Brainstorm of Content



We decided that our documentary topic would be takeaways. Our group brainstormed a list of all of the content that we wanted to include in our film (subject to change in some places because we may add or remove ideas). The items on our list were serporated into five different categories. This was created so that it becomes easier to work with and we could make sure there was an even balance of different content in our documentary. Each of the five categories are colour coded. Our catagories were camera shots, interviews, archive material, editing and reconstruction. Our initial documentary planning brainstorm can be seen above.

Questionaire Analysis

Questionnaire on Takeaways

(Please circle your answer)

1) What is your gender?

Male 

Female

This question, despite its simplicity, is perhaps one of the most important questions we asked. We wanted to make sure that what we asked our audience was not biased towards one gender. Idealy, our questionaire's results had to have been asked to an equal ratio of males to females. In the end, it was fairly equal, around 51% females to 49%. Including myself, our group was satisfied with the results of this question, as it means that we are less likely to bias our documentary towards one gender. This makes it fair for everyone who views the film.

2) How old are you?

16-20

20-25

25-30

30-40

40+



Our documentary is aimed at a target audience of 16-20 year olds, although people from other age groups can also relate to the preferences of younger people. The age groups in this question reflect a fair representation of who we would like to watch our film. This does not completely mean our questionaire results on other questions fully represent the opinions of younger people, as the minority of people who are older than 16-20 years is too high.

3) How often do you have takeaways?

Never

Once every 3 months

Once every 2 months

Once every month

Once every 2 weeks

Once a week

More than once a week

We are pleased that the results for this question do not have a large majority. It suggests that when we create Vox Pops and film our longer interviews, we are likely to obtain a variety of answers. This gives us more choice of what clips to use during the editing process. I am pleased that a very small number of people chose the answer 'Never' rather than a large amount.

4) Would you have a takeaway as an actual meal or just as a quick alternative?

Meal

Alternative







Again, the results of this question do not have too much of a majority as opposed to the minority. Questions as balanced as this one are a good way to create conflict in our documentary because of the almost even number of answers. This helps to keep the documentary unbiased.


5) Do you find takeaways expensive? 

Yes

No

Some









In this question, just over half of the people who answered it said they find "some" takeaways expensive. The problem with the word "some" is that it is too general. It could refer to the phrases "Most" or "A few". However, in terms of a documentary, the use of the word 'Some' can be researched for the audience to make a final judgement at the end of the programme.


6) Do you prefer to get it delivered or to pick it up?

Delivered
Pick up









Due to the large number of people saying that they like to have their takeaways delivered to them, we will definately include something on deliveries in our documentary. We could then ask why getting takeaways delivered to a location is more popular than people picking them up themselves. Knowing this, we have already begun finding potential takeaway companies to interview.

7) What type of takeaway do you prefer?

Indian
Italian

American

Thai

English

Chinese

Mexican



Note that in this question, not one person said that they like mexican food. 'Why is this the case?' is perhaps an issue that could be explored so that the audience can make a judgement. On the other hand, it may be better to focus on the 50% of people we asked who said that Chinese takeaways were their favorite kind of food, whilst also mentioning the other types of food. 

8) Do any special offers ever tempt you?

Yes

No

Sometimes












This question is related to the financial side of takeaways and considers special offers such as '10% off when a certain pizza is ordered'. Therefore, this tempts the customer further to spend extra money on takeaways. Also, it was important because special offers are commonly associated with takeaways. Ultimately, it is another interview question that could be used for Vox Pocks. 


9) Do you usually have one with your friends, family or on your own?

Friends

Family

On my own










As with most questions, the interview subject is required to choose what they would 'often' or 'prefer' to do, Adding more options to cater for every possible answer would have made the results difficult to read and somewhat less useful and interesting to the audience we want to target. The results of this question have suggested that it would be a good idea for us to interview people with their friends or family (for example, in pairs) to support this idea of having a takeaway being a social activity. 

10) What type of takeaway is your least favourite?

