Factual production essay There are a number of different kinds of factual TV programs such as Chat shows in which a host who is a celebrity in his own right interviews another celebrity in a live television studio often for promotional reasons like The Jonathan Ross show, Talk shows such as The Jeremy Kyle show in which an interviewer often interviews a member of the public in a more interactive studio setting opposed to the one on one nature of chat shows, Reality TV programs in which a number of minor celebrities are put into a constructed concept of living in an unusual environment which is filmed live and edited for TV which often feature interactive elements such as vote outs that include the TV viewing audience for example the I’m celebrity get me out of here in which a group of celebrities are put in the jungle with one getting voted out each week, magazine shows in which a regular group of hosts review products and news items for a specific audience often featuring a mix of in studio, on location, pre recorded segments and interviews such as Top Gear that is a car review show, Panel shows in which often a two panels of comedians are asked question by a host to which they use to generate comedy in front of a live studio audience such as Mock the Week, TV news programs in which a news reader will anchor the show by speak straight to camera often in a formal studio setting, incorporating on location shooting, in studio interviews and pre recorded news reports and documentaries which are explorations of a topic, event or an issue for which elements depending on whether they fall into the subgenre of observational, expository and interactive such as Bowling For Columbine. Documentaries can either be access online on TV websites like BBC I player, illegal torrents sites such as Pirate Bay, on DVD, in cinema or on TV. In my essay I will be focusing on the sub genres documentary and TV news programs and the conventions that shape them for example the elements of TV news shows such as who presents the shows, where they’re shot for example the TV studio, if they feature on location footage, the soundtrack, the on screen iconography such as rolling text, camerawork that is commonly used such as the mid shot ect. I will also be looking into the conventions of documentary such as voice over, use of archive footage, interviews, use of editing and the modes documentary breaks down into such as Interactive, Expository and Observational. There a certain issues documentary makers need to address when making a documentary such as bias, objectivity and impartiality. Documentaries are meant factual production so they have a responsibility to be unbiased, objective, balanced and accurate because if they aren’t then the audience won’t get a true representation of the truth are might encounter legal issues such as slander. However the very nature of documentary gives it a certain subjective bias as documentary is someone’s or a group of people’s representation of an event, topic or story which is made up of footage which has been edited to fit the running time of the documentary. Furthermore documentaries usually contain the traditional elements and structure of storytelling such as beginning, middle and end. Bowling for Columbine and Tattoo Tears are too both very different documentaries. Bowling for Columbine is an interactive documentary and Tattoo Tears is an observational documentary. Tattoo Tears takes more of an impartial stance on their subject matter which is a young offenders institute in America, where as Bowling for Columbine takes more of a bias stance on it’s issue of Gun
Crime in America. You can see this from the elliptical editing in scene of the film when Michael Moore gets the gun from the bank. In the film you see Michael Moore asks for an account which hands gives him the free gun, then it cuts to him filling out a simple form and then it cuts to him holding the gun. The process might have been more complicated and not as quick and easy as he has made it out to be by cutting out all of what happens in between. For example he edited down the part where he had to sign a form to take up no more than 30 seconds when it took a longer time in reality. It actually took until the next day for him to get that gun as it had to be shipped in from where it was stored. There was also lots more forms and checks he had to go through before he got the gun such as sending off his gun license. But when we watch the film version of events it looked like he got the gun the same day he walked in. Where as there isn’t as much editing in Tattoo Tears, it employs more long duration shots that simply allow the audience to observe. In the scene where one inmate is asking another inmate in his cell about how he got into this young offenders institute it only employs three camera shots for the whole minute and a half conversation, which are the long shot from behind the offender speaking into the door, a medium close up of the same offenders face from a different angle followed by a close up of the cell door where you can see the inmate behind the door talking passionately. This means that Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill the makers of this documentary, can make a piece of work that is more impartial to it’s subject matter. By editing you are talking things out of the course of events and less you do of this the more a film can take an objective view of it’s subject matter because the audience is not as restricted by what they can see and are therefore less likely to have a distorted opinion on the subject matter. Bowling for Columbine also uses intellectual montage editing to create meaning for example in the opening sequence a graphic match was used between a shot