Factual programming:Learning outcome 1

Task 2:Codes and convention

NEWS

STUDIO NEWSREADERS• Studio newsreaders are people hired by TV. Companies and have to sit behind a desk and

read out factual news to the world. • The “studio” part means that they only report news from the studio which is usually owned

by the news company.• The large majority of studio news readers keep serious faces and dress very formally and

keep a constant eye contact with the camera. This makes the news channel look more serious but informative.

• A great example of this would be BBC news because in that news show they all dress in suits and dress’s when presenting the news and they also keep straight faces and constant eye contact.

• It is important to use eye contact when reading the news because if you do the audience will feel like you are informing them as if you would in a face to face conversation if you don’t then the audience will think that you being rude and uninterested in the news you are reading out.

• The same goes for how the studio newsreaders present themselves because if they are in casual clothes like jeans and a hoodie then that would be informal to the audience however they would seem formal to the audience if they were dressed in suits.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dRz4CCswlA

FIELD REPORTERS• Field reporters are pretty much like studio newsreaders except they report news from outside

of the studio. They usually report live from areas outside the studio to the studio when the news show is running. They are also known as off-scene reporters.

• The scenes they go live at are usually linked to what has been discussed on the news show by the studio news reader earlier.

• A good example of this would BBC news, every night at 10pm when the show starts they always have at least one news reporter reporting live from a scene somewhere in the world.

• It is important when presenting the news to make sure that your surroundings are not too loud otherwise if the audience cant here you they will most likely switch channel. The best way to overcome this would be to do a sound check before going live.

• It is also important to look formal just like the news readers from the studio because you would give out the wrong impression to the audience if you were dressed like a tramp, however if you dressed more formally (suit/ dress) then you would be much more appealing for the public viewers to listen too and watch.

• Field reporters doing live reports on certain parts of the news makes the audience feel much more involved and informed where they can actually see in video what is causing all the fuss.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jgfqw16kPY

LINKS TO STUDIO• Links to studio is where news teams on a certain studio may want to discuss a

news story with a different news studio who may have more information to share or a guest on the show is an expert on the certain news being discussed. Web definition is that they send a television studios audio and video feed from the broadcast studio to a transmitter in another studio.

• A good example of this is yet again… BBC news because they use this allot when they want to a discuss a certain news story with another studio which may have an expert on the news story there.

• It is important to have links to the studio because it positively impacts the audience because they feel more involved and like their being told to the best standards possible because the news team are going out of their way to get more information on certain news story's by having video chats with other news studios.

• It is also important to dress formally if involved with these links to studio for the same reasons as the last few slides. Eye contact, straight face, no movement must also happen to make it perfect.

MODE OF ADDRESS TO VIEWER• The “mode of address to viewer” in our case means how does the media (documentary/

news show) present and address itself to the audience to make the audience feel a connection.

• A good example of this would be “Aileen life and death of a serial killer” because the producer/ presenter filmed the documentary in such a way that it made us feel like everything Aileen was saying was being directed at us (audience). When she opened up about her life to the producer we were feeling the same connection with Aileen as the producer was.

• BBC news is also a great example because of the way that they have a routine which usually is exactly the same every day which is…

• 1: A brief glimpse of what is coming up in the news.• 2: Newsreaders greet viewers at home and then present the news.• 3: After the main headlines have been covered the Local news readers then read their news.• 4: And then finally the weather man/woman • Because of the above routine the audience feels a connection and also feels more

comfortable because they know the layout of the how the news show will work. And if the audience gets the routine stuck in their head from the connection then they will be able to remember every day what time the news is on and just switch straight on.

• Also when news readers are reading the news or presenters are presenting their documentary's another key mode of address to the viewers would be to dress formally keep eye contacts and take their role seriously. By doing this the audience will feel comforted and that there is a connection.

INTERVIEWING & EXPERTS AND WITNESSES

• Interviews are an important role in media industry's. They are mainly used to obtain information on certain subjects from people who are experts on the subjects or they can be used for finding out peoples opinions on topics. Interviews give most T.V viewers the opportunity to find out information they would never have known until they saw this interview.

• A good example is “BBC Match of the day” On this T.V programme they interview a lot of football players, managers, coaches, ect to get information out of them such as “who played best in the match”, “was this the score you were expecting?” or “where do you think you could have improved on?”. Those are just a few examples. It is important getting feedback from these people because football fans would want to know why a player maybe played badly or why they weren't playing in defence (out of thousands of questions that could be asked). These interviews are important for people because its usually the only way they can find out what's going on with their favourite football club or players.

• Another great example was BBC news a few months ago when they were interviewing all kinds of people about the student riots. The viewers not only got entertained and interested in what the people said during the interviews but it also gave them an opportunity to debate with what the people were saying.

• On a lot of news channels you also get experts who sometimes come on the show or do interviews with the news channels to give their expertise on certain topics such as Global warming, Politics, natural disasters and many more. This is important to the viewers because it fills them with knowledge they may not have known before which could turn out to be useful for them in the future.

