Narrative structure of documentaries

Open Narrative Structure - There are questions left unanswered at the end e.g. documentaires on assisted suicide. this allows the audience to make their own minds up about the issue.

Closed Narrative Structure - There are no loose ends, everything is tied up at the end, there is a definate ending to there documentaries. e.g. a documentary on the 9/11 bombings.

A documentary cannot be both open and closed.

Linear Narrative Structure - The documentary is in chronological order, the events and shots in the programme occur in the order that they did in real life, e.g. a documentary on the 9/11 bombings

Non Linear Narrative Structure - There is no chronological order, time is disrupted in some way by using  flashbacks to take the audience back in time for example.

Documentaries cannot be both linear and non linear.

Multistrand Narrative - There is more than one narrative thread in the same programme, these may over lap at the end of the programme, e.g. one born every minute.

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. 

A documentary cannot be both multi and single strand narrative.

Circular Narrative Structure - At the start a question is asked, the narrative explores the question then returns to it at the end e.g. born to be different

How?

Visuals - Television is a visual medium, the programme needs to be visually stimulating and maintain the audiences interest.

Archive Material - This would include stock footage e.g. street scenes, historical footage or film extracts.

Interviews - The most important part of a documentary, the narrative is shown though the interviews, they can be held anywhere but the mis en scene is important when relating to the topic or interview. The framing is impprtant and must always be correct so in an interview the intervewee is always sat on the left or right hand side of the shot, the interviewer always stands the opposite side to the intervewee.

Vox Pops - 'Voice of the People', normally one question is asked to a number of people then the most interesting answers are choosen, this gives a good cross section of people.

Voice Over - This can effect and alter the meaning of the clips shown with it, it anchors the meaning of the visuals and the voice over acts as the glue holding the narrative together.

Theories

Gate Keeping - This is the selection and rejection of information that will be presented in the programme, many interviews will be filmed but only the most entertaining or important interviews will be put in the final programme.

Construction of reality - by editing and gate keeping we produce constructed and artifical picture of reality.

Different types of documentaries.

Fully Narrated - off voice screen voice over is used to make sense of the visuals and dominate thier meaning, e.g. natural history documnetaries. The narrator always seems authoritative,"voice of god" also foley artists add artifical sounds such as footsteps.

Mixed Narrated - These use a combination of interview, observation and narration to advance the argument.

Fly on the wall - The camera is "unseen" or "ignored" and it simply records reak events. e.g. the family. There is often no narration and leave the audience to make their own conclusions.

Self Reflective - When the subjects of the documentary aknowledges the presence of the camera and often speaks directly to the camera man or documentary maker, this does not normally mean the presenter, it gives the impression that they are speaking directly to the viewer of the documentary.

Docusoap - This is a relatively new subgenre which began in the late 80's, these documentaries follow the lives of individuals usually with designated occupations e.g. 'Airline'

Docudrama - This is a renactment of events as though they have just happened e.g. a reconstruction of crimes on the programme 'Crime Watch'. 'The Only Way Is Essex' and 'The Hills' are examples of a docusoap but taken to the next level, they are scripted. This blurrs the line between the documentary genre and the soap genre.

Documentary Genre

John Grierson came up with the term documentary in 1926.

• a documentary is documenting something that has happpened
• they provide the audience with an insight into a topic they may not know about. They inform and edcucate.
• this must be done in an entertaining way to substaine the interest of the audience because they now have more choice due to audience fragmentation because of digital television.
• there are specific channels created for documantaries such as discovery channel which is an example of audience fragmentation.

A2 Coursework

My coursework involves me working in a group of 3 to produce a 5 minute extract from a TV documentary programme, a radio trailer to promote the documentary and also a newspaper advert to advertise the programme.