The codes and conventions of documentaries

2.  Start – the start of the documentary introduces
the ideas and concepts that will be developed on,
and it also introduces arguments for the
audience to consider
 Middle – the middle of the documentary
elaborates on the start, thus developing points of
view
 End – the end of the documentary summarises all
of the points that are expressed throughout, and
often either concludes the documentary or leaves
it open for the viewer.

3.  To entertain
 To inform
 To educate
 To shock
 For propaganda uses

4. Generally, documentaries are single
stranded (dealing with a single topic),
have a linear structure (playing out in
a chronological fashion), have a
shorter run time than regular films
and have either open or closed
endings.

5. The camera is used in two different ways when
creating a documentary.
 Handheld
 Steadicam
Handheld is incredibly effective as it gives the
viewer the perspective of the person, thus
giving them an almost first hand experience.

6. A narrator or a voiceover is vital in every
documentary as it guides the viewer to a
specific point. Voice-over narration can be
used as an active agent to encourage greater
impact and understanding to the audience of
the issues provided in the documentary.

7. A vox pop is a “popular opinion as represented
by informal comments from members of the
public, especially when broadcast or
published”. They are a great way to add new
perspectives and different viewpoints into a
documentary.

8. Archive material and cutaways are always used
in documentaries. Both of these features are
used to negate boredom, as the viewer must
remain entertained to ensure that they
continue watching. Cutaways are filmed by
the filmmaker, however archive material is
footage that has already been filmed by other
people and can be found on the internet.

9. Blumler and Katz devised a theory that
theorises that audiences watch films or
television for four different reasons. These
reasons include: surveillance, personal
identity, personal relationships and
divergence. The concept of surveillance fits
into documentaries as the viewer is
withdrawing information from it.

10. It could be argued that documentaries are never
the truth, as they are mediated, and the
filmmakers viewpoint is being indoctrinated on
the audience. They are biased and an opinion is
never truthful. Filmmakers undergo the process
of gatekeeping, in which they choose what to
include from a large selection of footage.
Naturally, they choose the footage that coincides
with their viewpoint. What the viewers are often
not aware of is that a lot of footage contradicting
the documentaries stance was also filmed.

11.  Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding theory
theorises that audiences encode and decode
the messages presented in a documentary.
There are the preferred, negotiated and
oppositional audiences.

12.  Use establishing shots to set location (close
ups used to identify objects of importance)
 Close-ups and extreme close-ups are also
used in interviews in order to portray the
speakers facial expressions and feelings
 In addition to this, zooming in also puts
pressure on the person speaking
 Hand held camera to ensure realism

13.  The filmmaker must rely on audiences
bringing their own experiences
 There are both niche and mass
audiences

14.  High key lighting – bright, often suggests
that something is good or positive or morally
right
 Low key lighting – dark, usually used to
depict that something is morally wrong or
negative

15.  Usually slower paced in order to engage with
people
 Seamless, smooth editing with lack of jump
cuts, so that people are able to suspend their
beliefs
 Parallel editing (intercutting) – running side
by side, answers of the same questions asked
to different people. This allows the viewer to
receive various viewpoints

16.  Diegetic sound mainly, and a lot of
background noises are kept in the interviews
or sometimes even increased in volume and
enhanced to increase realism

17.  Director often controls the mise en scene
because they are the ones that want to
convey a message and they want it to be
believable, and for the information to appear
reliable

18.  Text – subtitles and titles of the people being
interviewed – name first and occupation,
reassures the viewer of their professionalism
 Opposite side to interviewee
 Simple text

19.  Hegemony – dominant ideology in society
 The distributor of the documentary can affect
the content of the documentary, ie the BBC
are more likely to show things that support
government ideologies

20. Passive audiences may channel surf, so
you must make the audiences feel
active through enigma codes

21. Someone sees something and
informs someone else, and
they inform others

22. “The meaning is not in the text, but
in the reading”