of the statue of liberty and another piece of archive footage in which a woman wearing a bikini holding a gun presumably for an advert. This sequencing of shots criticises this typical perception of American liberty. The reason Bowling for Columbine was so bias and subjective was because it was very much the visions of one man Michael Moore who is definitely an auteur. He wrote, directed, produced, researched, voiced and starred in this documentary. Tattoo Tears only used diegetic sound whereas Bowling for Columbine had Michael Moore’s voice over as well as theme music. This means Tattoo Tears was going to be more impartial towards its subject as it isn’t guiding the audience it’s letting the audience observe. Michael Moore made this film with the set intention of criticising gun use in America, it already took a stance, it’s designed to prove a viewpoint whereas Tattoo Tears is just documenting independent of a stance. Michael Moore narrates what we see, with sound illustrating his words in parts for example when patriotic brass band American music plays he says in the voice over ‘the president has bombed another country we couldn’t pronounce’ this is clearly taking a critical view of American foreign policy it’s not opening up foreign policy to be criticised. In the previously mentioned conversation with the inmate in Tattoo tears there is only the sounds that were recorded when filming took place. Furthermore the sound wasn’t even edited it was used as a sound bridge to guide one shot into the next. There are many conventions and elements that make up a news program and it’s these and their usage which gives their TV news program their representation. The news program, which I’m using to display this, is News at 10, which is a hard news program. TV news programs in this country are meant to be unbias and
independent of political parties, which contrasts with this countries press. You could argue that this news program isn’t completely unbias as they report on David Cameron’s economic stance but don’t report on the economic stance of any other opposition parties. The presenter in this clip is Hue Edwards; he speaks with a formal accent in a deep tone devoid of any emotion. He must simply read the autocue and portray an impartial part of view, no matter how he is personally feeling he must not give a subjective reading of the news. He speaks in this deep authoritative tone because he needs to come across as strong and sure of what he is saying, as it’s from him that people receive information about current events so if he doesn’t appear to be sure of what he’s saying the audience won’t either. Furthermore he dresses in a smart suit so he is a figure the audience respect and take seriously. He also stands up with both legs open throughout the whole of the headlines and even into the first news item so he can show authority and firmness. Body language is a very important factor of mise en scene. If he at any point closes his legs together or puts his hands in his pockets he will compromise his position as an omniscient authority. Another important aspect of the mise en scene is the setting for which the news is being read. In this instance a big high tech studio has been used, equipt with back screen a projector on it’s wall to the right of Hue Edwards to visually illustrate what Hue Edwards is talking about. There is a lot of unused space on the stage, there is simply a desk and chair, this is so the show doesn’t look to cluttered and unorganized and have the effect of putting off the audience. The colour scheme of this set is black and white, which are complimentary colours, which set a serious dramatic tone for the program. This is also added to by the translucent window behind the news presenter which allows the audience to see researchers and other crew members at work, so the audience thinks that they are people are constantly working 24 hours a day to bring them the news. The studio being so high tech and well lite also makes the show more attractive to the audience and achieve high production values. Another reason for them using such a big studio for a show that requires relatively little space to film the program, is so they can achieve sophisticated more complex camera angles such as the craning shot that appears at the start of the first news item. This program like many news programs features heavy use of the mid shot. Often news presenters sit down to behind a desk to read the news so a mid shot is the best way of capturing the presenters upper body without including the table to much which may also distract the audience. However in this news program the presenter is standing up, the reason a mid shot is often used here to put emphasis on the presenter’s upper body, which also gives his words more emphasis. This news program employs very fast quick cutting throughout the headlines to build drama and a sense of urgency, and helps to create the atmosphere of breaking news. They use flash dissolve to transition between the actuality footage to make the cuts between the footage and the in studio recording flow smoothly, however they use quick flash dissolves to retain this sense of urgency. The flash dissolve is employed frequently by TV news programs for this exact reason. Soundtrack in this TV program like most news programs is used to combine with the editing, mise en scene and camerawork to create this same sense of urgency and the mood of breaking news. The high volume of the soundtrack adds creates
