term to describe programmes that use 'ordinary' people filmed in a first-person or confessional style.
• Unmediated and direct as possible

Interactive

• Acknowledges the presence of the camera crew.
• Generally in the form of a interview.
• The audience is constantly reminded of the exsistence of the multiple viewpoints.
• 'Voice of God'
• Seen as being more honest becuase there is no attempt to disguise the camera and crew.
• Manipulation of the audience.
• Interviewer sets the agenda by asking 'loaded' questions and choosing who to interview.
• Interactive mode is clearly as constructed as other genre of documentary.

Drama-documentary

• Reconstruction and re-enactments are as old as documentary itself.
• Reconstruction was done patly because of the technology avaible at the time.
• Gained new recognition in the 1990's.
• Use by television journalists.
• Arouse much debate , because they are evn more open to bias and interpretation than other documentaries.
• Factual programmes.
  

'docudrama' - a fictional story that uses the techniques of documentary to reinforce its claim for realism e.g. The office.
'dramadoc' - a documentary reconstruction of the actaul events using techniques taken from fiction cinema e.g. Historical documentaries.

Current affairs

• Journalist-led programmes whose aim is to addres the news and the political agenda in greater depth than news bulletins.
• Emphasis is on the investigatory and the political, seeking out atrocity and political scandal.
• Organised around journalistic report.
• Reporters frequently appear in vision but there may be a voiceover by the 'voice of the programme'.

Documentary dilemmas

• Documentary footage is rarely broadcast unedited and once they have given permission to film, documentary subjectss are in the film-maker's hands.
• Film-maker balances their resonsibility to those who appear in the programme with their legal obligations.
  
• The relationships between programme makers and their subjects varies; they can be reporting on their subjects, investigating them, or observing them; they could be interpeting what they do and have to say, or arguing their subject's cause.

Evaluation

At first i was excited to be filming a small section of a documentary although i was quite worried it was going to be difficult but one we got started i was excited. we were put into out groups and planned out our interview and cutaways, we were given a sheet with the questions we had to ask our interviewee, the list of questions were also there to help us decide what cutaways we were going to use. one of out cutaways was a row of phones where we would film over them, this was also the time we spent deciding on what background we were going to use for out interview. we came up with lots of different ideas but settled on having a board of lots of different phones.

Filming the cut aways went well because we were focused. The subject we worked on was easy because a lot of people own mobile phones it was easy to get hold of people who would allow us to use there mobile and even themselves in the interview e.g one of our cut aways is of a girl texting. Although some of the problems where that the light wasn't good to do the shot or people would be walking past as you may see in one of our cutaways in which someone is texting. We came up with many cutaways but did not need to use all of them, for example we made one in which a phone had been broken apart and someone was upset about it.

Filming the interview was quite difficult because we were struggling to get the right light, the right mise-en-scene, the camera in the right position and the interviewee to be looking in the right way however once they were all sorted the rest of the filming ran smoothly. We used a PowerPoint in the background on a projection screen showing a collage of different images of mobile phones, the only problem with this was that it made the interview a bit darker because we couldn't turn on the lights, when we first started the interviewee was looking the wrong way but we sorted this out and it was much easyer, we made sure the interviewee knew what the questions were and that she said the question in her answer for example; Do you use text language? and she replied 'I don't really use text language...' allowing the viewer to understand what questions just been asked.

i didn't enjoy the editing as much as filming this is because i had never used the software before this.however it allowed us as a group to learn and make decisions. Nicole got to grasp with the editing software the quickest. I especially liked cutting things out of the interview and seeing the interview come together as one.

in conclusion, The audience feedback proved to be very useful in order for me to realise what i should do when doing the real task. We got told our interview had very good mise-en-scene, and the music was slightly relevant to the interview because it was happy. The audience feedback also told us that it was very smooth editing and the quality of the interview was good but we did also need to work on were we put our cutaways, because some of them where not relevant to the question that had been asked. The audience also said that some of the cutaways were not framed well so I will work on this for my real production, when editing and putting a music bed over the interview we thought it was the right sound level but when it was played for the audience it was louder than we had thought.

Overall I think the task went well and has allowed me to gain confidence on producing a documentary for my main task.

Mobile phone interview

The mobile Phone interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-k8bTAGnQ8

Screen Grabs of editing

Screen Grabs

Unlike the other people in my group i had no previous experience with this editing processes. although i had never used this software i found it easy to use once i was shown how, because i have never used this software i was able to learn a lot of new things. i learnt how to make the footage run smoother by cutting some parts of the footage like the questions in the interview. also i cut out parts of the cut aways to make it more relevant to the answers. . I was also able to separate the audio from filmed footage for example when the cutaways are added we need there to be no sound in order for the audience to hear the interviewee, therefore getting rid of the audio.

Ideas For Cut aways

Cut aways used in the interview

• We came up with many idea's for our cutaways .
• Laying different phones out straight on a table and moving the camera over them.
• Borrow different phones and put them all together in a pile and zoom in towards them.
• Film people who are already on the phones e.g texting.
• Film someones phone ringing.
• film someone answering a phone with a cord e.g an office phone.
• To show different types of text language film someone texting normally and then someone texting in text language.
• Film two people laughing whilst they are on there phone.

Mise-en-scene
for our mise-en-scene we will put different pictures of mobile phones on a slide from power point and put it on the projector which will show up on the board and then our interviewee will sit infront of it.

Codes and Conventions of interviews

• Interviews filmed in medium shot, medium close up or close up
• framed to left or right of screen- if is more than one interview positioning alternates so as to create verity
• framing follows the rule of thirds- eye line is roughly a third of the way down the frame.
• interviewee looks at the interviewer not directly into the camera.
• positioning of interviewer is therefore important: if the interviewee is on the RIGHT side of the frame, the interview should be positioned on the LEFT side of the camera. if the interviewee is on the LEFT side of the frame, the interviewer is positioned on the RIGHT side of the camera.in either case the interviewee should sit or stand as close to the camera as possible.
• mise en scene: background reinforces the content of the interview or is relevant to the interviewee, providing more information about them in terms of occupation or personal environment
• interviews are never filmed with a light source behind them i.e in front of a window or with the sun behind them; the light is always in front of them
• questions are edited out
• cut aways are edited into the interview for two reasons; break up interview and illustrate what the interviewee is talking about ,to avoid jump cuts when questions are edited out
• cut aways are either; archive materials, suggested by something said in the interview and therefore filmed after the interview, sometimes aspects of the interview are filmed with another camera, such as extreme close ups of eyes, mouth and hands, and used as cutaways
• graphics are used to anchor who the person on screen is and their relevance to the topic of the documentary