Documentary mini task

Documentary mini task

A documentary is a wide term used to describe a non-fiction movie that in some way "documents" or captures reality. Documentary makers are often inspired to make their films because they feel a particular story or viewpoint is not being covered by mainstream media the way it should be. The way i would define the word “Documentary” is by using the words factual and educational. Documentaries are films that are factual and are educational meaning they teach the viewer information about important life events for example a documentary that covers the events of a world war.

The key features of Expository documentaries are that they give the narrator the role to explain the film's rhetorical content. They use stories and statements given through voiceover with images to illustrate the tone of the film. The filmmaker collects footage that functions to strengthen the spoken narrative.

 One example of an expository documentary is “City of gold”.

The Key features of Observational documentaries are that they avoid interviews, voice-over narration and a soundtrack. Instead they present footage of real life as it unfolds. The effect is a documentary that tends to show, not tell, and leaves it down to each viewer to come to his or her own conclusions of the film.

An example of an observational documentary is “knuckle”.

The Key feature of Interactive documentaries are that they use interviews. When including these interviews in the documentaries they may decide to keep the interviewer’s questions in or edit them out.

An example of an Interactive documentary is “prison valley”.


The key features of reflexive documentaries are that they include the filmmaker within the film. They also solely focus on themselves and the act of making of the film.

An example of a reflexive documentary is “Chronicle of a summer”

The Key features of Performative Documentaries are that they focus on the filmmakers' involvement with his or her subject, they use his or her personal experience or relationship with the subject as a starting point for exploring larger, subjective truths about politics, history, or groups of people.

One example of a performative documentary is “supersize me”.

Expository Documentaries are my favourite. Observational documentaries are the most unbiased because they leave the viewer to conclude the documentary for themselves. I do feel like documentary producers have a contract with the viewer to show them honest and unbiased, accurate information. The reason for me feeling this way is because Documentaries are known for being educational and informative.

The reason the 23rd April is being talked about on social media is because its st georges day and the first ever world book day was celebrated.

News values are a group of rules or criteria which determine how much attention a media outlet such as a newspaper gives a news story. They also show how editors and other journalists decide that one piece of information is news while another is not.

The 12 news values categories include:

• Negativity - This is the bad news such as death, murder, bad weather, This is rated as more important than "positivity" such as but not limited to weddings, royal family, celebrations.
• Closeness to home (Proximity) - This is what the audiences seem to relate to. The stories that involve people in their country or things that are happening near them geographically. 
• Recency - this is how recent it happened and how quickly that news outlets respond to it and get the news to the public. This includes 24 hour news channels such as BBC and CNN. 
• Currency - This is the opposite to Recency as currency is a news story that has been in the public eye for some time. For example a missing person or a murder. 
• continuity - This is the news coverage of a situation that is on going such as a war or a sports tournament. A current example of this is the Covid 19 lockdown this is in the news everyday.
• Uniqueness - This is when an unusual event occurs such as a three headed child birthed by a 16 year old women. This would be very unusual which would intrigue audiences and make them want to read it. 
• Simplicity - This is the news thats obvious but true. Its news that can be easily explained for example a cat stuck in a tree. 
• Personality - This when a news story surrounds a particular person. Newspapers like these especially if the person is well known such as a well known local person or a well known celebrity.
• Expectedness (predictability) - This is whether or not the event matches the expectations of the organisation and or the audience. 
• Elite nations or people - This is news that is about the nation and offers more importance to the nation than other news.
• Exclusivity - This is when one news outlet is covering a story. The Sunday papers are very fond of exclusives.
• Size - This is about how big the story is, meaning how important it is to the public. How many people it affects.

13th FEB 2015

Dear Flipside media,

I am Writing to you regarding your recent job advert for an apprentice digital video production producer. I have found a few things wrong with it. The things i have found wrong with it are explicit and go against advertising legislation. contracts will almost always include small print. you will need to make sure you have fully understood what you are signing for example in a contract for a television or movie job there would be small print about confidentiality and exclusivity. before signing any contract you need to make sure that you 100% understand it. 

The first thing that i have found wrong with it is the fact you are asking for the applicant to be christian that is wrong it is discrimination as you cannot only choose to have people work for you if they are a specific religion. 

This advert is to promote Ben and Jerrys ice cream flavour Netflix and chill'd because its new. They show that its called Netflix and chill'd by making it look like a Netflix trailer and as it moves on you see that they are showing ice cream in multiple different Netflix tv shows and films.