Indian

Italian

American

Thai

English

Chinese

Mexican



This question was a reverse of question three (what type of takeaway is your favourite?) but with this question we are able to see the least popular type of takeaway. The results in a way reflected those of question three, with 'Chinese' gaining no votes as the least favourite and expanding on it is being the target audience's takeaway of choice. Noticably, 'Thai' has a large share of the votes on this question. This relates to "Thai" getting 0 votes in the "what type of takeaway is your favourite?" question. The results also conject to us that we should make Chinese, Indian, Italian and American food the main focus of our documentary. 


11) Do you tend to order the same meal or go for something more adventurous?

Same meal

Something adventurous

As the information that this question provides is not as helpful or interesting to the viewers as other, more obvious questions, it is likely that if we choose this question to be included in our documentary we would only ask a few people instead a lot of people for their answer. Instead, we should focus on the questions that provide us with much more experimental results. We could potentially include all of the 'smaller' questions such as this in a fast paced opening montage of cutaways and camera shots to provide a lot of information for the viewer without necessarily boring them.

12) What is the maximum amount you’d spend?

£0-£10

£10-£15

£15-£25

£25-£35

£35+







The financial side of takeaways from an audience members point of view is possibly a debatable sub-topic. As predicted, our target audience of teenagers/students rarely chose higher than the '£16-£25' option, as many of them cannot afford to pay so much money for a takeaway. If our group was to redo the questionnaire, we would add another option in between the '£16-£25' and '£26-£35' options to try to split the two options into three to get a more realistic and reliable view on results.  

13) Do you buy a drink(s) with your takeaway?

Yes

No

Sometimes

Rarely







This question may not be of particular interest to our target audience. It does does offer an insight into what people may say in their interviews if the sub-topic of drinks is mentioned. One method of presenting it is to connect this question with others to offer a more subjective show of information for our viewers. For example, we could link this question with 'Do special offers with takeaways tempt you?' - they may not be particularly good questions to ask people in our interviews but by combining them together they could provide us with helpful information to most importantly develop the exposition later in the documentary.

14) Do you usually order one on a weekday or at the weekend?

Weekday

Weekend

This question was among the most essential for our target audience to answer.  Since a large majority said they like to order a takeaway at the weekend, our documentary could state the reasons as to why this is this case. Again, interviews with key subjects are perhaps the best way to present this to our audience. It is perhaps very closely related to question 9 (Do you usually have a takeaway with your friends, family or on your own?) because a lot of people who order a takeaway could often get it with their family.

15) Are you always satisfied with the service you receive with your order?

Yes

No

If not please explain why…



_______________________
_______________________
_______________________
_______________________




Our target audience is satisfied with the service they recieve from takeaways. Very few people write in the 'please explain why' section of this question. Although we would have preferred them to do so, it is not all bad news because exploring why the service is so good is something we may able to ask people in our documentary. If we could find anyone who may be able to suggest why the 'No' category recieved so little votes compared to the 'Yes', this could be yet another way to develop our exposition further.


 16) If you were on your own would you order a takeaway over cooking?

Yes

No

Sometimes

Rarely

We cannot draw to a conclusion imediately because overall this question is mostly unbiased. To keep our documentary interesting for the viewer, it would be better for us to provide them with a variety of different factors such as different opinions and therefore we should consider asking this when we go to do our interviews. We believe that it will provide us with a varied outcome as suggested. It is essential that we show different opinion in our documentary and that we are not biased towards or against takeaways in any way. We must be completely neutral and this is the code of a good documentary.

17) Do you order one in the day or at night?

Day
Night

Due to the fact that most people said they preferred having a takeaway in the night, it could work to our advantage when we are interviewing people in the daytime. Evidently, we will be able to ask about people's plans for takeaways in the evening. Certain questions such as this one have more obvious answers - we could've probably just assumed that most people order their takeaways in the evening, but we felt it was necessary to check anyway so that we could provide proof to our viewers and make our documentary more professional and reliable. 

18) How often do you watch television?

