The Construction of Factual Programmes – Issues, Codes and

Conventions

By Rosie Kinsella

Introduction

In this Power Point I will be discussing the codes and conventions of 5 different modes of documentary as well as Television.

I will describe in detail the types of documentary and reference examples in depth with a range of visual examples.

I will also discuss what is needed to create these certain types of documentaries, as well as describe what is needed for a news programme.

And lastly, I will talk about how these codes and conventions inform or determine audience responses.

Types of Documentary and My Examples

Expository

This type of documentary expose a person or topic that are often historical or biographical. They are very well known for having a commentator talking over the pictures or video explaining a story. They are more likely shown on TV than in cinema’s. They would not be Expository Documentaries without the following:• Rhetorical Questions

• Opinions

• Facts

• Persuasive techniques

• Commentator.

• Interviews

• Music

• Observation Footage

• Archive and Still Film

• Addressing the viewer directly

One example of an Expository documentary is the famous 2010 American documentary called “Catfish”. The film tells the story of a man named Nev, who becomes friends with a young girl named Abby. He meets her online after she emails him a painting. Abby is supposedly a young child who has the talent to paint beautiful pictures, and as Nev (filmed by his brother, Ariel, and a friend of theirs) becomes better friends with her, he meets Abby's older sister, Megan, and their mother, Angela over Facebook. As he becomes more and more romantically involved with Megan via texts, phone calls, certain information failed to add up: Megan, a supposed songwriter, didn't really write all the songs she said she did, and various other things about her turn out to be untrue.

Finally, the large twist at the end is that Nev and his friends are in the midwest, so they take a side trip and go to meet Megan and her family, to find that Angela is the only one of the three who is real. The other two were personae created by Angela, who is married and takes care of two disabled sons. She is also the painter of all of Abby's paintings.

THE PLOT

Codes & Conventions of CATFISH

Conventions are the standard ingredient's of a genre which audiences expect to see. Catfish is an Expository documentary because it aimed to inform an audience on a personal story from someone else's life that have decided to share their experiences with falling in love online. It exposed Nev, one of the main suspects lives as well as the other end, being Angela. However, it was also Informative as Nev was involved in every part of it, the filming, the questions, the storyline etc.

Conventions• Voice Over – Throughout this

documentary there was huge amounts of commentary which allowed the viewer to get an in depth insight to everything that was going on in certain scenes.

CATFISH Codes & Conventions

An example of this is when Nev first discovers that the song Megan sent him and claimed she had sung for him wasn’t actually her performing it, and we found this out because Nev’s brother Ariel was saying things that allowed the audience to realise it wasn’t her and was also filming Nev’s reaction to finding this out. Here is actual footage example of this:

http://putlocker.is/watch-catfish-online-free-putlocker.html Watch from 19:39 – 24:53

• Interviews – Throughout this documentary there are a number of Interviews that take place that are of great significance to the film. Many of the most important ones are when Nev actually meets Angela and her family. He confronts her on camera, with hidden voice recorders on his person so his brother and friend are able to capture every part of what she is confessing about the lies she has told them. After they have gotten most of the answers they want, most of the following interviews are shown or Angela actually being direct with the camera and Nev.

CATFISH

• Visual Information – This entire documentary is filmed with a video recorded camera, there is no professional equipment and it is filmed in the moment of whatever is happening. This gave the audience an insight to the location of Nev’s studio and apartment, the car they travelled in to meet Angela, Angela’s house, her beach house where her daughter played in and some of the art museums they had claimed to own. This illustrated many points for the audience because they got a very detailed insight to Nev’sexperience.

CATFISH: CAMERA WORK

The film makers of catfish capture this entire documentary just using pocket HD cameras throughout the film, with no professional camera snapshots or steady camera work. It’s a very informal filmed documentary which makes it seem more realistic to the audience. The shots that are captured are very in the moment shots, nothing seems to come across as directed or scripted when filming the main characters in the moment of something.

