What are documentaries

What is a documentary?
Documentaries reflect realism as they focus on people's lives or certain events that have happened or which are going to happen where the audience is able to make a valid opinion about what they are viewing on the screen.

Facts about documentaries

Documentaries use different techniques to show the information they want the audience to actively watch as they record it as the actual events are occuring using visual aids AND reconstructions that are staged for the camera enabling the audience to understand what is going on.

Most documentaries are very factual and the main convention is the use of graphics revealing the name and other important information to help the audience understand who they are and what is their role in the documentary.
Most documentary crews are a small sample compared to film crews because they only consist of just one or two cameras and a sound person.

Lighting

• Natural lighting is used whether the actually light of the filming or the studio lights made to look natural.
• Reconstruction can often be darker light to show it is a reconstruction.

Camera work

• -Hand held camera work is used to made it look ‘authentic’ and ‘real’. They use their body as support if needed

Editing

• Fade out-when an image gradually fades to darkness
• Fade in – when an image gradually fade in.
• Dissolve- the end of the shot overlapping with the next shot.
• Wipe- when a shot is replaced with the new shot by using a line.
• Editing is a way of interpreting and event and how it is placed and other together for the audience to see.

Sound

• Most of the sound is diegetic from the source and the other is non diegectic, music over the top of interviews to promote to the audience what the documentary is all about.
• The documentary genre give the audience a change to illustrate the ‘truth’ about things which the audience can then make there decision on it.

Expository

• Uses ‘voice of god’ narrative to directly speak to the viewers often anchoring the images or texts shown on the screen.
• This type of doc is often trying to expose a problem or a certain area.

Interactive

• Acknowledges that the camera crew are there ie Cribs
• Made easier as of the lightweight portable equipment that they are able to move around.
• Made to look honest as they aren’t hiding the camera crew they are letting you know that they are there. But can sometimes be seen as manipulation to the audience.

Drama- documentary

• Reconstructions to show things that didn’t have footage of or things that were in the past where there wasn’t camera to take footage of. The older reconstructions are not always correct as don’t know what happened exactly.
• Mostly used in investigation doc and dramatised docs.
• Most people are unsure about drama- doc as if the reconstructions aren’t based on transcripts then they may have a bias interpretation of the events that happened.
• Factual reconstruction are used in Crime watch used to keep the viewer more entertain that they don’t just hear about it but get to see it.
• Docudrama- fictional story that uses techniques of the doc to show it claim of realism.
• Dramadoc- reconstructions of actual evens using fictional cinema,

Current affairs-

• Journalist led programmes the focus on the news and political subjects.
• Often arguing about different cases the journalist has reported on

Documentary dilemmas

• Most documentaries are edited so they cant make sure that the doc is suggest is either informing or entraining the audience.
• Paula Rabinowitz – three was relationship with doc the subject, the programme and the audience.
• ‘its not so much what you get in the shooting but what you do with it afterwards’ Paul Watson doc marker
• Most editing is done to juxtapose the images and the sound.
• The BBC and ITC have the final say in the edit of the programmes.

 
Documentary techniques

• Compilation film- this is a technique where the documentary is made up of archive footage and images.
• Interview - interviews where the interviewee talks about events and opinions about the subject or event. 
• Documentaries often tell stories in a narrative form as they do this using voice over, interviews, footage, music to interest the audience.

Narration-

·         Narration is used to help reveal the plot information.

·         Most common is the ‘voice of god’ where you never see the person behind the voice.

·         Most of the narration is done with someone with an ‘authoritative voice’ often to go with the subject they are dealing with.

·         Voice over tend to be males because of the authoritative voice that they have, but are starting to introduce females voices.