Codes and Conventions of Documentaries

What is a documentary?

Focuses on and questions actual people and events.

• Social Context places the audience in a position to form an opinion about who or what we are seeing.

Documentaries claim to present factual information about the world. Documentaries use on screen lables such as a person's name to allow the audience to believe that the people they are watching actually exist and the information being conveyed can be trusted.

Documentary makers use many devices when presenting information. For example:

• Record events as they actually occur.
• Information may be presented using visual aid. such as charts and maps.
• Some events may be stages for the camera, e.g. historical.

A documentary crew usually consists of only once camera operator and a sound person, so that they can remain mobile when filming.

Documentary Techniques

There are three main types of documentary:

• Compilation Film - Where the film is made up of an assembly of archive images such as newsreel and footage.
• Interview or "talking heads"- where testimonies are recorded about people, events or social movements.
• Direct cinema- where an event is recorded "as it happens" with minimal interference from the film-maker.

Documentaries often use a narrative form and tell us a story, and need good characters, tension and a point of view. They can be planned or improvised; use a voice-over, use interviews or "observe". Modern documentaries are less scripted and appear more observational, resulting in the audience being placed in the position of a voyeur (e.g. watching Big Brother.)

Documentaries also use parallelism, asking audiences to draw parallels between characters, settings and situations.

Narration

Documentaries will often have a narrator, a device that enables the audience to receive plot information. The most commonly used is the non-character narrator also known as the "voice of god" who the audience never meet, only hear.

Many documentaries use an "authoritative voice" , who's voice we are already familiar with. Listening to a voice we recognise has the effect of making the audience trust the information that are being given.

Lighting

• The source of lighting in a documentary usually originates naturally from the environment its being filmed in.

Camera Work

• The most commonly used camera is the hand-held camera - removing the need for a tripod or dolly. The operator does not necessarily want a smooth shot and so using a hand-held camera makes the documentary appear more real.

Editing

Editing is a vital part of any film, but documentary films rely on it. There are several types of edit available:

• Fade out - when an image gradually darkens to blackness.
• Fade in - the opposite of above.
• Dissolve - when the end of the shot is briefly superimposed with te beginning of the next.
• Wipe - when a shot is replaced by another using a line which moves across the screen.

Editing is a way of interpreting an event in an understandable form. It is during the editng process that material is selected, ordered and placed into sequential form.

Sound

Documentaries contain both diegetic sound and non diegetic sound. Diegetic sound is sound present in the recording, and non diegetic sound is edited in e.g. a soundtrack or a sound effect. Documentaries rely heavily on non-diegetic sound to prompt the audience to respond in a certain way.

Documentary Genres

Expository

• Characterised by a "voice of god". This directly addresses the viewer. The voice over anchors the meaning of the images being shown and explicitly states the text's preferred meaning.

Observational

• This style began with the "Direct cinema" techniques first used in America, where lightweight camera equipment allowed crews to film right where the action was taking place, creating dramatic excitement.
• Observational narrative avoids voice-over and the camera i as unobtrusive as possible (although it is not hidden).

Docusoaps

The development of the observational genre, docusoaps are a hugely popular hybrid, and a long running documentary, similar to a fictional soap opera. Docusoaps were made possible by light camera equipment which means that the intrusion is minimal and the film-maker becomes part of the story.

Reality TV

This term has become used to describe the most high-impact of the new factual television. The term was first applied to news magazine programmes based around emergency services activities and has subsequently been used to describe talk shows, docusoaps and constructed documentaries such as Big Brother.

Reality Tv is a mix of "raw"m "authentic" material with the seriousness of an information programme and the commercial success of tabloid content. 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.

Interactive

• This style of documentary acknowledges the presence of the camera and crew.
• It allowed the film maker to speak directly to her/his subjects, generally in the form of an interview. This interaction means that the focus is on the exchange of information.

Drama-documentary

• Reconstruction and re-enactments are as old as documentary itself.
• Reconstruction continues to play a role within much documentary programming. "Crimewatch" is based on reconstructions.

The following distinction may be useful when discussing this genre:

Docudrama - A fictional story that uses the tecniques of documentary to reinforce its claim for realism e.g. The Office.

Dramadoc - A documentary reconstruction of actual events using techniques taken from fiction cinema.

Current Affairs

These are journalist-led programmes whose aim is to address the news and the political agenda in greater depth than the news bulletins allow, e.g. Newsnight.

Documentary Dilemmas

Documentary footage is rarely broadcast unedited and once they have given permission to film, documentary subjects are inthe film maker' hands.

The relationship betweej programme makers and their subjects varies: They can be reporting on their subjeects, investigating them, or observing them where they could either be interpreting what they do and have to say, or arguing their subject's cause.

BBC and ITC guidelines affect the final edit of any programme.