what is a documentary

What does a documentary try and bring across?:

A documentary tries to bring across a specific topic, that its based an example of this would be David Attenborough. Because he does so many documentaries people are attracted to listen to him because he always talks about the same topic but on different things within the documentary. He does documentaries on:

• Natural history 
• National Wildlife
• The genius of Britain 
• Natural world

He (David Attenborough) captures all of the small details about each of his subjects as he's passionate about what he does and thats creating documentaries for viewers that want to learn more about certain topics.

This is an image of David Attenborough filming a documentary in the Amazon Rainforest. For his documentary on National Wildlife.

This is another image of David Attenborough doing a documentary on the Natural World.







Both of these documentary's which were both filmed and presented by David Attenborough are very interesting to watch. This is why he's so successful because he digs out all the small details as well as the more interesting details which makes him so unique.

In the link below it shows a David Attenborough Documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwAejlfacYs

animation video

legal and ethical

Legal and Ethical

Slander:

Slander is where you verbal criticise  someones character. This is different to Libel because Libel is when someone is criticised through written criticism. This is different because you don't know how someone is actually feeling when you get criticism through writing to someone. When you're saying something to someones face its easier to see where someone is coming from because sits verbal and you can also see their body language.

An example of Libel: Cameron Diaz 

The British Sun newspaper hinted that Cameron Diaz had an affair with Shane Nickerson, a friend. When the article was published, she and Shane Nickerson were in relationships and the hardly recognizable imaged posted with the article caused damage to both relationships, so Cameron Diaz sued for defamation. But no one is sure of the amount of money Diaz was awarded.

Libel:

Libel is when something is written down criticising somebody's character, where as Slander is when you verbal criticise someone. Libel can be used in a newspaper article and criticise them through news.  Slander and Libel can lead to legal cases.

An example of Libel: Keira Knightley 

Keira sued the daily mail for claiming she had a eating disorder and got £3000 given to her for damages that had been caused and gave that £3000 to an eating disorder charity.






Ethics:

Ethics in a documentary has to have a moral to the story and it has to have a meaning. Ethics in a documentary is the heart of the story. For example our documentary which is based on skating which we're trying to reflect the life of a skater showing how and what they do on a day to day basis and how they cope with the finical side of it.

Issues of documentary

Accuracy - In our documentary we made sure that we kept everything natural so that we could show a real representation of a sixth former and how they act. The only thing that we pre prepared the interviewee for was the interviews where we would tell them the questions just before we would turn the cameras back on.

Balance - This is an important point of the documentary because the point is that you see the sixth form through different types of peoples eyes. The balance means that there is an equal argument and an equal opinion of the school. Having a balance in the documentary is imperative because you need to make sure that its not bias and diversity is what would make the documentary interesting.

Impartiallity/ Bias - This is where something is going in favour of what the producer thinks, wants or believes by claiming they're not biased when really they are. The bias within a documentary could be to do with the views that are portrayed by the film maker. If the documentary is based on a subject that could have controversial views then it is important that the film maker is fair and balanced with his ideas. In our documentary we made sure that none of our personal views were implemented, meaning that bias free.

Objectivity - The objectivity of my documentary is finding out how three people react to a situation they may not be comfortable with. We followed three students around so that we could see what their reaction would be, and how they would work with the cameras as well as showing their day to day life.

Subjectivity - Both of the film makers for this documentary were just general people who were in my media class, they weren't really friends with the people being interviewed so it wasn't like they had a preferred student but on a professional level we had to keep a distance to prevent any personal things becoming involved.

Representation - We were trying to show what it was life in the life of a sixth former, how things have changed since the lower school and what they do now their in the sixth form. They represented different types of sixth formers and thats what we were looking for and they really represented that.

location recce

filmed interview practise

interview questions

What is you favourite interview and why?

        My favourite interview was 'In Town Tonight' the reason for this is this particular interview included an interview with former ss officer Heinz lingo who was Hitler's personal attendant, in my opinion i found this really interesting as seeing an interview with Hitler's right hand man, 'a man who was with him till the end', when watching i found out that he was help captive by the Russians for 10 years and he had arrived in England on the day of this interview. one of the things i found most interesting is that he was the first to see Hitlers dead body. Heinz also said that the Russians never found the body of Hitler and that he believes it is buried in a 'common grave', overall i found this interview really interesting which is why it is my favourite.

what is your least favourite and why?

        When watching this interview i found it really boring as the questions being asked where too vague and in my opinion the the answers that were being given were not satisfying, i also found that the subject that was being discussed was not interesting at all and comparing to the last interview that had someone who was hitlers right hand man being questioned, this interview just did not interest me.

what was the best question asked out of all the interviews and why?

        I found that the best question asked was in the interview 'in town tonight' when he asked Heinz 'were you with hitler all the time' and Heinz replied with 'yes, i was always with him' i think this question is really good as it opens a whole new variety of questions as you now know that he would know all Hitlers movements and also maybe getting facts about Hitler that we didn't already know.

what was the worst question asked out of all the interviews and whys?

Were you conscious of colour discrimination in your own life? This question was brought up in the Martin Luther King interview. The reason  why I like this question was because Martin answered back with "yes I was aware of colour discrimination from an early age". And he went back further into his child hood and answered that question in depth.

The worst question was "to What is oranges a autobiographical". In an interview you don't jump straight into why you've written an autobiography or even ask why you've put this in the autobiography. In an interview I would've asked why did you decide to write this book or why did you decide to become an autobiographer. In my own opinion the interviewee came across as rude and arrogant.

What is the funniest response? What question prompted it?

In my own opinion none of the responses from either interview were funny as all the questions from the Martin Luther King interview were serious questions and went into depth in his responses. and min the Jeanette Winterson interview she just had a straight face and answered then quickly but in depth.

What is the most emotional response? What question prompted it?

"I wasn't allowed to go swimming because there wasn't a pool for us" This was prompted when he was asked about what he did for activities. This is sad because white people had so much more of an opportunity than any black people would. 

Who is your favourite interviewer? Why?

John Freeman was my favourite interviewer because he was so detailed with his questions and he would also question the answers that were given and i think that this shows that he was interested in this influential figure. 

Other interesting things you have found?

         in the art in luther king interview i found how interesting his childhood was and how he treasured everything he had and didn't take anything for granted