This week primarily surrounded the industry of documentary – I learnt how to create one, how to structure one aswell as analysed professional examples. 

The week began with a brief sorrounding documentarys. We were talked through what they were and the significance of them. Firstly, we were taught the relevancy test – this is a way of planning a documentary by answering two questions; who is going to care? and is it necessary? 

This linked to the idea that when creating a documentary you have to keep it moving at all times in order to ensure the audience does not become bored. Each scene has to progress otherwise the documentary is dull and will not attract an audience. 

Following this discussion, we were introduced to the five channels of information in film; 

1. Visual image

2. Print and other graphics 

3. Speech 

4. Music 

5. Noise 

These five channels are useful because they portray different ways of projecting information within a documentary without being repetitive. 

As a class, we then watched a documentary on ‘The war in Passiac’ 

The war in Passiac sorrounded the fact that textile workers were forced to work in poor, unhealthy conditions – I think the documentary gets this message across significantly. There are clear signs within of the struggles the people faced as well as visuals that portrayed exactly what the conditions were! I think the use of interviewing the relevant people involved adds empathy to the documentary – you really start to feel for the people involved when you can see what they are going through with your own eyes.

After watching the video we were then tasked with getting into teams and planning our own documentarys. I was paired with Kerrin and Emilia – we decided to create a documentary based on a riot. 

This was our plan; 

Start: Begin with shots of rioting and the police beating the strikers – this will impact the audience quickly as the visuals will shock them and they will want to continue watching to understand what is going on. 

Middle: interview both police and strikers. This will ensure we gain both perspectives. Will answer who, what, where, when and how questions the audience will have. 

End: end with a powerful message on how corrupt the system involved is and how the police will not be penalised for doing more damage than the actual protestors. 

We converted some of our journalistic writing skills into the planning of the documentary because we wanted to ensure we quickly caught the attention of the audience and kept them hooked throughout. We decided to use two perspectives within the documentary to really portray the idea that there are always two sides to a story – this meant that the documentary would be completely unbiased and true to all the facts. 

Planning a documentary has opened my mind to new ideas and skills I didn’t really know I had – I always assumed documentary writing would be boring but the task shocked me and I actually really enjoyed writing the piece. This week has taught me that I need to improve upon both my research skills and possibly my structuring of scripts and plans – I think the initial idea behind the documentary could be really interesting but the way I have explained it on the plan almost puts it down and makes it sound a lot more boring then I hoped it would be. This is something I defiantly need to improve upon in the future!