Convention Of Documentaries

Genre

Documentary Conventions

Genre (Expository) • Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often

in the form of an authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of view.

• Other Convention such as • Involved with opinions• Facts• Persuasive techniques• A commentator • Rhetorical question • Direct address to the audience (During Interview)

Plot • The plot of a documentary is always determined by the

subjects/topics of the film. In general documentary will divide in 3 different parts. • Introduction: The beginning of the film which needs to capture the

audience’s attention, to keep the audience watching. • Obstacles: Similar to disequilibrium, the obstacles is where the main

problems and issues appear. • Resolution: It is the near end in the documentary, which usually brings

some kind of resolution to the question and conflict established at the beginning of the film

Our documentary will divide in three stages and talk about how difficult to get into the creative industry, how to be successful and what reward you would get in the industry.

Realism• As documentary has been seen as non fiction, so that

everything within the documentary have to be real and cannot be made up. There are three types of realism which are all important for documentary. • Surface Realism- This means that all the detail have to be right,

such as costumes, setting, location and props. • ‘Inner’ or emotional realism- The audience need to feel that they

can identify with the situation that the characters are in and feel their emotion.

• Technical and Symbolic codes for realism- Similar to surface realism, this is about the sound and other technical factors such as font types which need to be suitable to the setting and the theme

Footage • Stock footage/ Archive footage is footage that are real which

can be used in other films. Some of the footage may come from other sources such as library or museum, which is valuable and contain a lot of rare information of the topics. Stock footage is beneficial to filmakers, this is because it saves shooting material, which saves a lot of money and time as they do not need to refilm again.

• For our production we won’t be using the archive footage this is because it would be difficult to get the footage relevant to what we want.

Interview• Interview will take place with expert who knows a lot with the

topics. • Interview is a very crucial part in a documentary, this is because the

interviewee can give out other information and their own opinion to the audience, as the target audience of documentaries are sophisticated so that they would like to look at different sides of views and think about themselves.

• For our production we will take few different shot of the interviewees, which gives a variety of angles to the audience, also in terms of the content we will find some expert who knows a lot about the creative industry and therefore they can give out some useful information and personal opinion to the audiences.

Institutions Independent Production

Costs • As documentaries are tend to target niche market audiences,

so that unlike mass market film, documentary has only got a smaller budget as it is produced by independent companies and therefore the film will not have large budget on equipment, cast, location and other variable costs.

• As we are having a small production team with the independent company, so that we haven’t got a large amount of budget for our film and therefore we will be using limited equipment's in the filming stage.

FormShort Film

Length • Documentaries are tend to be around 5-75 minutes, which features

few characters or interviewees, depends on what theme and topics the documentaries are. Many of the director and writer of the documentaries such as Karen Everett thinks that the best length of a documentary is around 40 minutes, this is because some audience may feel bored as there aren’t many dramatic storyline and conflict involve in the documentary.

• However for short film it usually around 10 minutes. There are many different types of short film such as animation, drama and documentary. These short will still contain a short version of story or a topics.

Montage • A montage sequence conveys ideas visually by putting them in

a specific order in a film. • Narrative montage involve in planning of sequence of shots used

to indicate changes in time and place within a film• Ideational montage link actions with woods, and is often used in

documentaries

We might be using montage in the film to show the progress and stages of involving in the creative industry, which can show the audience the reality in this particular industry and therefore it can gives feeling and thoughts to the audience about the creative industry.

Sound • Documentaries often have some music or soundtrack plays in

the background and it is depends on the theme and the topics of the film. The music will be relevant to the topics and the type of documentaries. Also there will be diegetic sound or voiceover in the documentaries especially during interview.

• Soundbridge will also be used so that rather than having a long take of one camera shot of the interviewee, it can provide more scenes and materials to show to the audience

We will be using microphones to record the sounds such as the dialogue of the interviewees and the diegetic sound of the theatre, which could also create more technical realism to the audience.

Camera • Documentaries are more likely to use digital camera due to the types of

production company and the budget that they have got for their film. Also documentary will use different types of camera shot and angle to show different connotations and representation to the audience.

• Example of the style of the camera shot and angle: there are usually medium shot or medium close up of the interviewee and look direct address to the audience during the interview, which breaks the wall between the interviewee and the audience as the interviewees are talking ‘face to face’ to the audience.

• Example of camera shots and movement: Close Up, Medium Shot, Long Shot, Tracking, Tilting, Ped etc. There are also some conventions of camera movement in a documentary such as Hand held connotes more realism, cinematic which provide more constructed view and mixture during interview which gives more angle of the interviewees to the audience.

• We will be using few cameras and a variety of camera shot and camera angle, which might gives out different connotation and representation to the audience and therefore it can keep the audience engage and carry on watching the film.

Editing • The footage within the documentary will be using cuts and

quick cuts, this is because it makes the footage seem more real and create more realism as well as less distracted by the effect. However, for some documentaries they will use other editing effects such as fast and slow motions, which will depends on the topics of the film and what connotation is given out to the audience.

• We will be using Final Cut Pro in the editing stage of the film and we will try to add effects to attract the audience. Also we will be using 1-2 camera in each interview so that we will a lot of footage and cutaway to edit.