Documentaries employ several techniques to convey information and persuade audiences. They use authoritative narration to establish credibility, interviews with experts to authenticate opinions, and interviews with witnesses to provide first-hand accounts. Captions are displayed to inform viewers of key details like dates and locations. Reconstructions with actors reenact events visually and use lighting, costuming, and sound design to set the mood and advance the narrative.

1. Conventions of TV
documentary’s

2. • 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

3. • 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

4. • 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

5. • 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