Investigating Media
• Two hour exam – marked out of 80. If you have something to watch then there will be an added 15 minutes.
Read this earlier blog post for the exam breakdown. Click me!
You will be doing two case studies for Section B.
- Music with Miss Campbell
- Documentaries with Miss Hederer
So what is a documentary?
A movie or a television or radio programme that provides a factual record or report.
What does hybrid mean?
A thing made by combining two different elements; a mixture.
How else can documentaries be explained?
- They aim to document reality, attempting truthfulness in their depiction of people, places and events.
- However, the process of mediationmeans that it is impossible to re-present reality without constructing a narrative that may be fictional in places.
- Any images that are edited cannot claim to be wholly factual, they are the result of choices made by the photographer on the other end of the lens.
- Despite this, it is widely accepted that categories of media texts can be classed as non-fiction, that their aim is to reveal a version of reality that is less filtered and reconstructed than in a fiction text.
- Fiction texts = completely made up and scripted e.g. Eastenders.
- Documentaries are often constructed from a particular moral or political perspective, and cannot therefore claim to be objective.
- Other documentaries claim simply to record an event, although decisions made in post-production mean that actuality is edited, re-sequenced and artificially framed.
- The documentary genre has a range of purposes, from the simple selection and recording of events (a snapshot or unedited holiday video) to a polemic text that attempts to persuade the audience into a specific set of opinions (Bowling For Columbine). Audiences must identify that purpose early on and will therefore decode documentary texts differently to fictional narratives.
Voiceover
Interviews
Real footage of events
Technicality of realism (natural sound and lighting)
Archive footage/stills
Use of text/titles/date to anchor meanings
Non-diegetic sound
Set ups or reconstructions of events
Visual coding (mise en scene and props)
"Chill footage" - Following the subject around
Process footage - Filming the making of the documentary
In his 2001 book, Introduction to Documentary(Indiana University Press), Bill Nichols defines the following six modes of documentary:
| The Poetic Mode | 'reassembling fragments of the world', a transformation of historical material into a more abstract, lyrical form, usually associated with 1920s and modernist ideas |
| The Expository Mode | 'direct address', social issues assembled into an argumentative frame, mediated by a voice-of-God narration, associated with 1920s-1930s, and some of the rhetoric and polemic surrounding World War Two |
| The Observational Mode | as technology advanced by the 1960s and cameras became smaller and lighter, able to document life in a less intrusive manner, there is less control required over lighting etc, leaving the social actors free to act and the documentarists free to record without interacting with each other |
| The Participatory Mode | the encounter between film-maker and subject is recorded, as the film-maker actively engages with the situation they are documenting, asking questions of their subjects, sharing experiences with them. Heavily reliant on the honesty of witnesses |
| The Reflexive Mode | demonstrates consciousness of the process of reading documentary, and engages actively with the issues of realism and representation, acknowledging the presence of the viewer and the modality judgements they arrive at. Corresponds to critical theory of the 1980s |
| The Performative Mode | acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of documentary, and presents ideas as part of a context, having different meanings for different people, often autobiographical in nature |
See if you recognise any of these modes in documentaries you have seen! More on these modes later...
The best case studies will include:
1. A range of different media products from a range of media platforms
2. Detailed examples from particular media products.
3. Evidence of research into media debates and issues and relevant wider contexts.
4. Theory used to explain and support answers
Now to the fun bit... homework!
Choose a TV documentary to watch and answer/make notes on the following things:
Type of programme:
Channel it is broadcast on:
Topic of documentary:
Voiceover: Male or female? Regional accent or standard English? Famous person or celebrity/actor?
Talking to camera: Who talks directly to camera and why?
Talking off camera: Are questions asked by someone off camera? Does the person being questioned answer to the person off camera?
Vox pop: Does the programme include street interviews to get 'ordinary people's views'?
Interview: Is the person interviewed in a special setting? Are they filmed with dramatic lighting? Are their identities kept secret?
Literisation: Are words used on screen to give further information e.g. sub-titles, translations, dates, times, place names.
Music: Is music used to dramatise segments of the programme? To create suspense? A sense of tragedy? Humour? To fit a particular image?
Camera techniques: Fly on the wall? Hand-held? Following people around?
My documentary analysis
ReplyDeletehttp://susiebeckmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/documentary-analysis.html
Jessica Platts
ReplyDeletehttp://movies.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70242903&trkid=50000452
Frozen Planet, series 1 episode 1
• Type of programme: Documentary. The expository mode?
• Channel it is broadcast on: BBC
• Topic of documentary: The Antarctic and Artic, and their inhabitants.
• Voiceover: Male voiceover of David Attenborough and so a well-known celebrity for documentaries. He has an upper classed standard English accent.
• Talking to camera: Throughout the documentary there is no one who talks directly to the camera, David Attenborough narrates the whole thing off camera.
• Talking off camera: There are no questions asked it is simply the narrator talking and describing what is happening on screen.
• Vox pop: There are no interviews in the documentary and all the lighting is natural.
• Literisation: The only words on screen are at the beginning to state the episodes name and the narrator’s name.