Observational Documentary

Observational Documentaries are the window to the world; they capture aspects of history as they happen, letting viewers come to whatever conclusion’s they like. These types of documentaries do not usually include voice overs, no interviews, no behaviour repeated for the camera. The camera crews are treated as if they’re not even there. They capture things raw, exactly as they happen.

The equipment used to capture these events can be in-formal, such as hand held cameras.

BIG BROTHER

Big Brother is a popular example as an Observational documentary. The show is about a number of contestants who soon become housemates, who are isolated from the outside world and members of it. Each housemate gets publicly voted for eviction each week based on who they like, for them to get the chance of winning a cash prize.

The codes and conventions of a show like this are as follows:

• Real People, not actors –

• Real Situations

• Unscripted

• Audience Interactivity (online participation)

BIG BROTHER MISE-EN-SCENE

Lighting

The lighting used in Big Brother is realistic and believable to the viewer, but can vary depending on how they are being filmed. For example, sometimes they are shown on what looks like CCTV where the lighting contrast is very high and gives off a brighter image, just like ‘Avaliable lighting’. The mood that is associated with this type of lighting is quite explicit, open, clear, easy-to-read as you can see everything that is happening.

Setting – The set of Big Brother is a very modern decorated house. The interior looks expensive and professional, as well as the furniture. It is important that the subjects are being filmed in an interesting location otherwise it’s not as attractive to sit and watch. For example, if the cast members of big brother were just being filmed in a very plain basic London flat, it wouldn’t look very appealing to watch.

Hair and Make up – The hair and make up on a show like big brother is very much left to the cast members themselves, as they are the ones living in the house with all of their personal belongings. Without having a hair and make up artist, it allows the viewer to have a more believable experience when watching the show as they get an insight to their every day life whilst being filmed, which obviously includes them getting up and getting dressed themselves.

Camera Work - The camera work on Big Brother is very in formal, very CCTV themed. Depending on what is happening on screen or between some of the house mates, the shots used vary between wide shots to close ups.

Other examples of Observational Documentaries are shows such as:

• 16 and Pregnant

• March of the penguins

• Frozen Planet

• Benefits Street

• Made In Chelsea

• The only way is Essex

• Peter Andre: The next Chapter

• Im a Celebrity get me out of here

Interactive & Reflexive Documentaries

• Interactive Documentaries, or also known as Participatory Documentaries are where the actual film maker or crew interact with the subject(s). From these types of documentaries you can expect to see it filmed with a Hand Held camera, Voiceovers (usually by the documentary maker), The documentary maker being visible to the audience, Interviews (on-the-run questioning).

MARK THOMAS on Coca Cola

My example of an Participatory Documentary is Channel 4’s Dispatches ‘Mark Thomas on Coca Cola’ where he visits South America, India and the US to investigate the way in which Coca Cola and its suppliers operate. Coca Cola is probably the most popular brand in the world, yet they are accused of environmental damage, human rights violations and questionable business practices.

The Codes and Conventions

Throughout this Documentary there is no formal equipment being used, it’s only Mark Thomas, some of his crew and hand held camera’s. This allows the viewer to get a more in depth view about what is going on because what we are being shown isn’t scripted, everything that happens is in the moment and caught on camera. In this clip of the Documentary from 17:43 to 18:13 shows Mark interviewing an ex Coca Cola worker on a bus with nothing but a hand held camera and a voice recorder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH0r84W3LgU

At the start of the documentary, Archive footage is used to educate the viewers about some of the history on Coca Cola. Mark Thomas also includes footage of him at a tour at one of the Coca Cola plants secretly filming the responses he gets from the questions he ask’s one of the people that work there and then telling the truth Aafter each clip of footage has been shown, with a voice over and image.

In regards to lighting and camera work, Mark very much uses ‘Available lighting’ as none of what he is showing us is scripted or rehearsed. There’s no hair and make up artists, no set, no formal equipment.

