CODES AND CONVENTIONS

OF A DOCUMENTARY

THE VOICEOVERThe voiceover tends to be authoritative, as they want us to believe what they are saying and see it as the complete truth. The person often presenting the documentary can quite often be a specialist in topic they are talking about. Think of people such as Michael Moore, he presents documentary based on American issues such as the American gun culture etc. British people will often believe and go along with the majority of topical issues he talks about. Another example is Louis Theroux, he and Michael Moore are the type of people you will watch and hear them talk about certain issues; they are seen as having ‘the right opinions’ people should listen to.

REAL FOOTAGE OF EVENTS

Documentarians often go out of their way to make sure all footage in a documentary is or looks as authentic as possible. They can often get footage and make it seem or look more surreal due to factors such as editing and voiceovers, it can often affect the reality we see.

6 MODES OF DOCUMENTARY (BILL NICHOLS) • Participatory: This documentary consists of the documentary maker being

in front of the camera, and they often provide the voiceover throughout the documentary.

• Observational: This type of documentary often only uses one camera throughout production. They very rarely do any interviews and include any voiceovers. They only often do location shooting.

• Reflexive: This type of documentary is often based on suggestions and opinions rather than facts.

• Performative: This documentary is often based on emotion, where the documentary maker / crew get involved with the subject.

• Expository: In this type of documentary they often don’t follow specific conventions, they use voiceovers and addresses the audience directly and gathers a variety of material to support the argument.

INTERVIEWS WITH EXPERTS

In documentaries they often interview experts on the topic they are focusing the documentary on, they will do this to get their expert views, however quite often the presenter of the documentary will find a way to disprove them. For example, Michael Moore in his documentary on gun violence in America; he interviews Charlton Heston to speak about the gun laws to get his ‘expert views’, however he goes on to disprove his idea’s and how the National Rifle Association is insensitive towards the victims of gun violence.

STRUCTURE OF THE DOCUMENTARYDocumentaries are the same as TV shows or Films in the way they have go in the format of equilibrium-disruption-equilibrium. I.E. we are introduced to the to the topic of the documentary, we then see the in depth analysis and research of the problem they are figuring out, and by the end we have often resolved the solution and come to a conclusion. • Flashbacks – These are often used, so the presenter may be talking about a

certain event that has occurred and there will be some B footage of the incident that happened, whilst you can still hear the presenter talking about the issue.

• Open Endings – In a documentary there can’t always be an official conclusion due to certain factors, you can’t always find the answers to the topic you are investigating.

• Closed Endings – This links in with Todorov’s theory, in the documentary they may have received all the information they need to make decisive conclusion on the question they are answering.