1. Codes and Conventions of documentaries
Voiceover: The voiceover will almost always be authoritative, encouraging the audience to
think that they have either some kind of specialist knowledge such as David Attenborough
or voicing the ‘right’ opinions so that people pay attention to what is being expressed.
Coupled with this are usual interviews with other experts in order to further authenticate
the views expressed by the main ‘expert’ within the documentary. Sometimes the experts
interviewed will disagree with the message of the documentary but the film maker will
usually disprove them in some way.
Within our production we have decided to use voiceover made by a student enrolled within
the school but our documentary is not conventional as our voiceover will be by someone
who is enrolled within the school therefore unconventional as they will not be of the older
generation such as David Attenborough. We still will have interviews within our production
but they will mainly be focused on the separate students and their opinions on the school
rather than informative experts.
Footage: A documentary is essentially seen as non-fiction although there are debates
around this. However, a convention of documentary is that all events presented to us are to
be seen as real by the audience. Documentaries often go to great lengths to convince us
that the footage is real and unaltered in anyway, although editing and voiceover can affect
the ‘reality’ we as viewers see. Documentaries can also use archived footage to aid
authenticity and to add further information that the film maker may not have been able to
obtain themselves. Also, the film-maker will always attempt to include ‘natural’ or ‘real’
sounds within the documentary, whether in the film or through addition from other
footage.
Our production will contain all natural footage filmed by ourselves and we will not draw on
archived footage because there is none for our take on school life and general teen life,
making our filming even more important and crucial. The editing will involve the blending of
the shots as well as the important timing of the voiceover with the specific scene being
described.
The Use of Text/Titles: Words on screen are usually used to anchor images in time and
space. Labels, dates etc. tend to be believed unquestioningly and are a quick and easy way
to convey information.
We are discussing using titles at the opening of our scenes in order to provide the audience
with some perspective and context of the school, but we eventually came to the conclusion
through our focus group that we should provide titles on specific scenes and sequences
because we want to provide the viewer with information as this piece is made for this
purpose.

2. Sound: The use of sound within the documentary is almost exclusively diegetic sound, of
the subject that is being studied and its natural environment, however on occasion some
non-diegetic sound is added in order to bridge scenes together and keep the flow of the
documentary, reducing the risk of viewer negligence.
The sounds within our production will almost exclusively contain diegetic sound with the
potential of non-diegetic sound for the voiceover of the documentary.
Set-Ups:Within documentaries is a huge amount of reconstructions of events that
happened in the past but also the setting up of ‘typical’ scenes. However, an increasing use
of set-ups will only present a ‘reality’ that audiences already recognise therefore conforming
to the stereotypes and producing new ideas about ‘reality’ will be impossible.
Our production will contain both mainly set-up scenes in order to provide what we consider
to be the most realistic representation, however throughout the filming the students
involved will know that they are subject to video so may act differently, making the
documentary seem un-natural, leading to a contrast to what we want to portray.
Visual Coding:There is often a ‘natural’ amount of mise-en-scene within a documentary
because it is a natural or ‘real’ representation of the subject, therefore the mise-en-scene
does not typically contain any out of the ordinary props or setting, there are however
examples of this within the genre.
Our scene will almost exclusively contain the natural mise-en-scene of the school, providing
the more realistic representation of the school because it is being filmed through a students
perspective.