Understanding codes and conventions of factual programming for television Ethan McLaughlin

Documentary

Expository These types of documentaries are speaking directly to the viewer. A technique called the “Voice of God” is used in these types of documentaries, which gives a strong, authoritative and persuading tone of voice. These types are usually objective, simply telling the viewer what and why something is happening. Example: The works of David Attenborough and Neil Degrasse Tyson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA5JqcNpLTw

Observational These documentaries simply show the audience everyday with without much interference. Observational documentaries do not have any interviews or voice overs, the subjects within these stories act like they are unaware they are being filmed and just go along with their life.

Interactive These types of documentaries have the creators interact with the people or events they are filming. They usually use lots of archive footages- news video, newspaper, headlines etc. These also has voiceover but it is typically the filmmaker. The documentary “Biggie and Tupac” is an interactive documentary

Performative This type is when the creator gets involved in the documentary, being the main subject and also tells the audience the truths on the subject in hand. Typically these types of documentaries are very personal to the creator. The subject matter of performative documentaries are often to do with identify like gender or sexuality

Reflexive These documentaries attempt to make the viewer understand different perspectives of a given topic, they can sometimes be about very controversial topics and they usually try to get an emotional response out of the viewer. An example of a reflexive documentary would be the “The Swenka’s” has some reflexive elements in it.

Realism, Dramatization, Narrativisation Realism: This is how realistic and accurate the events being portrayed in the documentary are. Dramatization: This is when certain things like events or scenarios are recreated in the documentary, as the name implies they add drama to the documentary Narrativisation: This is simply how the story of the documentary is told