Task 2 - Main Documentary ideas - Shenay/Topics brainstorm- Grace

Post 10- Doc Ideas

Topics Brainstorm

Update/Reflection

Post 9- Grace

post 2- this is useful because it gives us a clear outline to the task so we have a structure to follow and we know what we have to complete by the end of it.

post 3- completing task 3 expanded our knowledge into documentaries, from this we are now aware of the origins of documentaries, the purpose of documentaries and theories behind them.  This made us aware that we needed to create a documentary that would inform and educate our audience by providing 2 sides to the arguments we portrayed.

post 4- from completing post 4 we had a better understanding of the different documentaries that there is.  this helped us to choose what type of documentary we wanted to follow.  From this we chose to do a mixed documentary. 

post 5- from researching the narrative theorists we chose to follow Claude Levi- Shrauss narrative theory on the concept of binary oppositions as we wanted to show the good vs evil of our topic social media.

post 7- from completing this post we expanded our knowledge of documentary conventions which will allow us to make a more professional documentary for example we will include both voxpop interviews and expert interviews. 

post 8- from creating post 8 and looking into the different modes of a documentary we have decided to follow certain elements of  Expository Documentaries as we're using a voice over to speak directly to the audience however we are looking to portray two sides of an argument surrounding social media rather than proposing a strong argument or point of view to the audience

Post 8 - Modes of Documentaries Adrianne

1) Poetic Documentaries
First appearing in the 1920’s, poetic documentaries were a sort of reaction against both the content and the rapidly solidifying grammar of the early fiction film. The poetic mode moved away from continuity editing and instead organized images of the material world by means of associations and patterns, both in terms of time and space. Below is an example of a short poetic documentary.

2) Expository Documentaries

Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of view. These films are rhetorical, and try to persuade the viewer. Below is an example of an expository documentary; an extract from an episode of David Attenborough's 'Blue Planet'.

 

3) Observational Documentaries

Observational documentaries attempt to simply and spontaneously observe lived life with a minimum of intervention. Filmmakers who worked in this sub-genre often saw the poetic mode as too abstract and the expository mode as too educative. The first observational docs date back to the 1960’s; the technological developments which made them possible include mobile lightweight cameras and portable sound recording equipment for synchronised sound. Below is a clip from 'Public Housing' by Frederick Wiseman who was famous for these types of documentaries. 
 

 

4) Participatory Documentaries

Participatory documentaries believe that it is impossible for the act of filmmaking to not influence or alter the events being filmed. What these films do is emulate the approach of the anthropologist: participant-observation. Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we also get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by her presence. Below is the trailer from an interesting participatory documentary which I have seen called Catfish. 
 

5) Reflexive Documentaries

Reflexive documentaries don’t see themselves as a transparent window on the world; instead they draw attention to their own constructedness, and the fact that they are representations. How does the world get represented by documentary films? This question is central to this sub-genre of films. They prompt us to “question the authenticity of documentary in general.” It is the most self-conscious of all the modes, and is highly sceptical of ‘realism.’ Below is a short reflexive documentary about the road.
 

6) Performative Documentaries

Performative documentaries stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world. They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental, and might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our own. Below is a performative documentary called 'The Confessional'.
 

Audience Profiles - Shenay

Audience Research - Adrianne

Post 7- Documentary Conventions - shenay

Now that we have researched the conventions of a documentary we have a clear idea of the things we have to include in order to make our documentary realistic and believable to our audience. for example we are going to include both expert interviews and Vox pop to get across different types of opinions, we are also now aware of visual coding, so we will make sure that when we go to film someone that the miss en scene fits in with what we are talking about or who we are talking to. we are also aware of the types of background music as its used to create a particular feeling within the audience.  Its also become clear of the things we will not include such as reconstruction as we feel this will not fit in with the type of documentary we want to make.

Media Theories

Gatekeeping - This is the selection and rejection of information for inclusion in the text. Gatekeeping was introduced by a man called Kurt Lewin in 1947. He was born in Germany and was a pioneer is social psychology. Gatekeeping is a process he dreamed up of which basically meant when unwanted or useless things were blocked out by a gate. This theory was first used mainly in the field of psychology but now it is one of the essential theories in communications studies.


Construction of Reality

This is by editing and gatekeeping media producers construct and artificial pictures of reality.

Post 6 – narrative structure in our documentary - Grace

Post 6 – narrative structure in our documentary 

We have chosen to follow an open narrative structure for our A2 media documentary. We have chosen to follow this structure as throughout our documentary we will be gathering the thoughts and opinions of members of the public, target audience age and experts – psychology teachers. This will provide more than one view and argument on our topic of social media. We intend on our documentary being informative and investigative, we want to bring up issues surrounding the topic and present the different views. We hope that the way we present the different views of social media will cause the viewers to think about the views and opinions on the documentary topic. Our aim is to leave the documentary open so that the viewers can draw their own conclusions at the end instead of following the conclusions that we will present from other people. Due to the use of several different people we will be gathering a lot of  information as we intend on following theorist Claude Levi- shraus'  idea of binary oppositions, showing good vs evil. For example we will look at social media in a good way, with positives as well as  showing the bad side of social media this will allow our target audience to make their own opinions on the topic. 

