This document analyzes the codes and conventions that were followed in creating a documentary. It discusses how interviews were framed by positioning interviewees on the side of the screen rather than the center. Cutaways were used to cover jump cuts between answers. Graphics were added to interviews to identify people and relate them to the topic. Sound followed conventions with a voiceover and music in openings. In all aspects of creating the documentary, the codes and conventions of the genre were carefully adhered to.

1. Evaluation Question 1
Codes and Conventions of a Documentary

2. To identify the codes and conventions of our
documentary we analysed three different
professional documentaries and identified the
codes and conventions of a documentary from
them, in the creation of our documentary we
didn’t try to challenge the codes and
conventions at any time.

3. Framing Interviews
One of the codes and conventions of a documentary is that the interviewee is either on the
right or left side on the screen instead of the middle of the screen, another way that we
followed the codes and conventions was by that we didn’t have our interviewee looking
Directly into the camera we had the camera positioned on the opposite side to were the
Interviewee was sitting and the interviewer would sit on the opposite side of the camera
As you can see the
eye lines on both
our documentary
on the left and the
professional one
on the right are
similar

4. Another way that we followed the codes and conventions was
by positioning our interview on the right hand side or the left
hand side basing on what side they were on for example in
the images below the top image supported books and the
bottom supported kindles
No questions were aired in the
broadcasting of our documentary
which is conventionally correct just
like the real media texts.
We changed the shot type of our
interviews so that the consuming
doesn’t get bored this is part of the
codes and convention of a
documentary.

5. When question are not aired on documentaries there are jump cuts between
each answer, to cover the jump cuts cutaways are used to cover the jump
cuts. Cutaways can be different things for example it could be achieve
footage or footage filmed by the documentary creators which is relevant to
the subject being spoken about below on the left are cutaways of real media
texts and on the right is our cutaways this shows that we have followed the
codes and conventions when it comes to cutaways.

6. The mise-en-scene of our interviews always had relevance to the person on screen
and the subject what the they were talking about as the images show there is a
relevance in the background of what subject the interviewee specialises in. The top
two images are from our documentary and the bottom 3 are from real media texts.
These images show that we followed the codes and convention when choosing the
mise-en-scene for our interviews.

7. We also followed the codes and
conventions of a documentary as
well by adding graphics on our
interviews, this is done so that the
consumer is able to know the
name of the person being
interviewed and there relevance to
the subject. The text anchors the
person on the screen.
The image on the left handside is
the real media text and the one on
the right is from our documentary
this is an example of how we
followed the codes and convention
of a documentary.

8. Sound
I followed the codes and conventions of a documentary through
sound by having a voiceover in our documentary, this is
conventionally correct for when you are playing cutaways or achieve
footage and there is somebody to explain it rather than silence
We also had music on our opening sequence of our documentary
this was conventionally correct, we used music at the beginning of
the documentary to keep consumers interested and to open the
documentary well