drama and urgency, it’s so loud the news present seem to have to shout over it to get his voice heard, which grabs the audience’s attention. The soundtrack used features tympani drums and a heavy baseline to further create this frantic mood of urgency and drama. The heart monitor sound effect also adds to this and it may also be there to suggest that the BBC has it’s heart on the pulse. When audience’s see these conventions used together they know what they’re watching is serious and has just happened. However there are other TV news programs which have very different representations as they are aimed at different target audiences, for example News at 10 is aimed at older more grown up reformist audience so it features more serious, depressing news stories such as the cricket players who have been banned for cheating whereas Newsround and 60 seconds are aimed at relatively younger more mainstream audiences so they feature less serious news stories in comparison as their audience will be more likely to find serious complex stories boring and depressing so a majority of their stories are less serious and carry less world significance for example there is a news story about a man who photographs the inside of waves. News at 10, 60 seconds and news round are very different variations of a news program who present themselves very differently as they’re aimed at very different audiences. 60 seconds and Newsround are very informal news programs compared to the News at 10, which is a very formal and serious news programs as it’s classified as hard news where as the other two are classified as soft News. Their approach to presenting the news massively differs, News at 10 features an older more experienced newsreader wearing a suit and tie while speaking in a formal upper class accent standing with his legs closed staring at the audience whereas Newsround and 60 seconds both feature younger presenters who are dressed casually, the news round presenter wears an unbuttoned flannel shirt and the 60 seconds presenter wears a black going out shirt also with the first few buttons left unbuttoned. Both the Newsround and 60 seconds presenters are also speaking in a less formal tone of voice to create more of a relaxed atmosphere not formal and serious like the News at presenter who speaks in a very serious tone, the Newsround presenter is even sitting down which even more significantly suggests a casual relaxed manor. The News at 10 presenter Hue Edwards wears a suit to present himself as impartial as well as an authority figure as black is a serious and impartial bland colour. The Newsround and 60 presenters try to build a rapport with the audience by using indirect language that sets out a conversational tone with the audience for example in news round the presenter says ‘another great episode of being human’, he makes a reference to the audience viewing habits so he can build more of a personal friendly relationship with the audience. He also uses opinion here which is something Hue Edwards doesn’t do as he must remain objective because if the audience is influenced on their viewpoint towards the issues in a news at 10 broadcast the consequences could be far worse than if the people’s opinions of a TV show were influenced. The Newsround and 60 seconds presenters also open their broadcasts by introducing themselves while smiling intently for example on Newsround the presenter says ‘hello I’m Ricky’ they do this to try to create a friendly interpersonal relationship with the viewer whereas Hue Edwards doesn’t smile or introduce himself, he just looks straight ahead at the autocue and reads out the news stories. He tries to put as little of his personality into the broadcast as possible as the serious political issues such as
the tory conference must be reported with impartiality. Hue Edwards also wants to come across as an authority figure, which is why he wears a suit, doesn’t try to make friends with the audience and speaks in a formal tone compared to the relatively informal tone of the 60 seconds and Newsround presenters. News at 10 is aimed at an older reformist and succeeder audience for predominantly the C2 to A who are likely to be very interested in politics and current events therefore News at 10 must be as impartial and as accurate as possible as they likely to deal with more serious issues of more importance and significance to the audience’s lives. News at 10 has a very different intention to the other two programs as its intention their intention is to entertain whereas News as 10 is to inform. 60 seconds is aimed at a younger mainstream audience aged predominately 16 to 25 from the E to D class where as Newsround is aimed at an even younger audience from 8 to 15 who might be of the D2 to B class. The audience who watch Newsround and 60 seconds are unlikely to be watching the channel specifically for those news programs. They are only featured in between programs maybe to fill up screen time. They in effect ared partly uses as Idents to add to their general channels identity by using BBC 3’s same black and purple in 60 seconds and using their channel’s logo and they are also used as content to fill up time in the schedule, as they’re not allowed to air adverts, as they are both BBC channels. You could say Newsround and 60 seconds are more of a news segment than a news program. Therefore they are very short in contrast to the longer News at 10 because the older reformist audience watching News at 10 are likely to be watching News at 10 the specific intention of watching a News program as they are most likely to have a prior interest in world events. 