Post 5b - Narritive Theorist - Grace

Post 5a - Narrative Structures Adrianne

Narrative Structure

Narrative structure

The way in which a storyline or tread is put together.

Each media product, whether it is fictional or non-fictional is organized according to one of the following narrative structures, depending on the arrangement of content or in the case of a story, the order in which it unfolds:

·    Open

·    Closed

·    Multi-strand

·    Single-Strand

·    Linear

·    Non-linear

·    Circular

Open Narratives

An open narrative structure leaves matters unresolved at the end, with more content to follow.

Closed Narratives

A closed narrative is one in which the key issues are solved at the end.

Multi-strand Narratives

This is typically used by soap operas and long running serials, which do not use the more conventional approach of beginning/middle/ending, because several storylines run at the same time, some ending whilst others are just beginning.

The most important thing to understand is that there is no obvious end point to the story (where audiences could stop following without missing anything). This keeps people coming back to see what happens next.

Single-Strand Narrative  

There is only one narrative thread, for example it only follows the life of one person this is how most documentaries are structured. 

Linear Narratives

This is organized in a simple sequence of:

Beginning Middle Ending

The story is usually chronological (following the actual sequence of events in time, not moving around with flashbacks and flash forwards).

This type of narrative could be plotted on paper along a straight line (hence linear).

Non-linear Narratives

This is more complicated than just beginning, middle, end. A story with flashbacks and/or flash- forwards such as TV series Lost is classed as non-linear as it will break from the current timeline to show something in the past/future.

There are some media products that are simply not meant to be followed from start to finish.

These products are designed for dipping into from any chosen point.

Circular Narrative

The circular narrative style, in its simplest form, may end at the point where it had begun. It combines the conventional plot structure.

We are going to be following open narrative as we want to create a documentary which shows both the positive and negative effects social media has on us therefore we want our audience to make up their own mind, based on what we have shown them.Now that we are aware of this it has made us more conscious of the opinions we are showing, for example we don't want too focus too much on the negative or the positives we have to make it as balanced as possible so that it is unbiased and the audience are able to draw their own conclusions.

Post 4 - The Types of Documentaries Adrianne

Now that we have looked at the different types of documentaries, we are more aware of what type of documentary we want to make, for example we want to create a fully narrated documentary but also want to have archival footage so our documentary will be mixed. Its helped us as we are now aware of typical conventions in different types of documentaries and it will allow us to be more specific, for example, there is usually a voice of god narration which we are going to include in our documentary. 

Post 3- Documentary Style - Shenay

John Grierson came up with the term documentary in 1926.  A documentary presents information about factual topics and real life events; they can be recordings of important events and ideas or can be created in order to make a point about a social issue.  A documentary provides the audience with an insight into a topic they may not know about.  They have clear codes and conventions; traditionally documentaries follow a beginning middle and end structure. First the question will be proposed and the camera will move straight into some action or quick vox pop interviews. Throughout the documentary the conflicting arguments become heightened and there are a range of different opinions and evidence so that by the end of the documentary the conflict is resolved and there is no doubt for the audience. However some documentaries present the audience with many opinions so that by the end they are able to come up with their own opinion.

Documentaries were originally influenced by a style called direct cinema which came about in the 1960s.  It was very much a 1960s counter culture movement where there were no interviews or rehearsals before filming there was  also no lighting, staged events  or commentary. They were made on lightweight portable 16mm cameras and light weight audio recording equipment. Direct cinema lead to observational documentary styles i.e. ‘Fly on the wall’ which is now a popular genre in modern documentary style.  Today the audience has more choice because of audience fragmentation  due to both digital and satellite television.  From narrow casting there are now channels devoted specifically to documentaries such as Natural History.

A documentaries main purpose will be to inform and educate, they will have two sides to the story in order convey two opinions and enable the audience to make a decision for themselves.  The idea of their being two sides the the story will guide us in our documentary to portray two sides to the topic of our documentary.  However documentary style films are still under debate as to how ‘real’ they can be. Therefore there are many different theories on what a documentary really is.

One theory by Steven Barnett’s is called Disney Fiction. He believes that documentaries have been ‘dumbed down’ in order for TV stations to win ratings, and this has resulted in non-serious documentaries which are much cheaper to make. He believes that they are not focused on informing or educating their audience but are only interested in their ratings.

Post 2- Breif - Grace

We were given brief on what we had to produce for our A2 coursework. 
For our coursework we have to produce the opening 5 minutes of a documentary researched, planned and created ourselves.  The maximum number of marks we can achieve for the 5 minute documentary is 40. As well as producing the 5 minute opening documentary we will also produce a radio trailer where we could achieve a maximum of 10 marks and a double page spread magazine listing for our documentary which also has a maximum of 10 marks to achieve. 
Our research and planning and our evaluation can get a maximum of 20 marks each, all of which will be submitted electronically onto our blog which we will be using to record all of our work.
Throughout the research and planning, the production and the evaluation we will be keeping a diary to record our progress. The awareness of the structure for the task will help us organise our research and planning.  This recognition ensures we know where our marks will be awarded throughout the task.

Post 1- Introduction

Hi, we are Grace, Shenay and Adrianne.  We are A2 media students, this blog is going to be for our documentary.