This document discusses different narrative structures for documentaries: - A circular narrative begins and ends at the same point, providing closure. It follows a similar structure to an essay. - A closed narrative leaves no loose ends and answers all questions clearly. Examples given are "Battlefield Britain" and "Pain, Pus and Poison". - An open narrative leaves questions unanswered, allowing more interpretation. "Universe" is used as an example that leaves the future unknown. - A linear narrative follows a chronological timeline of events. Good for history topics like "The Beginning and The End".

1. Narrative Structure

2.  A circular narrative means the documentary begins
and ends at the same point. It can ring closure to a
documentary. Follows a similar structure to an essay,
where the point is stated at the start and the evidence
builds up throughout.
 Pain, Pus and Poison begins with Dr. Michael Mosley
putting a needle through his hand, and then the
documentary explains how anaesthetics were invented,
used and developed.

3.  A closed narrative structure leaves no loose
ends, and few to no unanswered questions. The
documentary has a clear conclusion.
 Examples of this narrative structure include
 ‘Battlefield Britain’ states all the facts in a non
biased, historic way.
 https://youtu.be/52YOKT_O10U

4.  A documentary with an open narrative style
leaves the audience with further questions
about the subject. The lack of conclusion means
the topic is open to interpretation.
 ‘Universe’ leaves the viewer to speculate,
partly because there are multiple possibilities
about what could happen in the future, and
partly because there’s currently no way to
determine what will happen in the future.

5.  A linear documentary follows a timeline of events
and all footage is show in chronological order. It’s
a good structure for documentaries about history,
and the proceedings leading up to a bigger event.
 The Beginning and The End
 Ingenious Animals
 Battlefield

6.  The footage and pieces of the documentary are
not in a chronological order.
 ‘Forces of Nature’ episodes and features are in
no particular order

7.  The documentary follows one narrative. This
works well with autobiographical
documentaries, it’s very focused.
 ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ focuses on one
topic, with one person narrating

8.  More than one narrative strands being told in
the documentary. They sometimes overlap, or
can be told at the same time.
 Ingenious Animals features 4 presenters in 4
different locations each looking at a different
animal – all are relevent to the topic of the doc.
Springwatch follows this structure too.
 Ingenious Animals

9.  A documentary dealing with personal experiences (such as
men’s experiences with body image due to various media)
of a wide range would be most effective if it were to be
open, as the subject matter ranges too widely to be 100%
conclusive even if visible patterns are detected. Human
behaviour could be seen as too unpredictable to be fully
conclusive.
 It could also work well if it were multi strand, as the media’s
perception of body image affects us as media consumers in
numerous ways – advertising, on screen, shopping etc. For
this documentary it would be interesting to look into
different aspects of this.
 I think our documentary could be non-linear if we were
dealing with current trends in men's’ relationship with body
image.