My documentary challenges some conventions of real expository and observational documentaries. While it includes interviews and narration like an expository piece, it does not present the information in chronological order. It also structures footage around interview questions rather than following a story. Additionally, the observational elements differ from a traditional "fly on the wall" approach because the subjects knew they were being filmed so the footage would be natural rather than staged. Gaining consent and making the autistic students comfortable required challenging conventions by explaining the purpose and allowing them to adjust to the camera before recording sensitive interviews.

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

2. Before planning my documentary, we researched different
types of documentary and explored the different modes of
documentaries put forward by Bill Nichols. This was important
as it helped us choose and appropriate mode for our own
documentary to create an effective piece.

3. As my documentary is based on education a participatory documentary would
not be appropriate or effective as I would not need to intervene, or be
involved in the events as these events are reoccurring and structured. This
mode would be more effective for a big event or story for example Nick
Broomfield’s’ “The Life and Death of a Serial Killer” this allowed Nick to be
involved and gain emotion filled footage. As part of our brief was to create a
Television documentary an expository mode was the most suitable for my topic
and project. This is because it is the most popular type of television
documentary as it includes a narrator and interviews which are present in my
documentary, this shows that I used certain conventions of real expository
products. However, my documentary challenges several conventions of this
mode as it does not portray the information in the form of a story or in
chronological order. Instead of using a chronological order I structured my
documentary in terms of interview questions and the pairs of students
involved and although this created an order it restricted some ideas that I had
and also restricted me putting some footage in. This is because I wanted to
focus on what the learning support programme provides for those involved
rather than the setting up of the programme or how it works.

4. In a sense my documentary challenges specific conventions of the
observational mode of documentary, this is because observational
documentaries usually have a “fly on the wall” idea, where the camera and
documentary filmmaker are hidden to gain natural footage. Due to the fact
that nothing is staged the camera often “follows” the action results in
rough/shaky footage. However, I chose to challenge this convention and
structure my documentary observations in a way that I would still gain
natural and truthful footage. The reason that I chose to use some
observational footage to engage my audience and make the documentary
more interesting, however due to the nature of my documentary and the
students included I had to make sure that they were aware that I was
filming therefore, I allowed them to get used to the presence of the
camera before recording, this was to ensure that I was filming real footage
rather than set up footage.

5. Some of the year sevens who took part in my documentary are
autistic. Which is a very sensitive topic; this meant I had to
make sure the students were comfortable, aware of the
purpose and used to the camera in order to gain trust,
cooperation and understanding from the pupils. This meant
that I had to challenge conventions of real media products as I
could not film without their knowledge and had to run through
interview questions before filming the interviews. This was to
ensure that they were comfortable as I did not want to put
them in situations where they didn’t feel relaxed. This meant
they could think about what to say before being recorded. As I
did this for the year seven students I also chose to do it for the
sixth form students that I interviewed.