60 seconds even uses it’s duration as a selling point as it features a purple on screen BBC Three logo graphic which slowly runs across the bottom of the screen as the show progresses to show the audience the program/segment will be over soon. This loading bar on 60 seconds may further appeal to their young demographic as it’s reminiscent of the loading bar along the bottom of the screen on YouTube. You can also see this difference in the broadcasts through the way they structure their newscasts. News at 10 opens with a very serious political story in which David Cameron talks about the economy at a conservative party conference which is illustrated by a clip of david cameron giving a speech at the aforementioned conference saying ‘lets see an optimistic future, lets show the world some fight’ where as News round kicks off with a sports story about the Welsh rugby team’s exit in the six nations which is illustrated by a few highlights of match wales played against against France, 60 seconds features a sports story earlier on as well but this was their second story. Hard news rarely feature sports stories in the headlines unless it was a matter of global importance or national interest such as England winning the world cup, however most news stories aren’t off such global importance and national interest. This is because Hard news broadcasts are usually longer than soft news programs and therefore can feature their own section where they report specifically on sports stories. Furthermore if it does feature in the programs headlines it will be featured towards the end of the headlines, because sports stories aren’t something a hard news audience would prioritise over other political stories. This maybe because it’s unlikely to have a direct effect on the audience's lives or the world in general. Whereas sports will be more likely to have more significance on the lives of the Newsnight and 60 second’s younger more mainstream aspirational target
audience, as sports is quiet a cool thing to be interested in when you're young and is likely to be a big part of school children’s lunch time. This target audience appeal subscribes to the uses and gratifications theory of social relationships as the audience may discuss and share views about sports stories with their young friends who are also more likely to be interested with sports. Furthermore young people are likely to see their friends on more of a frequent basis that an older audience, also mainstreams are likely to socialise a lot more than reformers BBC news can’t benefit from the social relationships strand of the uses and gratifications theory. News round, 60 seconds and News at 10 all use different soundtracks to present the news. All three features a heart monitor sound effect in their theme tunes to build drama and set the tone of seriousness and a sense of importance that typically accompanies a news broadcast. The soundtrack also features throughout the headlines with the volume decreasing every time the presenter starts talking. Newsround uses a louder more upbeat electronic theme tune to capture that young demographic right from the start and proceeds to play quieter in the background throughout the rest of the broadcast. 60 seconds starts with a short 3 more techno variation of the heart monitor sound effect, which is accompanied by an electronic beat. This electronic beat then proceeds to play in the background throughout the duration of the headlines accompanied by an indie rock sounding baseline. The News at 10 starts starts off with a loud band of the tympani drums, which is then accompanied by a louder, harsher, heart monitor sound effect with a heavily amplified baseline to increase the drama and grab the audience. The reason the newscasts have different soundtracks is because they need to grab different age groups. Newsround is appealing to a younger demographic aged 8 to 16 so it has to try appear modern and contemporary, so does 60 seconds as it’s also aimed at a young audience however News at 10 isn’t aimed at a young audience it’s aimed at an older audience therefore it uses a tympani drum to grab the audience’s attention at the start of the broadcast. Furthermore the factor of hard and soft news plays into the equation as News at 10 needs to create a stronger sense of drama than the other soft news shows. Furthermore Hue Edwards loud authoritative voice suits this soundtrack, as it appears his almost shouting over the soundtrack, which adds an extra emphasis to the headlines. News at 10 and Newsround do have a lot in common in terms of soundtrack as they have more serious dramatic soundtracks compared to 60 seconds, this is because they are both aimed at the intelligent psychographic who are more likely to be news fans. This is also the reason they are both of a relatively longer duration than 60 seconds. All three Newscasts employ similar camerawork, as they all capture their presenter in a medium close up headshot during the headlines. This makes sure the audience isn’t distracted too much by the surroundings of the TV studio and it puts more focus on the presenter who must be someone the audience can trust. However News at 10 proceeds to break start their first news story with a slightly ariel long shot craning into towards Hue Edwards as it also creates more drama and differentiates the headlines from the stories. The mise en scene also contributes to the representation of the news programs. All three programs don’t allow much of the studio to be in shot during the headline only shooting in that medium close up from the waist up. However News at 10 does allow a lot of TV studio to enter the shot composition in the proceeding
