DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH

Documentary Techniques:

- compelation film: made up of archive material
- interview: issues
- direct cinema: event is recorded as it happens, little interuption from film
                       maker.

• good documentaries need characters and good point of view.
• moder documentaries are generally more observational and the audience are the watcher.
• within documentary we have a narrator; device allows audiene to understand_recieve the plot, known as voice of God, tell audiecne a story.
• may use voice over that we are familiar with, recognizable, therefore we trust the information that is given, conventioanlly males were voice over, more rececntly there are women voiceovers.

Lighting:
- generally natural
- dirctor may just use lighting that is already available

Camera Work:
- hand held: most common, unsmooth
- makes it look more authentic and real
- creates intamacy with audiecne and film.

Editing:
- vital component of documentary
- rely on editing
- fade outs, fade in, dissolves, wipe
- selecting, ordering and placing images into place, mediated
- editing is interpreating event, makes it easier to understand.

Sound:
- diegetic: sound is there in the footage(actual sound)
- non-diegetic: sound effect, narrator, rely heavily on this, so the audience
                     responds in a certain qay and to prompt them.

documentaries are there to inform the public and to express a pointof view, illistrates the truth as a genre in an understandable way to the audience.

Current Affairs:

• the mid-way between docmentaries+the news
• discusses current affairs
• main aim is to adress the news+politics in more detail+greater depth.
• emphasis on current affairs: investagations,political scandals, featured
•                                        around a journalistic report
• arguing a case or proving it wrong
• reporter might be infront of camera, voice over
• e.g. Channel 4 Dispatches or Tonight With Trevor McDonald

Reality:

• real events take place
• infotanment: combination if information+entertainment
• e.g. Police,camera,action
• reality T.V is a mox of raw authentic material with a seriousness of information programe
• surveilance, observation
• used to be based around emerncy services but now based around ordinary people.

History:
- John Gireson-1926 (FIND OUT MORE)

Purpose:
- To document something that has happened
- Showing actual footage or reconstruction
- Narrator's voiceover/ participants anchor meaning.

Features:
- Observation: actually watching somebody, pretend camera is on scene, or it
is ignored by the people taking part.
- Interview: most important part, aloows participants to voice their opinions,
rely on interviews,
- Dramatisation: use a sense of drama, might reconstruct something to show
drama, used through observation.
- Mise En Scene: everything in the scene/shot.
- Exposition: expose things, argument, voice over.

documentaires are often situated around a problem and how to solve it.

Types Of Documentaries:
- Fully Narrated: off screen voice over+voice over makes sense of footage,
dominates the meaning, sounds authorative (expert).
- Fly On The Wall: camera is ignored, captures things that would'nt be shot,
captures real events, allow viewers to come up with thier
own conclusions, not scripted.
Mixed: advanced the argument with mixed elements, narrator is often infront
of camera.
- Self-Reflective: speaks directly to documentary maker-subject, aknowledges
camera.
- Docudrama: reanactment, as though its happening or actually happened,
fictional story, uses techniques of documentary to reinforce
realism.
- Docusoap: documentary follows the lives of people, start to get to know
participants.

-Gate Keeper: rejection+selection of information (editor,producer,director).

Documentaries may contain:
- Visuals: intended to suggest a meaning or emotion or particular theme.
- Interviews: can be held anywhere but the mise en scence has ro create
meaning, includes factual questions(start) and emotional
questions(end).
- Voxpops: street inteviews of the geneal public and are asked the same
questions, answers are stringed together in a fast pace, shows
general agreement or diverse opinions.

Types Of Narratives(structure):
- Open: no answers have been given, not sure of conclusion, audience is left
to make own conclusion, left open minded.
- Close: definate outcome+ending, goves a conclusion for audience.
- Single: strandard: just one theme/plot throughout documentary.
- Non- linear: non chronological, time is interupted, flashbacks.
- Linear: chronological order
- Circular: question is revisited at end- similar to open minded.

• documentaries rely on traditional conventions (beginning,middle,end)
• the most dramatic footage might be played at the start, might show conflicting interviews, grabs audience attention.
• The middle might examine the issue that the documentary is focussing on, the conflict at the beginning is often strengthend.
• argument is shown at the end, leaving audience with no doubt, audience might take action.