The document provides information on various elements of documentary films including: - Types of footage and techniques used such as interviews, voiceovers, and reenactments. - Common documentary structures like linear, open, and circular narratives. - Elements of the "direct cinema" style including no interference and aiming for objectivity. - Narrative theories from scholars like Propp, Barthes, and Todorov on codes and structures. - An analysis of the opening of "Ready Steady Drink" discussing use of lighting, camerawork, editing and sound design. - Consideration of topic ideas for their own student documentary, settling on teenage pregnancy.

2. Notes on the Documentary Genre:
• Documentaries – A documentary presents information about factual
topics with a variety of aims.
• Actuality – The term for film footage of real life events, places and
people.
• Exposition – The exposition occurs at the beginning in a documentary,
introducing the important themes of the film; it creates the viewers first
impression which can be done by the shots being specifically positioned
to make the audience believe something.
• Voice-over – A commentary by the film producer which can be spoken
whilst the camera is filming or added to the soundtrack during
production/editing. The film maker can speak directly to the audience
which may explain/set the scene.
• Interviews – Exchanges between the film producer and general people
speaking directly about certain events from, most likely, prompted
questions.
• Interviews with experts - Exchanges between the film producer and a
qualified interviewee who may authenticate or disagree with views
expressed in the documentary with their own knowledge.
• Archival footage – (or stock footage) obtained from film library and
inserted in a documentary to show historical events.
• Reconstructions – Artificial scenes of an event which are reconstructed
to portray an example of a true event.

3. Elements of Direct Cinema:
• Fly on the wall (being able to freely
observe a situation without being
noticed by what is going on e.g. the
audience are not spoken to)
• No voice-overs
• No dissolve edits
• No interviews
• No rehearsals prior to filming
• No film lights
• Aimed at objectivity

4. Narrative Theory:
• Linear structure – A linear structure has a beginning, a middle and an end.
• Open structure – An open structure is a structure that leaves the audience to
make sense of it themselves e.g. the film Inception.
• Closed structure – A closed structure has a clear conclusion for the audience.
• Circular Structure – A circular structure has the narrative beginning at the end
of events e.g. the audience take a journey back to where they (the film) started,
for example, the film Pulp Fiction.
Narrative Theorists:
• Vladimir Propp – He looked at folk tales and found a common 8 characters
within them: Hero (protagonist), Villain (antagonist), Princess, Father, Dispatcher
(sends hero off) Donor (gives hero help), sidekick (helper) and a false hero
(pretend villain).
• Roland Barthes – He describes narrative as a series of codes that are
interpreted by the audience: Action code (self-explanatory scene), Enigma code
(something hidden from audience), Semic code (recognition through
connotations), Symbolic code (something symbolises a more abstract concept)
and the Cultural code (understanding due to cultural awareness).
• Tzvetan todorov – He describes the narrative as going from equilibrium to
disequilibrium back to an altered equilibrium e.g. the film Love + Hate.
• Claude Levi-Strauss – He describes the narrative to be created by constant
conflict of binary opposites e.g. Love and Hate, Black and White, Man and
Woman, Peace and War etc.

5. Documentary: Ready, Steady, Drink:
As within our documentary we are only doing the opening five minutes, we decided to have a look
at the opening few minutes of a documentary on binge drinking from you tube to see how sound,
mis en scene, editing and camera is used to introduce the topic but also how it is relevant to the
target audience/age of people being filmed. (see next page for results).
The first few minutes of the documentary Ready Steady Drink will help us with the elements…
• Mis en scene because when introducing the topic the lighting is quite dark representing a party
nightlife and an upbeat atmosphere but then goes really bright when the topic becomes more
serious when discussing the consequences of binge drinking in the hospital. Also the costume and
surroundings for the hospital scene create an intelligent, serious atmosphere. This will help within
our documentary as we will consider the lighting and costume to suit certain events.
• Camera because a handheld camera is used in the exposition to create an informal, party
atmosphere when Emily Attack is with her friends but as the more serious concepts of binge
drinking unravel, a tripod is used for a more serious atmosphere. This will help us when filming our
documentary as we will consider when we should use a handheld camera and when we should use a
tripod depending on the situation.
• Sound because at the beginning of the documentary an upbeat party song is used to link in with
the mis en scene and camera shots to create an informal, party atmosphere. However, the views
expressed and the voice-over is quite serious compared with the music but the music volume is
lowered when there is the voice-over which creates a more serious atmosphere for when the
concepts being expressed are serious. This will help us with our documentary as we will consider
what sound to use and the volume of it to set the tone we are trying to create.
• The editing begins with medium paced shots merging into one another of people drinking and
partying to introduce the topic. Then there is a still of the title of the documentary for a few seconds
to give the audience chance to take it in and then it dissolves into the actual start of the
documentary almost representing a difference/break from the ‘what's coming up’ to the actual start.
Therefore, we will consider how we should edit our documentary according to linking certain shots
together.
• Target Audience because the documentary is hosted by Emily Attack who is a young adult
interviewing and exploring binge drinking from people a similar age to her. The target audience is
also most likely going to be young adults as they will be interested in what binge drinking can do to
you as it is relevant to them. So as we are teenagers ourselves we will look at creating our topic
based on people of a similar age to us and aiming it at a target audience of people who are going
through the same situation and who are of a similar age.

6. Notes on the Documentary Genre will help us as we will be knowledgeable of all
these terms and be able to consider them when producing our documentary. For
example, it is important for us to consider the exposition and what we want the
audiences first impression to be and how to create this. Also we will consider
when we would add our voice-over, whilst filming or whilst editing it afterwards.
Also we will consider what to ask in our interviews and how to organise them e.g.
for experts or just for vox pops of the general public.
Elements of Direct Cinema will most likely not be included within our documentary
because we will need a voice-over, dissolve edits and interviews and it will need to
be planned. Also it will not be in the style of a fly on the wall documentary as the
audience will be noticed because it is specifically going to be created to show to an
audience. However, these elements were interesting to consider the fact that we
could have created our documentary in this way and that there are current
documentaries portrayed in this style.
The Narrative Theory will help us within our documentary as it is important to
consider all of the possible structures that we could use to portray our documentary
but also that these structures are used to display documentaries. The structure of our
documentary will most likely be a Linear structure with a closed structure but it could
also be an open structure as the audience may be left with no actual answer and just
their own opinion. The Narrative Theorists won’t really contribute to our documentary
that much as the theories may suit films more rather than documentaries. However,
our documentary may include the cultural code from the theorist Roland Barthes as
the audience may have an understanding of our documentary topic due to their
cultural awareness. It may also include the conflict of binary opposites, by Claude Levi-
Strauss, as we may look at the life of once person that opposes to that of another
person.

7. Illegal University
Social
Downloading fees/places
Networking
Youth
Attitudes
Unemployment
to
Sexuality
A Spider Diagram
Domestic
Alcohol/Drug of Documentary Violence
Abuse
Topic Ideas:
Fashion
Eating
Disorders
Racism Teen
2011 Pregnancy
Riots
We decided to come up with a few topic ideas for our documentary before deciding
what we want to do. Although, these are all interesting topics, the one we decided
that we wanted to look at was Teenage Pregnancy as we feel the other topics have
been covered quite a lot whereas Teenage Pregnancy is rarely looked at. Therefore,
we thought it would be interesting to film and find out the causes and solutions of it.
Also we wanted to look at pregnancy within teenagers as our target audience is
teenagers and we are teenagers ourselves. (As explained on previous page).