Modes and Codes blog for college
Blog of Documentary production Codes and Modes:
Modes:
This is one of the most used styles of documentaries, due to its simplicity of using voice overs, images and video clips/montages/archive materials. These are used in order to educate viewers, with well researched factual information and footage. The voice over will be someone talking directly to the viewer, wanting the information to come across as intimate and personal, in order to help the creator's point of view get across to them.
Observational Mode:
This is the ‘fly on the wall’ type of filming, with a hand held camera, showing people's real lives, and real situations. There are little to no voice overs, except for shows like The family, and Gogglebox, there aren’t any interviews, They also use synchronous sound which means real direct sound from the situations.
Participating Mode:
This is the style where the documentary maker is a big part in the documentary, in front and behind the camera, as they are normally journalists and want specific answers and content. Louis Theroux is an example of this, as he is very much the lead in his documentaries as he’s not only the producer, but a journalist in the documentary, mildly interrogating participants in his documentary for the real answers the public want. They include voice overs by the documentary maker.
Reflexive Mode:
This is the style of documentaries that highlights emotion and subjective issues, with the use of styles from fictional films, such as questioning voice overs used to make the audience to think, not to be authoritative and informative. They will also use anti-realistic features such as re-enactments and dramatic music to portray the dramatic stories they’re aiming to get the audience emotional about. Finally, they normally reflect on themselves.
Performative Mode:
Similar to the participatory mode of documentary production, this mode allows the documentary maker to be involved in the visual content shown to the audience, as they comment on how the production is going, and its set up as if its a mission or a narrated search. The subject normally involves identity rather than factual topics.
Poetic Mode:
This is made up of the producer giving a subjective view, and the events included are not fully developed and can end up not fully resolved and explained. This is a more arty interpretational form of documentary as it leaves you with rhetorical questions, and the footage and shots aren’t too related however they are somewhat linked with the subject, but in a loose sense.
Codes:
Establishing shots:
It is generally a long or extreme-long shot at the beginning of a scene indicating where, and sometimes when, the remainder of the scene takes place. Establishing shots were more common during the classical era of filmmaking than they are now.
Voiceovers:
Voiceovers are normally made by the maker of the documentary and they are used in order to give extra information on the development of the investigation, or to fill in unexplained different shots so that the audience know the difference in locations, or why the topic in the documentary might have switched to something else, basically it's just used to fill the audience in to make sure they’ll easily able to follow the development at all times.
Montage:
‘the technique of selecting, editing, and piecing together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole’
A montage is a selected variety of footage, sounds, music, or images all used to make the audience see what the maker is trying to portray, and in some cases to see how one idea can develop into another, which is easily shown with the use of a montage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaGSYGhUkvM
Piece to Camera:
This is what the presenter or subject talking to the audience through a camera is called, and is commonly used in news and television shows or YouTube videos. It’s an effective technique as it makes the viewer feel like what is being reported or what they’re being told is personal and it resonates with them individually, which can be useful when trying to create an emotional documentary, or trying to raise awareness on the subject, as a viewer will connect to is easier.
Visualised data:
This is a way of showing the viewer statistics rather than just telling them and it not really being understandable, but this could be done in so many creative ways when it comes to animation and thinking of ways to make sometimes mundane boring data seem interesting and easy to understand, because viewers will not watch something that makes them feel stupid, would you?
Experts, witnesses and victims:
These are useful when it comes to documentaries as it will make the viewers both trust, and connect with a piece of production. This will also help the viewers feel the feelings that the documentary maker wants them to feel as it’s a perfect technique to make a biased piece, showing the audience what you want them to see especially if it is an emotional topic. You can use expert opinions to make the topic seem professional and reliable, witnesses accounts to help the audience relate to another ordinary person telling a tale of their experience or ordeal, and a victim's story in order to receive sympathy and realism.
Vox pops:
These are interviews or questionnaires carried out by the presenter of a documentaries, and they will ask normal members of the public questions in order to find out opinions of all audiences and this will allow them to figure out what their target audience is going to be, so a primary research method however it can be used in the actual documentary too as a form of interviews and opinions.
Actual event footage:
Actual event footage is used in order to show the audience that an issue has been researched thoroughly and there is evidence towards certain problems or even victories, for example, if there was a documentary being made about the presidential election, archived footage of past presidents could be used to show events in a chronological order.
Archived footage:
This is footage that can reused to benefit other projects and productions, this is useful to film makers and documentary producers as it saves them from having to go out and shoot new material if it is relevant to what they’re creating.
Re-enactments:
Reenactments allow producers to show the viewers a certain scenario or scene that has once happened, which they may not have real life footage of in order to allow the viewer to understand the story fully. This is normally used in crime investigation programmes as they will re enact the crimes and scenes to let the viewers understand the timeline of events leading up to the crime easily.
Cutaways:
A cutaway is when a continuous video is interrupted with another video/ shot of the same thing but from a different angle or point of view, this allows viewers to be able to see what’s going on in the whole scene rather than just one stuck angle.
Conclusion/sign offs:
In documentaries, presents are more than likely always going to sign off, and conclude on the overall topic of the production and reflect on it, almost like a review, what went well, what didn’t etc. This gives the documentary some structure, and allows the viewer to then decide for themselves how they found the documentary.