Every day

Every other day

Every couple of days

Every few days

Only to tune into a particular programme








While most of our questionnaire was about takeaways, we also decided that it was important to ask about the television element, as we aim for this program to be shown on channel 4. The results of this question show that nearly all people that we asked watch television on a regular basis and would likely be interested in watching our documentary. This question could've been worded slightly better, as 'every couple of days' and 'every few days' are not very specific and difficult to distinguish between. It is however, pleasing to see that a large section of our target audience watch television every day. This leaves them open to the idea of inheritance. 




19) What font do you prefer?

This was a necessary question in terms of appealing to our target audience. Features such as on-screen graphics and music can easily be added and changed to fit the target audience's preferences. Personally, I prefer the Arial font, which has been labelled as 'Basic' in our results. To make sure people could understand what they were voting for, we provided them with an example of each font on the questionnaire. It didn't surprise me that the 'Formal' or 'Fancy' fonts did not get many votes and I don't think these would be taken seriously in documentary graphics. 

20) Do you prefer to have a male or female voice over?

Male

Female








Like most documentaries, I think it is better to have one voiceover throughout rather than multiple. Subsiquently, we saw it fit to just give people a choice between either a male or a female narrator. 



21) What music do you prefer to listen to in a light hearted documentary?

Classical

Ambient

Pop

Jazz

Acoustic

Rock

Electronic





The majority of people selected that they would prefer to hear rock or electronic music in our documentary. The music that we choose because of these results must be relevent. If we can incorporate our target audience's preferences into our documentary, it would make it more appealing, interesting, and enjoyable to them.


22) What would be your preferred colour for the graphics of a documentary?


White Black

Red

Blue

Green

Pink

Orange

Yellow

Purple
 

The final question was asked in relation to their prefered colour of the on-screen graphics including text. Instead of just asking what the person's favourite colour was, we asked what their preferred colour for a documentary's graphics were because just knowing what their favourite colour was would've provided us with less useful and more random results. Over half of the votes went to black and white, so we will be sure to use black or white (or both) graphics in our documentary whilst certainly avoiding colours such as yellow, which didn't receive any votes.

Codes and Conventions

After watching many documentaries, I was able to compile a list of their codes and conventions:

• Interviews: These are a common occurence in documentaries and are used as a way to develop the exposition further. Sometimes, the cameraman will set the camera at diferant levels to show how powerful the person they are interviewing is in relation to the central question. For example, when the camera looks up to the subject, this displays there dominance. If the camera is looking down on the subject (often seen in vox pox), the camera is dominant. Unless it they are Vox Pocks, 'Experts' are always chosen to interview. The camera could also demonstrate power by doing an extreme close up onto interview subjects. The subject should never look at the camera whilst being filmed and is likely to have been told so before the interview started. Also, the audience rarely hears the questions being asked to the subject by the interviewer. The interviews are allways cut early and never shown in full flow.



• Voiceovers: Off screen voiceovers feature in nearly all types of documentaries. There is likely to be a "Voice of God" who helps present numerous forms of evidience to the audience.

• Archive Footage: This is when the documentary uses related footage shot in the past as evidience. This could be used as a cut away, where voiceovers are layed over the archive footage.



• Reconstructions: Some reconstructions are met with 'What if' rather than 'what happened'. A 3D animated model could be presented on screen or some archive footage that is met with cut aways.

• Music Beds: Documentaries like to use music and sound effects to set the mood. The music may be related, so if it is a documentary about Madonna, then samples of her music could be included. Music beds have no vocals in them to allow narration to speak over the top. If they did have vocals, then the Narrator's voice could be interrupted and poor use of this code is often thought of as bad sound editing. 



• Graphics: It is common to see graphics on screen at the first appearance of a subject in an interview. The name of the subject will appear above another line of text which states their relation to the exposition. Many documentaries use a white text, as this colour blends in well with any context.



• Non Diegetic Sound: Sound which cannot be heard by those involved with the interviews of documentaries



• Diegetic Sound: Sound which can be heard by those involved with the interviews of documentaries.



• Backdrops: In many interviews with experts, there is likely to be a backdrop of an image which is related to the exposition. For example, an interview in a documentary about the making of a new comedy could have a backdrop of one of the film posters behind the subject. Occasionally, the backdrop would be archive footage. However, this is not very common because the archive footage can sometimes distract the viewer's eyes away from the subject. This is part of the mise en scene.



