Research
what makes a documentary/documentary types
A documentary is a non-fiction film/video that contains factual information about a topic or historical event. A documentary would include interviews on people that were there during the event or have advanced knowledge of the topic that is being covered. There are lots of different types of documentaries that have different aims. For example, to educate, entertain or maintain a historical record. Normally a documentary can last up to 45 minutes to multiple hours, when documentaries where first created there were every short. The development of documentaries has come a long way and now there are multiple different modes of documentaries that are used to create a modern-day documentary.
Objective documentary, this is a documentary that shares all the facts and is not biassed. These would normally be nature-based documentaries because they are easy to do and only contain facts with no personal opinion.
Subjective documentary, a subjective documentary is all based on personal opinion. These documentaries are biassed on the topic they are covering.
Mockumentary, A film that is created in a way that looks and feels realistic. Mockumentaries would use something called satire, this is making fun of the subject matter for entertainment. Examples of this would include Borat/Ali G, American Vandal, The Office and many more popular shows and movies.
Poetic documentary, one of the rarest documentary types out there. They have no dialog and leave the views to their thoughts so they view and interpret the documentary in their own unique way. Examples of this documentary type include, Koyaanisqatsi and World Mirror Cinema.
Expository documentary, this type of documentary uses a narrator to help get the viewer the information about the topic that is being covered. They also include archive footage and b-rolls (b-rolls are extra footage to help provide context for the viewers that may not understand). Example of this documentary type include, March of the Penguins and City of Gold
Observational documentary, this type of documentary is normally used by influencers to show their fans their life. These documentaries would have long takes, handheld shots and less voice overs. Examples of this documentary type include, The Dog House and Our Yorkshire Farm
Biographical documentary, this type of documentary is normally looking back on people's lives and what they have done or a historical event. Examples of this documentary type include, Everybody's Everything and Dolly Parton: Here I Am
Participatory documentary, this type of documentary has the film maker involved within the film/documentary, the documentary shows the film maker interacting with the specific subject. Examples of this documentary type include, Bowling for Columbine and Roger & Me both created by Michael Moore
Why Do Documentaries Have Interviews
In documentary interviews are very useful and are the key to a good documentary. This is because interviews help progress the narrative. Interviews can be shot in many different ways to convey something specific. For example, the producer can include themselves in the documentary so they could shoot the interviews in a way when the interviewee asked a question the camera could cut to them. Other examples could include the camera being on the interviewee 100% of the time. The interviewee helps progress the narrative by giving an information of the event if they were there or the interviewee may have advance knowledge of the event/topic the documentary is covering.
People I plan on interviewing for my FMP documentary - Nicholas Brewer, Samuel Instone, Kelly (my next door neighbour)
Formal email practice
Dear Samuel Instone,
I am writing to you to ask for an interview. I am currently studying media at Bracknell and Wokingham college. My current project is to create a documentary and I have chosen to do my documentary on teaching. I believe you and other teachers would be good to interview for my documentary. I will ask a wide range of questions like how you became a teacher as an example of a possible question I could ask. As a student that left Garth hill college in 2019, I believe that some teachers may remember me. I would like to get their interviews done before next month or at the start of the next month.
regards,
Samuel Latter
The Evolution of Titling
The opening title is very important for a tv show or documentary. Opening titles have come a long way for the 80s. In the 80s a title screen would include b-roles and showing the views of what actors are starring within that tv show. Comparing the 80s titles to modern day titles there is a massive difference with the evolution of things like CGI and computer-generated locations. This has made opening titles more of a functioning piece of art rather than something that just shows the actors that are starring in the tv show. Below is an example video that show the difference for the 80s titles to the modern-day titles.
Some reasons why the 80s titles were so lacklustre compared to the modern-day titles are, there is no footage from the show giving the viewers very minimal information for what the show actually is about. Some shows have a very long opening for their title, in some cases the music that played over would restart and play more than once making the title repetitive and boring for the viewers. Here is a quote from Patrick Clair that explains a title sequence in a very good way. This quote explains a title sequence like it is the gateway into another would that would be your movie, Tv show or documentary.
Documentary Analysis
Research Evaluation
Documentary Style Research
Documentaries that are the same topic, a documentary that I looked into that relate to my topic is Educating Greater Manchester (on YouTube). This documentary show is a fly on the wall style of documentary. while I cannot do a documentary similar to that I can have similar style interviews. Within the show the interviews work very well. This is because the interviews have the interviewees talking about their personal lives and how specific things affected them. I think this works very well because it shows that the teachers just want the best for the students at their school. This is what I want to achieve in my documentary, it shows a little part of the people's personal life giving the viewers something to relate to and understand what the student or teacher is feeling back they may have gone through something similar before. Looking at school related documentaries has given me some insight to how I can do my documentary and achieve my goal of talking to the teachers about their teaching life's and how it has changed them. Below is an example of what style of documentary I would like to complete, because I am limited with some things, I will not be able to get the establishing shot that this documentary has.
The most important thing I can identify from this documentary style is asking the right questions to the interviewees. This is really important because asking the important questions will elevate my documentary, by letting the viewers understand the details of why these teachers chose to become teachers. Overall, what kept me interested was the interviews with all the people involved
Another documentary I looked into is "The Cult in a Boarding School". While this documentary is not about teaching it is still about boarding schools and how some students were treated in the school. This documentary has no interview and heavily relies on archive footage and animations. The narrative is very dark and talks a lot about how mistreated the students and what they have to do when they were told off for doing something wrong. While I do not intend on taking the same approach that this documentary did, I believe it shows that any topic can be taken a dark way and made into somewhat of a horror movie that has a narration throughout the film. The main takeaway I get from this documentary is how well structured it is and how well the animations are used to help tell the story of something terrible. While I will not have a long voice over this documentary helps me understand what style of tone I will need to narrate my documentary well. Overall, what kept me interested was how well the tone of voice fitted the story and how well the animations are used.
This documentary is very similar to Educating Greater Manchester but has a different concept. The idea of the documentary is seeing how public-school students react in a private school environment. The documentary has well shot interviews that are used at the right times, this helps answer the main question of the documentary. What interests me in this documentary is all the footage that is used, while I am not doing a fly on the wall type documentary this documentary does it well. Another thing that interests me is when the interviews are used in the documentary, right after a class or activity is done it goes straight onto the interviews with them being asked how they felt and if they enjoyed it. Overall, I want to achieve something similar in structure but it will be a challenge because it will be hard getting footage within class rooms or teachers working.
Articles Research
These are the three different articles I have looked into. These articles will help me create the voice over for my documentary. This is because the articles have stats in them, I will reference these stats in my voice over giving as much information to the views within the first minute. Some stats mentioned are "44% of teachers in England plan to quit within five years", "63% maintained that schools felt unprepared for delivering online lessons" and "40-50% of those starting their careers quit the job during the first 5 years, which costs US schools 2.2 billion US Dollars a year". These quotes from the articles will be key for my voice over. The first article is about the percentage of teachers quitting within the first couple of years. The second article is about the impact of remote learning. The final article is about stress and psychobiological approach to stressful interactions in the classroom.
With my survey I did not get as many responses as I wanted to get. However I did get two responses and both of those responses were very good and had detailed answers. From this research I can understand that some teachers think about quitting during the teacher training process. Also, I learnt that teachers struggle to deal with students that have no motivation to do the work. Both the responses I got were from two teachers that were teaching for 11+ years. This research helps me understand the teachers perspective and will help me finalise my script for my documentary.