documentary factual issues blog for college

In order to make a successful documentary, it is preferred to follow a range of factual issues in order to stay professional and unbiased. I am doing my documentary on whether or not feminism has went too far, therefore i will be giving negatives and positives of the matter in order to follow these rules, and ideally come out with an effective documentary.

Accuracy:

When making a piece of film, and if you are wanting to inform others on a subject, you need to make sure that what you're saying is backed up, and has been researched thoroughly. Any research needs to be from a reliable source otherwise it shouldn't be included in your piece of production. in your research before production you should add links of all of your researched information in order to prove your information is trusted.

This will be important for my documentary on feminism, as i will be talking about a real campaign that people feel strongly about, therefore every bit of information needs to reliable so i am not giving false facts to people that may be uneducated on the subject.

Balance:

Make sure everything is non biased, and is showing both sides of a story, as you're meant to be allowing the audience to make up their mind on the subject, getting them thinking, not pushing your opinions directly on to them. You can make suggestions that certain parts of an issue may be better than the other, just not too much.

'Audiences today are not used to seeing strong, unbalanced points of view, but that is what the best documentaries of the 30's and 40's were. Does this mean that we risk giving audiences biased points of view? Surely, but the writers of the First Amendment seemed to have in mind that our free marketplace of ideas meant exactly that: the right to be exposed to any point of view, no matter how one-sided.'

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/18/movies/l-documentaries-and-balance-429186.html

I will need to give as much information on positive and negative sides of feminism in order to make sure it remains balanced.

Impartiality:

'Due impartiality is often more than a simple matter of 'balance' between opposing viewpoints. Equally, it does not require absolute neutrality on every issue or detachment from fundamental democratic principles.'

Impartiality means fairness, making sure both sides are shown equal respect and are both given a chance, you don't have to agree with both sides, but its important to listen to both in order to make up your over all decision.

I will not 'pick a side' on whether i agree or disagree with modern day feminism as it needs to remain impartial so that the audience aren't basing their overall opinion on what i believe in.

Objectivity:

'Journalistic objectivity is a considerable notion within the discussion of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterest, facts, and non partisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities.'

Objectivity to me means making sure you are just neutral in ever aspect within your production, you need to go into the project with a total blank slate, no opinions on the matter, no biased ideas or opinions, just being open minded with whatever outcome you end up with.

Subjectivity

Opposite to objective, subjective is where a piece of production is all based on someones personal beliefs, opinions or experience, for instance, as i first thought of doing my documentary on feminism because of my own opinions on the topic, it could have been a subjective piece, but as i'd like it to be open for other people to view and decide, i am following the objective route in order to get a more open response.

Opinion:

'a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.'

Opinions are a big part of any discussion or creation, as our opinions help us figure out what we deem as important, or how we judge a situation, and this all builds up when making a piece of production, and although i wont be using my own opinions in my production, i will be using other people opinions in order to provoke viewers' opinions.

Bias:

I have already spoke about things that over all describe the key features of biased production, so here are some examples of people's bias work:

Representation:

'Like photography, documentaries are a representational medium: They record and occasionally reconstruct the everyday reality viewers typically cannot experience themselves.'

Representation within media is how they portray something to viewers,and how they present them in either an ideological or value perspective. So for my documentary i could be showing certain aspects of feminism to spur on unbiased views.

Legal Access:

I couldn't find anything on the internet to help me understand what legal access is, but what came to my mind was copyright, or legally giving credits to owners of content.

Privacy:

''Is it in the public interest?' is a question you need to ask before publishing personal information. The more private or intimate the information is, the greater the public interest justification needs to be.'

This is a law in media which insists of only invading peoples privacy is it has a serious reason, or the public deserve to know, for instance, if a murderer had been found guilty, filming him no matter the situation would be accepted as the public deserve to see this man/woman's identity, however if the person had only been in questioning, and had not even been classed as a possible suspect, and the media filmed him/her at their homes, or anywhere else and manipulated the footage to make it look as if they were guilty of a crime, they would be breaching the privacy law and could be fined.

Contract with viewer:

Contract with Viewer is an unwritten law between the producers and the target audience. The rule basically states that the overall finished documentary will match the criteria of the one that they were initially informed about through TV advertisement or some other source. Failure to do so will shake the trust in the company producing the documentary and will generally cause confusion and bewilderment.