• Music: The music is used to emphasize the magnificence of the environments on screen such as the flowing rivers. It is also used to add suspense and give the programme a sense of danger for example when it shows the polar bears fighting. It helps add a sense of magic to the natural beauty of the Antarctic and Artic. It adds a sense of excitement by making what appears on screen seem dramatic.
• Camera techniques: Many different techniques are used such as bird’s eye view and eye level angles. The images are speeded up to give a sense of time passing, for example it shows the sun passing through the day. It is also slowed down to see things such as birds flying so you can see much more clearly what is going on. The camera follows animals such as polar bears across the ice and follows rivers to see where they lead. There are still shots as well to show the animals moving around.
• This documentary has a technicality of realism as there is natural sounds and lighting throughout the programme.
Choose a TV documentary to watch and answer/make notes on the following things:
ReplyDeleteType of programme:
Channel it is broadcast on: C4
Topic of documentary: People with disabilities
Voiceover: Male or female? Regional accent or standard English? Famous person or celebrity/actor? Female RP accent.
Talking to camera: Who talks directly to camera and why? The main people of subject. They talk to the camera to explain themselves and their feelings etc.
Talking off camera: Are questions asked by someone off camera? Does the person being questioned answer to the person off camera? Sometimes you can hear someone questioning off camera and the person on camera answers.
Vox pop: Does the programme include street interviews to get 'ordinary people's views'? No, the programme does not interview members of the public.
Interview: Is the person interviewed in a special setting? Are they filmed with dramatic lighting? Are their identities kept secret?
It looks as if effects are used for the flashbacks so that you can tell that it's different from from the present day shots. Other than that, no over light altering effects are used.
Literisation: Are words used on screen to give further information e.g. sub-titles, translations, dates, times, place names.
Whenever a new person is introduced on screen as the main subject, an animated cupid appears in the bottom left hand corner and shoots an arrow that forms the persons name. Also, whenever there is a flashback, after the picture fades to the next clip a subtitle is used that states how long ago the flash back was. For example "One year ago". Another subtitle I have noticed is when the programme returns after an advert break and in the bottom left hand corner of the screen "#theundatables" appears referring to the social networking site Twitter and aiming to get the programme "trending".
Music: Is music used to dramatise segments of the programme? To create suspense? A sense of tragedy? Humour? To fit a particular image?
I don't know what instrument is used for the music but whenever the pace in the clip quickens, the speed of the music is faster as apposed to when the voiceover is explaining something and the music is much more slow paced and steadier.
Camera techniques: Fly on the wall? Hand-held? Following people around?
There are various different camera techniques used in the programme. A lot of handheld camera shots are used to give the documentary a more realistic feel so that you feel like you're really there watching it. There are also alt of different angles and distances used in the camera shots to show more than one view point.
Media: Sun sex and suspicious parents.
ReplyDeleteRussel Tovey is the voice over for the programme. He has a deep voice, and is very energetic when he talks. He almost acts overly enthusiastic making the audience excited and giving them a “partying” feel. Russel Tovey has a Standard English accent making him easy to understand to all people living within England, speaking English. He is not particular famous but does a very good job at being a voiceover.
The people on the programme that talk to the camera are the parents, sometimes the parent’s friend and the teenagers who are on the holiday. When the kids are talking to the camera they are normally very excited, drunk and normally doing embarrassing things. In the morning they always seem to regret what they have done and this is when the parents watch the footage. The parents are normally very disappointed with the children and the whole vibe changes in contrast to when the teenagers are on camera.
The programme does include occasional Vox pop. The camera crew interview random people on “the strip” and ask questions about whether or not they are enjoying the partying and endless drinking. Also occasional there is talking off the camera which is answered by the teenagers on the screen, but in this programme this is rare.
At the beginning the teenagers are filmed at their homes and in the places they live in. It all looks very homely and has a relaxed feel to it. The parents are interviewed with their kids and this gives the audience an idea of how the teenagers normally live, most of which are extremely spoilt.
There is non-diegetic music playing in the background. This music is always mainstream music, and played in the charts and is very upbeat creating a “partyish” feel. This music helps keep the programme running smoothly and keeps the audiences interest.
The camera shots used when filming the teenagers on the strip partying are always and hand held shots. This gives the audience more of an involved feeling and gives them something they can relate to, as it feels as if you are there due to being in the middle of everything that is going on. When the interviews are taking place the camera is held still and it is a lot more relaxed allowing the audience to focus more on what is being said during the interview.
Type of programme: Documentary
ReplyDeleteChannel it is broadcast on: Nat Geo HD
Topic of documentary: Doomsday Preppers
Voiceover: Male, standard English accent, famous actor Stephen Mangan
Talking to camera: The main people in the documentary, they’re explaining their preparations and describing how they do things.
Talking off camera: questions are asked off camera, you cannot hear the questions.
Vox pop: the programme does not include street interviews to get others opinions.
Interview: the people are filmed in their homes and in their ‘doomsday fortress’, their identities are not kept secret. The lighting is kept natural.
Literisation: no words are on screen as there is a clear narration.
Music: non-diegetic music is used to fit the mood, there is music to create suspense when talking about doomsday and there is also chilling music while showing guns and weapons.
Camera techniques: there is use of fly on the wall shots and chill footage, mostly hand held.