Codes and Conventions of documentaries

Codes and Conventions of Documentaries

⦁ Documentaries have to be fully truthful and non bias, this is because they are from a neutral perspective         and can't favor any side of the story.
⦁ Documentaries are based on reality
⦁ Needs evidence to back up points
⦁ Reconstructions need to be as close to the real thing as possible
⦁ A documentary always uses either a narrator or a presenter

Types of Documentaries

Observation means that the audience feel almost as if they actually viewed the events occurred within the documentary.

Interviews are extremely common in documentaries and often follow the rule of thirds, meaning that the interviewee is framed on one side of the camera, as if the frame was split into thirds.

When the audience aren't able to see the original footage of an event for various reasons, therefore a reconstruction is put in place making it viewable to the audience, this is called Dramatisation.

Mise En Scene is used to add excitement and emotion to the documentary and should always be relevant to the discussed topic.

When the commentary of the documentary and the description of the documentary are used together it is called the exposition.