Conventions of a Documentary

I have decided to research the conventions of a documentary so that I can meet these through my plans for my own production. This will allow me to make my documentary more professional and suitable for its genre and style. For this research, I am analysing the textbook 'Documentaries, Classroom Resources' by Jo Wilcock, published by Auteur. I have posted photos of my annotations of appropriate pages in the textbook where I have demonstrated how I plan to meet these conventions and details of other conventions which I need to consider.

From this research, I have learnt some conventional narrative, editing and style techniques from a reliable, modern and published source. I will use this research as a guide for my own production so that it will be a conventional documentary. I will also extend this research online to find the conventions of documentaries which Channel 4 produce, so that my product is appropriate for my exhibitor.

Deconstruction of a Documentary

I am deconstructing the beginning 5 minutes of the Channel 4 documentary 'Don't Stop the Music', as this is also the length specified for my own product.

Aired 9/9/2014: James begins with St Teresa's primary school in Basildon, Essex, testing whether his 'instrument amnesty' can work with the pupils of Year 5, and persuading teachers and parents of its benefits before he attempts to launch it across the rest of the UK.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dont-stop-the-music/4od

From this research I hope to understand the structure and style of modern documentaries on Channel 4 (my exhibitor in mind) to help me produce my own documentary effectively. I've also chosen this documentary to deconstruct in particular as I am expecting to see cinematographic shots of the instruments which may inspire my own shot list.

I have presented my deconstruction using SlideShare so that I can focus each shot from the documentary on an individual slide, and so it also becomes interactive.

'Don't Stop The Music' Documentary Deconstruction from Courtney O'Donnell

From this research, I have been inspired to experiment with a range of conventional cinematographic camera angles and movements and also editing styles for documentaries. I have gained a deeper understanding of the structure of a documentary as this was something I was initially unfamiliar with; for example the non-linear introductions used to create an enigma for the rest of the documentary and explain the investigation, and the positions and use of the title and hashtag within the introduction. I've also become interested in how this documentary matched their voiceover script to the actions in the shots, as this is a fluid style I hope to achieve for my own product. I may refer back to this post during my production planning.