In this assignment you should provide

evidence against the criteria below.

Scenario You have been approached by BBC3 to produce content for their new TV show, Three @ 8. The new show is similar in structure to BBC One magazine programme, The One Show. The key difference is that Three @ 8 is aimed towards the BBC Three target audience , 16-24 year old, British males and females. BBC3 are specifically requesting that you produce a five to seven minute documentary to feature on the show, which should have a clear appeal to their target audience.

BBC3 are very conscious of their image as a high profile public service broadcaster, and as such require your work to meet both their strict editorial and regulatory requirements. In addition, they expect your documentary to meet their high standards in content, showing understanding of the codes and conventions of a typical documentary. Finally, in order to meet the BBC’s high expectations of professionalism and accountability, your production process should be evidenced through a full set of production paperwork.

Background In order for you to meet the requirements of the scenario BBC3 ‘expect your documentary to meet their high standards in content, showing understanding of the codes and conventions of a typical documentary’.In order to do this effectively, you must first conduct independent research into a variety of factual television formats and features.

On completion of this assessment (Tasks 2a and 2b) you should: Understand the codes & conventions of factual television programmes

Assessment Two Title – Codes & Conventions of Factual TV Programming

What factual programmes could you have watched this weekend?

What Criteria did you use?

• Real

• Educational

• Serious

• Newsworthy

• Actual footage

• ….

Some Potential Conventions

• Editing – Montage • Presentation of facts • Strong and interesting premise • Voice over/Presenter • Editing, piecing together to make meaning • Use of suspense, concealing outcome • Point of view; bias • Constructing a version of reality often using narrative techniques • Hand held camera • Poor sound/lighting • Disjointed editing • Interviews • Use of experts • Archive footage; film and photographs • Music • Framing to create meaning

Analysis of Factual Programming Codes and Conventions

Define the Subgenre

Find three real programme examples ( video or images from the show). Summarise each text.

Analyse the codes and conventions employed in one text and the impact it has on the audience

Use P.E.E

Docu Drama

Definition - A television or film dramatisation of events based on fact (

not re-enactment) • Focus on the facts of the event • Use of film and narrative techniques to flesh out the bare facts of an event in history to tell a

story • Not always fully accurate, some characters are amalgamated for the sake of enhancing the

drama • Avoids overt commentary and explicit assertion of the creator's own point of view or beliefs.

Docu Soap A television documentary series in which

the lives of the people filmed are presented as entertainment or drama

• Creation of characters/ stereotypes

• Cliff hangers

• Drama

• Multiple Storylines

Information-based programming that also includes entertainment content in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers. - Sometimes accused of dumbing down and patronising the audience - Crosses the line between journalism and entertainment - Usually involves big personalities in terms of the presenters or anchors

Infotainment

Reality television presents purportedly unscripted melodramatic or "humorous" situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded.

Reality TV

• Highly Structured and edited • Wide ranging from game shows to ‘fly on the wall’

style programmes • Construct characters and narratives • In recent years more of a focus on ‘celebrities’

Educational Television Television programmes whose main purpose is to educate the audience. They might form part of a taught programme of distance study such as the open university or they may be part of the remit/ ethos of the broadcaster. Many children's television series are educational, ranging from dedicated learning programs to those that indirectly teach the viewers.

• Either very factual and driven towards explicit learning

Or • Moral’s and learning occur through the main

characters role in the story

Wildlife Documentary

A natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures. Such programmes are most frequently made for television,

particularly for public broadcasting channels

• Usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat • Educational and recording what we might never see in real life • Serious and ‘worthy’ • Male, white middle class voice over

Wednesday 26th – 6.30 to 9.00pm

Running the studio for open

evening