Progression DiaryProgression Diary

Research

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been researching into the codes and conventions of documentaries and the ways in which we define them.

Modes of documentaries

Through learning the modes of documentaries, we have been able to establish the codes and conventions of them. For example, expositional documentaries are the most common and the narrations assists the background footage being shown on screen. This will be useful for our final product as it will allow us to create an argument that provides evidence and a commentary.

Narrative Structure

We also learnt about narrative structure. This allowed us to see what flow of narrative the documentary will follow. We also learnt about the theories behind narrative structure. For example, our documentary will be an open narrative because it will leave questions for the audience to wonder about. We could also use circular narrative because it will allow the audience to connect the beginning of the documentary to the end. Furthermore, Levi-Strauss' theory about binary opposites means we can compare two direct opposites to emphasise a meaning.

Gatekeeping and mediation

Gatekeeping is also relevant to our documentary because it will allow us to mediate the content. This could include being bias to persuade the audience to a specific point of view and opinion which we are conveying through our argument in the documentary. Being bias in a documentary can come under a lot of criticism, so we need to mediate the way in which we present our opinion as this can be sensitive.

Types of documentariesTo add to this, we learnt about types of

documentaries. These use techniques such as fly on the wall and cinema verite which gives a sense of realism. Finding and watching examples of these types of documentaries has been useful to us because it allows us to see what techniques could be useful in our documentary and how would could put them to practice.

Technology

Throughout our research, we have used a variety of presentation tools. This is all posted on blogger.com, which uses embed links. Presentations tools that we have used include Prezi, an online timeline, SlideShare, Powtoon and emaze. These websites have allowed us to professionally present our research in an organised way by using the blog.

Teamwork

We feel that, as a team, we are really working together well. We are evenly spreading the work load so that everything we do is to a high, level four standard. To add to this, we are sometimes doing joint posts so that extra detail can be added.