Research: What is a documentary? codes/conventions

The definition of a documentary is a factual film or television programme about an event or person, the aim of the documentary is to document reality, by presenting verisimilitude between the diegetic world and the real world through the depiction of places, people and events. However to an extent, a documentary is unable to present reality without presenting a narrative that may be fictional in places, also through the use of editing the documentary is able to suggest a representation of a particular group of people. This is because the photographer selects specific images to use in the video which automatically puts their own perspective into the video thus resulting in reliability, therefore to an extent cannot be objective as the photographer or editor gives their own viewpoint and idea by representing a particular group in a certain way.

Forms of documentary

There are six dominant modes of documentary which Bill Nicholas (2001) presented through his book “Introduction to Documentary”

1.       Poetic documentary

 The purpose is to use powerful visuals in order to create an emotional attachment to the audience so it would create change in the audience to do something. For example the documentaries on knife crime- they may show the gruesome scenes of a teenager or individual that was stabbed in order for the audience to grab the attention of the audience.

Codes of this genre are:

·         Visual associations/descriptive passage/

·         Adopting lyrical and impressionist view and resembles fragments of the world

·         Does not use continuity editing

Negative aspects of this documentary is that it lacks detail to the audience 

Key examples of this are:

• Joris Ivens Rain (1928) 
• Laszlo Moholy- Nag's Play of Light: Black, White, Grey (1936)

2.       Expository documentary

• This genre speaks directly to the viewer through the use of voices or captions. The commentary usually sounds like voice of God, deep male voice - objective and omniscient. These documentaries indicate a strong argument and point of view. Images may not be used, however if they are then exist to help advance the argument.

This mode is most associated with TV news programming. Key examples:

• Americas most wanted
• Many science and nature documentaries

3.       Observatory documentary

This attempts to capture objective reality - known as fly on the wall

These films aimed for intimacy, immediacy and revelation of individual’s human character in ordinary life situations.

This mode of film avoids voice over commentary, re enactments, post synchronised dialogue and music

Codes/conventions

• Film maker remains hidden behind the camera, ignored by the surrounding environment and doesn’t influence the actions and events being captured
• Nothing is staged for the camera so the camera rushes about to keep up with the action resulting in rough, shaky, often amateur looking footage.

Key examples:

• Frederick Wiseman, (1970)

Duosoaps style is the development of the observational mode and what sets this mode from other modes is that it centres upon entertainment rather than soical commentary. This mode was made possible because of the lightweight camera which would result in the director being seen less in the documentary. There are certain features to this mode such as:

episodic soap like stucture and may have interweaving plot lines- the plot lines have different actors with approximately 2-3 mins of showing each actor. However there are weaknesses with this mode because it focuses on promoting stars and rarely looks at society and only shows that individuals are on television.

4.       Interactive documentary

This mode came about due to the availability of same mobile equipment and the desire to make filmmakers perspective more shown in the film.

 This genre attempts to engage with individuals more directly and does not often use interview styles

 It allows filmmakers to account for past events through witnesses and experts whom viewer can also see 

Key examples:

·         Rouch,

·         De Antonio,

·         Connie Field- Have you heard from Johannesburg documentaries

5.       Reflexive documentary

This genre came about due to the desire from filmmakers to make the conventions of representation themselves more apparent in the documentary. They also challenged the impression of reality.

This genre is the most reflexive in the sense it makes audience aware of how other modes claim to construct "truth" through documentaries.

This genre became technologically practicable during the 50s due to the emergence of portable synchronous sound equipment which made interaction more possible.

   The negative aspects of this genre are that it is too abstract and also loses sight of actual issues being spoken of in the documentary.  

Key examples:

·         Vertov

·         Godmilow

·         Raul Ruiz

6.       Performative documentary

This mode is similar to reflexive documentary in the sense that it raises questions about knowledge

 Through the documentary it tries to show how understanding this personal knowledge can help us understand more general processes of society

This genre provides an eclectic approach as it combines elements of various documentary modes in order to show a link between subjective knowledge/understanding of the world whilst providing a general understanding, for instance: historical ones.

Key examples:

·         Resnain

·          Julien

·          Riggs

Apart from these 6 there are also other styles of documentary which are thought to be quite modern such as :

Reality TV

an example of this would be the Big Brother show. This particular programme highlights hybrids which is the mixture of elements of different genres. Big brother uses elements of hybrids as it combines entertainment with useful information for the audience. Through British television schedule factual programme became very popular in 1999 increasing from 1989. The reality tv is still shown to be popular in tv today which is seen through news magazine programmes, day time talk shows, duosoaps and "constructed" documentaries. Through the years the term reality tc has widened and is now defined as the programmes that make use fo ordinary people this may be due to the effects of the image saturated culture that is present within society. In addition it also attempts to create for versimilitude between the audience and the actors on the screen.

Drama documentary

The idea of a drama documentary is the use of transcripts as they enforce the idea of reconstructions and re enactments.

 The 'dramadoc' focuses upon the reconstruction of actual events with techniques from fiction cinema on the other hand 'docudrama' is a fictional story are constructed to suggest due to realism due to techniques.

Current affairs

A prime example of current affairs would be the Newsnight as it is able to debate the news. The aim of this is to address the news and political agenda and is led by journalists. It provides for more detail than the normal news programme and also attempts to highlight political scandals.

Problems centering documentaries

editing- documentary footage is hardly put on television without the use of editing therefore to an extent the documentary may be a representation of the directors interpretation rather than a factual documentary as it can be seen as biased.

The programme makers and their subjects can vary: they can either report, observe or investigate them.

Also the BBC and ITC guidelines present will affect the final product of the documentary.

Codes/conventions of documentary

In documentaries there are:

• Interviews
• non diegetic sound is used
• graphics of name providing information to the viewer
• mise en scene siginifies something to the viewer relating to the topic of discussion in the documentary
• Use of handheld camera to add more drama rather than using a tripod
• contains a narrative structure which is shown throughout the documentary
• Archive material is used so the viewer can link it to the documentary 
• Use of cutaways in order for smooth transition instead of jump cuts and are more appealing to the audience  

Codes/Conventions of newspaper advertisement

A central image is ideal in order to create a narrative for the advert
The slogan or statement should be linked to the documentary and should be placed either on the left hand or right hand side
The details stating the scheduling for the documentary should be on the left corner
It is ideal that little words are used in order to keep the target audience interested and is also more appealing and keeps the page from looking clustered
For the channel 4 the logo is always poisitoned on the right hand side of the advert
Newspaper advertisement could be published in the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun
 Codes/Conventions of double page spread
Colour scheme should be basic preferably following the magazines colour scheme to avoid too many colours being used
The picture arrangement could be either of the following: one large image on one half of page with writing on the other side
one large image taken up the whole page of the double spread
small images and writing on both pages
The quotes can be used in the headline, on the picture or in the standfirst. The standifrst is used to introduce the artice and is usually positioned underneath the headline and tells the reader what the article is about
Double page spreads usually have a drop capital to show the reader where to start reading and is common for the first paragraph to be in bold and in bigger type size than the rest of the writing.
The headline ususally in stylised font and doesnt really tell the audience anthing about the article rather it is used to grab the readers attention. It is common for headlines to be puns or songtitles.
The byline is where the persons name that wrote the article and usually photograph credits
The articles are written informally in the form of the journalists writing so that their personality comes through in their writing
The strapline which is at the top of the line tells you the subject matter