long shot. This suggests that they might have cut costs on the studios for Newsround and 60 seconds. Furthermore while Newsround and 60 just use an onscreen graphic or a green screen projection as their background News at 10 features a translucent glass window with people working away behind it as the background. They do this to add to this mood of world importance and urgency as it gives audiences the impression there is constantly a large group of all different kinds of people working away night and day to bring the news to the audience. 60 seconds unlike the other two newscasts doesn’t cut completely to the achieve footage, they prefer to play the achieve footage on the screens that are part of the on screen graphic that remains constant during this newscast. The colour scheme of this constant on screen graphic is the same black and purple colour scheme of the background the presenter speaks in front of. The reason that 60 seconds doesn’t cut completely to this achieve footage and prefers to incorporate it into this onscreen graphic is because they simply don’t have the time to cut to this footage in their allotted 60 seconds. Although all three programs employ the same technique of quick montage editing to give the headlines a sense of urgency as they cut from studio to archive footage and then also cut between achieve footage. Expository is a mode of documentary that is designed with the purpose of exposing a certain viewpoint so therefore is made from a subjective viewpoint. This results in expository documentaries typically being bias as they use conventions to express their subjective point of view. One such convention is voice over it forces a documentary to be told from an omniscient third person perspective. The stance the documentarian has towards the subject often comes out through the voice over. For example the opening voice over in Stalin Declassified the first words spoken are ‘in his lifetime Stalin has killed more of his own people than are killed in all of Russia’s wars combined’. This instantly tells the audience the narrator is anti Stalin as can be heard from the tone and register of the voiceover. Furthermore the choice to open with that condemnatory statistic also suggests that the documentary is taking a negative stance on Stalin. Expository documentaries use editing similarly to manipulate the facts to portray a subject in a documentary in a negative light by only choosing the negative facts on Stalin to form this negative portrayal of him. They leave out all of the statistics regarding Stalin such as his advance in infrastructure as they want to purposely create a bias towards Stalin. This documentary used montage editing to condemn Stalin as a tyrant by featuring pieces of archive footage of planes bombing buildings, soldiers marching into battle and Stalin in military uniform to suggest Stalin was solely to blame for all of these. Quick cuts from short duration clips are being used to portray this as the audience connects the images in their head and creates comes to this conclusion. This is also illustrated by the proceeding voice over in which a man in a yellow suit on the bottom left corner of the screen saying ‘Stalin was the greatest mass murder in history’. This uses the technique of elliptical editing as they cut out the context in which this sentence was said. He could have gone on to speak positively about Stalin and they might have just cut it out. They have used their selection of interviews to feature with the same train of thought behind their selection of statistics. Some people might have had some nice things to say about Stalin such as his increase in infrastructure and productivity but they have left it out, as they don’t want to present any positive views on Stalin so the audience is forced to think negatively of him. A dark cinematic dramatic soundtrack is also played over this to further suggest the evilness of Stalin.
The 3rd person perspective in documentary is most omnipresent in the mode of expository documentary than observational or interactive. Typically observational documentaries feature significantly less editing and longer durational shot such as Tattoo Tears which only features three cuts for an entire 1 minute conversation. In expository documentaries the onscreen images are very much subservient to the voice over as they are used to provide a visual illustration of the voice over. For example in the same opening sequence when the voiceover says ‘only now as secret archives are opened can Stalin’s diabolical plan to crush the west be revealed’ achieve footage of the atomic bomb are featured. However interactive documentaries use voiceover to provide narration to the onscreen images. For example in Bowling for Columbine when Michael Moore is visiting a suspected bomb threat James Nicholas in his farm Moore says in the voiceover ‘This is James Nichols brother of Terry Nichols’ then proceeds to inform the audience why he is interviewing James Nichols. Expository documentaries have more in common with interactive documentaries than observational documentaries. Interactive documentaries are made with the intention of investigating a certain topic or subject like expository documentaries are made with the intention of exposing a topic or subject. Observational documentaries on the other hand are made with the intention of letting the audience observe a certain topic or subject. Therefore they don’t often feature voice over, non diegetic sound, voice of god, frequent talking head shots, graphic matches, elliptical or montage editing as they want to create as realistic portrayal of the topic or subject as possible so they want to interfere as little as possible. They are therefore likely to feature on screen text more than interactive or expository documentaries. The main difference between interactive and expository documentaries is that interactive documentaries often have the presenter interact with the people in the documentary and expository documentaries tend to use more talking head shots. They both create a certain amount of bias and are made with similar intentions however they just use different conventions to achieve those intentions.