In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real...

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real documentaries?Grace Walker

Conventions of Most Documentaries• Actuality footage

• Voiceover

• Narrativisation

• Interview

• Text

• Sound

• Dramatization

• Archive footage

• Location shooting

• Filming what I see – no involvement

• Long takes

• Diegetic sound

• No voiceover

• No interviews

• Subjects pretend they are not being filmed

Conventions of Observational

Documentaries

How my documentary obeys the conventions of Observational documentaries • My documentary extract obeys the conventions

of observational documentaries as the shots have no involvement from me and they were filmed on location, not a set.

• Long takes were also used, and the subjects didn’t act in front of the camera, all the footage was real.

How my documentary challenges the conventions of Observational documentaries • My documentary contains a ‘voice of God’ voiceover

which challenges the conventions of observational documentaries, but obeys the conventions of most documentaries as it is a convention of expository documentaries.

• My documentary extract also contains archive footage, which is not a typical convention of observational documentaries but is typical of most documentaries in general.

• The extract contains non-diegetic sound which challenges the observational conventions, but is a common feature of other documentaries.

Overall, my documentary both obeys and challenges the conventions of observational documentaries, but

obeys the conventions of general documentaries.