The primary demographic for this advert is the youth, the reason for this is because the advertising is colourful and so is the packaging. The packaging has colourful pictures on it such as cows and blue skys. The advert is also introduced as an advert for a new Netflix series which would attract the youths attention. The secondary demographic for this advert is anyone who may like ice cream or Netflix. This may be someone who is in the room watching the tv when the advert comes on, they wouldn't be the primary target audience because the people who made the advert were not targeting them directly.

I couldn't find out when this was shown but i expect it would be shown in the day time and early evening, the reason for this is because it is targeting the youth and that would be the best time to show it as thats when most of the youth will be watching tv.

The advert took the form of a standalone, documentary, live action type advert. The reason for this is because it was like a netflix trailer and they dont usually carry a story through multiple trailers. the reason for it being more like a documentary is because it was documenting different peoples reactions to the new flavour.

I would say that the advert takes the style of humorous and it is a parody to a netflix trailer. It shows the humorous side by re editing serious films and tv programmes to ad the new ice cream into them. it creates the idea of a netflix original advert but adds a twist by using it to show off a new ice cream.

This advert attracts the potential consumers attention by creating the idea that this is an advert for a new netflix original, it does this by using the netflix logo and footage from actual netflix trailers but reedited to add the new ice cream into it. The advert arouses interest by using a saying that everyone uses when talking about netflix anyway and changing it slightly for the name of the flavour. The advert convinces the consumer to buy the product by showing that netflix are behind it by having it shown as a netflix original advert.

This product is distinguished against others by this being more fun for its consumers with the cartoons on the actual container and the advert being like a netflix original trailer these will both be more appealing to teenagers. Ben and jerrys has become a massive company over time and for this flavour they have teamed up with another massive company 'netflix' this creates a massive consumer base which means more and more sales.

There are a lot of different scenes used in this advert as they have used parts from a few different netflix original trailers as you can see by the screenshots below.

Ownership and Funding in the TV and Film Industry

Public service broadcasting in the UK refers to broadcasting intended to benefit the public rather than focusing or commercializing society. In the 1920's the UK government began thinking about how to start a type of broadcasting, this was radio at the time as the UK thought radio was a better option for the time. When thinking about this they referred to the U.S commercial model and decided they didn't like the way they were doing it. They said that it produced programmes that were mindless entertainment for the masses. This is when the UK Government decided that they wanted to create programmes that were valuable to the public and educational. They decided that they were not going to fund this directly as this would create accusations about it being a propaganda channel For the government. The way they decided to fund this was 'The license fee' this is when the BBC was born and in 1926 the British broadcasting corporation began broadcasting radio. in 1936 the BBC began broadcasting TV. The Licence fee is what we call a TV licence today but back then would have been for any type of broadcasting. This is called a monopoly.

In the 1950's the UK government decided to introduce a rival television broadcasting company but this time it would be funded commercially. This new TV broadcasting company was called Independent Television (ITV). This company started broadcasting Television in 1954 this creates a Duopoly. However the UK government imposed regulations on ITV which were based on service principles - I.e. Educational content, children's programmes, religious programs and news programmes. A purely commercial company would not want to do this as programmes such as the ones stated do not maximize audience viewer ship. Audiences are the product made and sold by commercial media company's.

The third channel was then created in 1964 and it was called BBC 2. This was then followed by the channel 4 which was created in 1982 this was the fourth channel that was created, This channel was funded by  a levy from the ITV companies. This channel commissioned everything, they did not make any of their own TV shows.

All of these channels were terrestrial television which meant they were on the ground. We now have a thing called satellite TV which is transmitted above the ground using a satellite. We also have the option of cable TV which is below the ground as the cables are ran under the ground. With satellite TV there is the option to purchase and download additional things such as box sets or movies and even pay per view.

Global media is media ownership, this is increasingly concentrated into the hands of a small number of companies. 95% of the worlds media companies are owned by multiple different smaller companies.  A conglomerate is a group of companies all under the same owner ship. 

Vertical integration is the tendency for all the sectors within a media industry to become part of the same company (e.g. the film making industry, distribution companies and cinemas. Many companies have laws against this. 

Horizontal integration is when the tendency for a company to try and increase its market share by either buying rival companies within a sector or by making rival companies go bust by out competing them.

Monopolization is the domination of a market or commodity to the exclusion of others. monopolization domination - social control by dominating.

old spice case study

the traditional old spice advert has a primary target audience of older man. This will be mostly dads as it says it in the advert and people will buy this for there dads.

pre production paperwork