• A brilliant example of “Witnesses” would be BBC news. News reporters usually do interviews with witnesses on topics like murders, assaults or disasters. The most recent example I have seen is off a witness describing to the reporter what they saw happening when a 15 year old boy was stabbed across the street from them. These kind of interviews usually have more detail in them because the witness saw everything first hand which was makes the viewers so interested because it feels like they are being told the story as exactly as it happened.

REPORT STRUCTURE• The inverted pyramid is the model for newswriting. It simply means that the

heaviest or most important information should be at the top of your story, and the least important information should go at the bottom. And as you move from top to bottom, the information presented should gradually become less important. This technique is used by BBC news. The same applies for the news show structure itself going from most important or dramatic story's first until it reaches the last news story which would be the least interesting or important.

• I think this is a brilliant structure to use because that way as soon as the viewers switch on to the news they see the main dramatic news at the beginning of the show which would captivate them and keep them watching through out the news show.

• However starting with least important news first and ending with most important news would have a bad impact on the audience because they would become quickly bored if they switch on to the news on to hear about someone talking about a cat being stuck up a tree.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0M737ygeLk&feature=fvst

ACTUALITY FOOTAGE • You see “actuality footage” on every single news channel on T.V ( I am 100%

sure!). It is the footage that relates to whatever the news readers are talking about at the time. They usually do this by having the footage showing on T.V while the news readers do commentaries over the top of it. It is basically a visual aid to news that the news readers are discussing.

• A great example is BBC news because they are constantly doing news story's on Iraq and they use actuality footage to back up what they are saying.

• The reason “actuality footage” is important to the viewers at home is because it gives them a vision of what the news readers are talking about giving them a better idea of the story.

• If there was no “actuality footage” then it would be a lot harder and confusing possibly for some viewers to understand what the news story was about.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLiwQgCfncM&NR=1

DOCUMENTARY TYPES

EXPOSITORY• Expository documentaries are documentaries that expose a person or

topic, it is one of the four classic main types of documentary. Expository documentaries are well known for having a commentator talking over the pictures or videos and explaining the story.

• A good example of this type of documentary would be “Inside Job” By Charles H Ferguson and Audrey Marrs. The subject of the documentary is about the 2008 financial breakdown, which also revealed a lot of government officials using spending money unnecessarily which also enraged the world.

• This kind of documentary has a large impact with the audience that watch it because the whole idea of an “expository” documentary is to expose something that most people don’t know about which is why most viewers would find it interesting and factual to watch.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk

OBSERVATIONAL• An observational documentary is usually where the cameraman/

producer follows a person/ people or items around to observe what happens to them. There are hardly ever voice overs or interviews in this type of documentary and the equipment is usually informal like hand held cameras for example. Long takes are used quite often as well so that the producer can capture as much of the subject's life as possible.

• A great example of this type of documentary would be “16 and pregnant” because the camera follows them around while they get on with every day life and deal with it.

• Viewers react positively with these type of documentaries because it is interesting just to watch what other people are doing in their lives.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLiXS02Mj7U

INTERACTIVE• Interactive documentary's is where the film maker/ crew interact with the subject

they are doing their documentary on. There is usually a lot of use of achieves materials such as news articles, footage and web information. There is sometimes use of voice over, usually be the documentary maker. And most importantly the documentary maker is visible in the footage and participates and intervenes with the documentary.

• A great example of a interactive documentary would be “supersize me” because the documentary maker is in nearly all the shots of the documentary and he is the biggest participant in it when he eats only fast food for 30 days while the camera films him!

• These kind of documentary's to me and the audience are probably the most enjoyable to watch because of the amount of action usually going on in them (like supersize me for example). These kind of documentary are very fun and captivating for the audiences to watch even though they are usually quite biased sometimes.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOvrkkj_T-I

REFLEXIVE• Reflexive documentary's use techniques from fiction film for a more

emotional, subjective response. Usually use re enactments in part of the documentary if not in all of it, dramatic music may be included to keep the documentary alive. These kind of documentary’s rely more on suggestion than fact.

• A great example of a reflexive documentary would be “Kidulthood” which is based on a bunch of youths in London who get the day off school, so they steal alcohol, beat up the school bully and then at the end one of the main character's die” This is meant to be based on youth life in London but I feel this film/documentary was very over exaggerated.

• The audience love these kind of documentary's because they are less fictional than other types of documentary's so usually result in being more entertaining. Kidulthood certainly proved to be a entertaining documentary, if you could call it that.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdoKD4gTQ2c

PER FORMATIVE• Per formative documentary's include the documentary maker and crew

interacting with the subject they are filming. The documentary maker would also often comment on the process of the making of their documentary.

• This type of documentary is often shaped into the narrative of an investigation or search which there may be no satisfactory conclusion two, so there is usually a lot of suspense throughout the documentary.

• The documentary itself will address the audience in a direct and emotional way• My favourite example for this would have to be “Aileen life and death of a serial

killer”. The reason why is because firstly the producer is in a majority of the interviews when he is talking to Aileen. Secondly there is a lot of suspense throughout the documentary as to whether or not we think Aileen is guilty or not.

• This is my favourite type of documentary because the audience will be addressed in an emotional and direct way and will be given the option to chose how they feel about Aileen. There is a connection between the documentary and the audience.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rExhihAZGxg