2. The Story
• Most documentaries that have separate episodes
have a different story or group of stories for each
new episode meaning they focus on a different
aspect or character.
• For documentaries that don’t do this, it is usually
because the whole documentary is based around
one subject or person and therefore the same
story continues throughout.
• However, there are always similar and common
way in which documentaries present these
stories.
3. Educating Yorkshire
• For documentaries that have lots of different stories:
• This happens a lot in Educating Essex or Yorkshire
because the whole series is based on one school but
they have individual stories in each episode.
• Each story has a different theme e.g. bullying, prom,
a particular year group, fighting, behavior or
success.
• The way they often do it is interlink the stories so
that the program isn’t bitty and all over the place
and so that the audience can develop a sort of
familiarity with each story..
• In this case, the story is usually about a teacher or
student or event.
4. • For example, if it is about a student, they might
show that persons class first and show a
particular clip that makes that student stand out.
• They then use the convention of voice-overs to
explain who that person is and why they are
significant in the episode.
• Another convention they use is an interview in
which that person might appear in, letting the
audience get to know them better.
• The narration that is usually included is
background information or history so that they
audience is filled in on what the cameras can’t
show. In this example, they might talk about the
student/teachers home life or about their grades
or important experiences.
6. Other Examples:
• X Factor & BGT: they use especially good acts and do
a background story on them where their home is
shown etc. Usually they also include something
referred to as a ‘sob story’ to make the viewer feel
empathy for a character. This is also voiced over and
interviewed for more information.
• Crime Watch: They tell a story through voice-overs
and re-enactments because it is about something
that can’t often be shown so they do acted version
of it. Although they may use archived footage if
available such as CCTV this gives the viewer an idea
as to how the crime happened.
7. Other Examples:
• 9/11: There are lots of documentaries based on this
event, some cover it as a whole and go over most
important details of the story and others look at
specific things such as survivors or witnesses or
family members. These documentaries have used
things like phone calls to tell a story or footage that
was filmed at that moment (these are very common
in disaster documentaries). This is another program
that could use re enactment based on a survivors
experience.
• Here is an example of one of the 9/11
documentaries using similar conventions to narrate
the story.