The footage Mark captured on his journey in this Documentary has had editing before allowing it to be aired as they had to edit scenes to hide some people identity by using a facial blur, adding in archive footage, text, the voice over’s at the right time of the image on screen etc.

Realism

Participatory Documentaries tend to use a sense of “Realism” and achieve this by using Archive footage, Interviews and following all the action. Mark achieves this as he covers one of the accusations Coca Cola received about violating human rights. They were accused of allowing young children under the age limit to reap the sugar cane crops out in the fields, and due to the dangerous equipment, location and job itself, all workers by law must be over the age of 18. Coca Cola had stated before and during the making of Mark’s documentary that they had resolved any cases of underage child labour, but Mark shows footage of children within the fields doing this work.

The clip below shows a one of Mark’s team (translator) Interviewing one of the children that are working in the sugar cane fields as he talks to them (23:47-24:25) -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH0r84W3LgU

Reflexive

Reflexive documentaries are when the film maker acknowledges their presence in front of the camera, providing narrative to the documentary. This type of documentary has a focus on realism and showing things as they happen, similar to Participatory documentaries.

Reflexive

This is an example of a Reflexive documentary.

http://watchdocumentary.org/watch/man-vs-wild-s01e01-the-rockies-video_7dca3e206.html

It shows famous survival guru and nature lover Bear Grylls. He has many documentaries on Television and is a perfect example of a Reflexive documentary. Throughout his documentaries he guides the audience through what he is doing, talks about the location he is in, and the camera man captures everything just as it happens which makes it more enjoyable and thrilling to watch.

The Codes & Conventions of News and Newsreaders

There are many different codes and conventions that make up for the creation and activity of the news.

The most common newsreaders we see when we are watching the news is the Studio news readers (the Presenters) as they are the lead subject on the programme, as they introduce the headlines, present the news content and interview/talk to other colleagues from different locations. These studio newsreaders can either be 2 people, normally a Male and a Female or can sometimes just do it solo, again being a man or a woman. Channel 4 news is an example of this.

What do they actually do?

News Presenters don’t just turn up to the studio, read the news and leave. They carry out a secondary number of jobs on top of being an actual news presenter. These are things such as:

• Carrying out extremely in depth research into a topic – Identifying and developing news stories of interest

• Editing copy from reporters to see fit

• Writing news bulletins

• Assisting the production of script

• Conducting Interviews within the studio or location

• Appear at newsworthy events

• Travel out to locations that hold newsworthy stories

What skills are needed for this type of job?

For this type of job you need to have a very wide range of skills and attributes. Due to being the main focus of attention when on air to thousands of people, the news reader is the face of the company television programme that it actually airs on, they are the face of their employer, their news company. Along with that, a news reader also wants to often create a good profile for themselves so they can be noticed throughout their career with the type of personality they posses that holds the factors to our evening and morning news being worth watching.

Skills

• Effective communication

• Excellent written and oral communication

• Posses very good presentation skills

• Have a clear voice for broadcasting

• Be good at handling a stressful situation

• Be able to handle situations under pressure; think quickly

• Understand and be educated about legal and ethnical issues

Visual codes of The Newsreader

It is extremely important for newsreaders to not only be able to do the part, but look the part. News presenting is classed as a very formal occupation. Nobody wants to turn on the television to be informed of the latest headlines from someone stood their in a sweaty polo shirt and jeans because it’s not professional. Dressing well is a form of good manners and a high level of professionalism and standards.

Well groomed hair cut. Appropriately styled and suitable color.

Very well applied Make up. Not too dramatic,A soft every day look. Features are still visible but enhanced well.

Appropriately smartly dressed. Suitable outfit,Nothing too revealing and nothing too bright

Discrete amount of Jewelry, nothing tooblingy or in your face

Millie Clode

Alastair StewartWell groomed Hair cut, styledappropriately

Smart and cleanSuitSensible colorsGood materialLooks expensive

Smart shirtWith a collarCo-ordinates well withSuit blazer and blue tie

Tie co-ordinated withThe color of suitA tie is symbolic for professionalism