RESEARCH INTO DOCUMENTARIES, NEWSPAPERS, ADVERTS AND DOUBLE PAGE SPREADSBy Jack O’Regan

DOCUMENTARIES

What is a documentary?

A documentary can be shown as a variety of different types. Overall there are 6 different types of documentaries. A documentary is to show the natural world covering wild life, human behaviour, history and geography as well as theories from scientists.

What are the different types of documentaries?

Poetic, Expository, Observational, Participatory, Reflexive and Performative.

A documentary is filmed in the hands of a film maker. The film maker can either be in the shot or behind it, he might engage in what he is showing or stay silent to let the natural behaviour in the documentary take its place. The film maker will always follow the rules of one of the types of documentaries, its his/her/they’re job to reveal what is happening in the shot and get the viewer to understand what they are trying to show.

For example of a documentary is the show called Air Crash Investigation. This is Performative due to its re-enacting performance of how the plane went from taking off to crashing. In the Documentary you will also see interviews with scientists and people involved in the investigation or crash. The show covers all aspects of the investigation to give us a insight to what they know from facts and how they think( the film maker after been given the evidence and other facts) creates a re-enacted version of the crash. The show will also show video clips of the crash of the plane if there is any. They film maker will also cover all aspects of the investigation and play the black box’s from the plane for the view to hear.

Planet earth is a nature documentary that is expository . Though out the documentary you will see different types of wild life from the ocean and land. The documentary has different ways of showing what it is trying to explain. In the documentary you will see how animals live in the animal kingdom and how they fight to survive against other predators. A voice over is used which is manly Morgan Freeman (The Actor), he explains what is happening in the video clip in a way that we would understand as we would explain our ways of living. The documentary uses a vast majority of different filming methods and angles. The documentary uses B clips that show the area where the wild life is taking place, e.g., if a snow lion, the B clip would be of a snowy mountain land scape taken from a helicopter (aerial shot) , then carry on to film the snow lion.

NEWSPAPER

A newspaper is a A3 double page booklet. It is in black and white holding news that is also on news channels, sport, weather, politics . A news paper will have adverts to advertise a film or TV show, it will also have the TV listings for the following week. The newspaper will have coloured adverts depending on how much the advertisement pays to have their advert in the newspaper. The adverts can take up a whole page or just be a small section of the page.

This advert in this news paper called the Sunday mirror has a large advert on the page. The Advert takes up one quarter of the page and has a theme colour of red. The advert sticks out because of the rolled up paper looking like it is coming out the page. The text is in white which makes it easier to read with the red back ground. The word ‘Sale’ sticks out a lot because it is the biggest text on the page. The smaller text gives information what the advert is about which is about Hardy carpets. Then the smallest text gives more information for what the reader would want to know like where do they get the carpets or what other things does the company sell.

This advert is a double page advert in a news paper. The advert is advertising the film Couples retreat. The advert has the main image that the film has used for all there advertisements and the front cover of the DVD case. The main characters are on the front so people know what the film is about and what actors are in it. The image also gives a clue to what the film is about and what the story line could be. In this advert on the page on the right, there is a description of what the film is about . On the left there is when the film is released and other information that they need to provided to the reader. The main information is all in a larger font and the smallest font is just about who made the film which is by law meant to be on there.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

A double page spread is a double page that has information on that is linked. The double page spread is mainly the biggest thing that stands out in a magazine or newspaper. On the double page spread there can be images, large parts of information, large text to stand out. Double page spreads can have anything on like weather, large news but in this instance adverts. When advertising music , the page would have a chart on of the charts or what's new, and the main music news that the advert is trying to promote.

On this double page spread there is a large image promoting what the advert is about. The large image that takes the whole of the 2 pages stands out and pulls the reader in to have a look what the advert is about. Having a large image at that camera shot (aerial shot) is a brilliant way to show off what the advert is about. On the left side of the page there is information in a white text box to tell the reader what the advert is about and all the other basic information about it like why the reader would want to go the place in the image , On the right side the page there is large white text which the reader would notice second after seeing the image. The large white text has the word ‘Interested?’ in it which promotes the image more and is asking the reader if there interested in what the image is about and also in they’re interested in going to the place In the image.