Conventions of TV documentary’s

• The voiceover or narrative of a documentary will usually be authoritative and sound very professional, often to courage the audience to believe that whatever is being said, is in fact truth and is the correct opinion, like David Attenborough for example.

Voiceover

• Interviews with ‘experts’ of the subject will often be used to further authenticate the documentary’s opinions to prove what they're are saying to the audience is true. Sometimes an interviewee will disagree with a documentaries beliefs but they will somehow disprove of them to favour the documentary.

• Interviews with first hand witnesses is also very common throughout documentaries. They will reveal unique information acquired from their experiences. This is very common in crime documentaries and often the subjects face will be blurred for their safety if necessary

Interviews

• Texts and subtitles are a very efficient way of displaying information to the audience. It is an easy way of informing the viewer about dates, times and other information which is vital. You can display it over video and narration keeping the documentary flowing.

• They are often used against a black screen before a scene to inform the viewers about what they're about to see and other additional information for the viewers understanding.

Captions

• Set ups and reconstructions are a very common thing in documentaries, especially crime documentaries. They use real actors to portray a scene which depicts the events which have happened. For example, if there was a murder, it would be reenacted from beginning to end. This enables the viewers to have a much clearer visual understanding of the events that happened.

• Mise-en-scene is heavily used in reconstructions. Often create stereotypes of characters are created such as a mugger would have his hood up and the dark lighting would make his face indistinguishable. The use of sound is very effective in documentaries. Non-Diegetic sound is often added to create suspense or mood in a reconstruction or even in real footage. Sometimes sound can be authentic. For example in wildlife documentaries the sound of animals will be real.

Reconstructions and mies-en-scene