A film or television documentary is a factual program that covers a specific subject related to the topic in hand. A documentary is made to inform the audience on the research found.
What is the purpose of a documentary?
The purpose of a documentary is to inform the audience on the research done by the documentary maker. By watching a documentary, you can gain more knowledge and a wider understanding on a subject. Documentaries could do this by showing you; different lifestyles, statistics, interviews and facts.
How might the audience react to documentaries?
All documentaries are different, but some can be described as shocking, for example, the worlds most hated family.
What do expect to see in a documentary?
Interesting conversations about certain topics. Pictures, raw footage, interviews.
Are there particular subjects that work well for documentaries?
There are some news stories that work particularly well for documentaries, such as controversial subjects and stories that may open your eyes to new things, For example, a controversial subject would be something that includes war.
List some of the codes and conventions of documentaries.
- There needs to be a voiceover describing what is happening in the documentary
- Also has to have REAL footage of events
- Technicality of realism, means real sounds and natural lighting by using real animal noises and special lighting to get rid of shadows on your face
- Sometimes there are interviews with experts
- There is a use of text to illustrate the dates and its a good way of giving information
- Use of music gives a feel of what is going to happen
- There will be a use of props and visual coding
Some examples of these can be found in documentaries such as Supersize Me
List the 5 'modes' of documentary, explain the codes and conventions of each and provide examples to illustrate your points.
Expository: An expository documentary is where the narrator directly addresses the audience, images are used to illustrate the voiceover, assembles a variety of footage and it attempts to persuade the audience of a particular point of view. An example of this would be Supersize Me.
Participatory: Where the crew interact with the subject, could use a handheld camera for location shooting, the documentary maker usually does the voiceover, and he is also visible in the documentary.
Reflexive: Takes techniques from a fiction film to create an emotional response with the audience, it emphasises the nature of the film and makes it less realistic by adding fake noises and lighting.
Performative: The crew interacts with the subject, the maker also comments on the process of the documentary, he also interacts with the audience in an emotional and direct way.
Observational: It uses handheld cameras, and direct sound recording, there is no interviews and the film maker is hidden from the documentary and the subjects pretend they are not being filmed.
No comments:
Post a Comment