1.4 The Codes and Conventions

The codes and conventions of a documentary film 

A narrator is used to move the narrative along. They also are used to push and idea or a view on the topic forward. A narrator is important to hold the narrative together. We plan to use this feature prominently in our documentary as if we tackle a quite informative topic it will be hard for the audience to take in all the information. So by having a narrator to move along the audience in the documentary would a great thing to help are target audience watch the documentary.  This also makes the type of documentary we are doing is an expository documentary which i have already explained.  

Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Sound is used to represent emotion or a topic. Non-diegetic sound is a sound which is neither visible on the screen. For example a narrator's commentary. Also Diegetic Sound is whose sound is visible on the screen or whose sound is implied to be present by the action of the film for example is voices of characters and sounds made by objects in the film. But in our case this could be the sound of a train passing by the camera, or voices heard in the background of a Vox pop.

Graphics in a documentary can be used to grab the readers attention and give them plenty of visual information which can keep them interested in the documentary. An example could be projecting the costs of a company via a visual chart that is on the screen for the audience to see and for an example in a political documentary, which is what we are planning to focus of, could be what the UK spends its money on.

Archive footage is used to show a variety of views on a topic. It can also provide the audience to look into the past about a certain topic. For example when watching  a documentary about an old car maker for example, you might see a snippet of old footage of a car in black and white footage, this can class as archive footage. 

 During interviews, the camera remains mainly static so the audience aren't distracted away from the interview by any movement. Documentaries contain lots of cuts because there is such a variation of interviews, archive footage etc. 

 A title sequence is used to introduce the Documentary. End credits are also used to credit everyone involved in the production of the Documentary Interviews are mostly in close up or a medium close-up shot filmed on a left or right alignment. Although we are planning to have a introduction sequence we wont be having a end credit scene as we are only doing the first 5 minutes of a documentary. 

The mise-en-scene of the documentary is always portrayed in the interview, e.g. a documentary about horses so a stable may be the setting of the interview. For example if we plan to do a documentary about the HS2 we could have most of the interviews taking place in a train station.

The Gender of the narrator depends on the topic and target audience. The tone of voice, accent and vocabulary of the narrator all depends on who the program is aimed at. Our program shall be aimed at mainly 16+ so the voice over will need to be dynamic and engaging to encouage are audience to watch all of the documentary.