• Facts: Documentaries use facts which are related to the exposition to help the audience make a judgement at the end of the film



• Openings: Openings are often a montage of fast paced editing and cut aways. The central question must be identified in this time.



• Unbiased: A bad documentary is often one that has a biased narrative and doesn't get examples from the other side of the arguement. This is why many must be unbiased.

What is a Documentary?

The term 'Documentary' was coined in 1926 by John Grierson. In the 1930s, him and his team at the General Post Office (GPO) were able to define it as "The creative treatment of actuality". The purpose of a documentary is to document a past, present event with evidience and may question what could happen in the future. Modern Documentaries will use actual footage, commentary, interviews and reconstructions to support various sides of the arguement. However, in the time John Grierson defined them, they were made for cinema audiences because television had not yet been invented and were supposed to boost the morale of audiences in war times. Many of these documentaries would have had government interst invested into them. Documentaries are often problematic and address the main question of the program early on. This is so many other sub questions can be asked during the middle of program. This is one of the factors that allows the audience can make their own judgement at the end.

It is important that an audience is always able to question a documentary which claims to be "real". Some documentaries use reconstructions of fake events that could happen in the future as a way to advance an audience's judgement. Sometimes, this also speads fear into an audience but the viewer may be intruiged enough to watch the film until it reaches its conclusion. As John Connor stated in 1995, documentaries must still be respected for their factual acount of past events. "What distinguishes a documentary is the portrayal of the recorded sounds and images of actuality".

The BBC's 'Panorama' is a well known type of documentary and is often studied by other production teams because it offers of view, however serious the issues in which it tries to address. Panorama's most well known method of exploring 'the creative treatment of actuality' is by sending undercover reporters to the location in question. Along with narration and interviews, this is the program's key method of trying to get the audience to make their own judgement and creates a point of view.

Other documentaries use reconstructions as one way to ask the audience 'what if' and/or 'why' questions. British documentaries such as Panorama are well known for their methods of creativity. However, many can be linked in together by what the filmmaker Diane Tammes once said about documentaries which claim to be 'true'. "Truth is what you actually come away with at the end of the film. I mean it's your truth that you're seeing. Everybody who makes a film puts their own truth onto the screen". This means that all documentaries are faked to a certain extent because of the camera angles and the editing.

Some people argue whether a topical program can still be considered a documentary if it is creative. All documentary makers agree that to support an argument, there should be sound, recorded images and elements of actual reality to support those areas of which could be considered 'false'. Current affairs programs are considered half way between documentaries and the news. If they are any longer than 30 minutes then they must be thought of as a documentary. They are also on a much shorter production deadline in comparison to documentaries.

Of course, TV scheduling is vital. For example, a documentary which largely focuses on Christmas at a department store would gain little attention during the summer. Some documentaries that are aired on TV in the UK are aired after the watershed (9pm) because of the strong language and sometimes nudity. Other documentaries aired for the first time on the BBC or ITV are never shown on a Saturday night because this is when viewers like to watch entertainment programs such as 'Strictly Come Dancing' or 'The X-Factor'. They are often first aired on a Monday or Tuesday and then re-aired the next Thursday or Friday. It should be noted that if a television channel has to re-schedule their programs at short notice, then documentaries are often the first to be cut, particularly if it is a repeated broadcast. This is because compared to other genres, documentaries are much less popular.

John Corner of Liverpool University noted some of the codes and conventions of documentaries:

OBSERVATION: This is when the camera becomes the eyewitness to some of the events taking place. For example, when it is placed in a street, it is set to record many people walking past obliviously. This is much better to help the audience imagine they are in the concerned area of the documentary. Often, narration will be used as a way of linking the observations relevence to the problem.

INTERVIEW: Documentaries on television rely heavily on interviews. Sometimes pictures and archive footage is dubbed over to make sense and anchor what is going on. Some documentaries use an interview technique known as 'Vox Pops'. This comes from the latin phrase vox populi, simply translating to 'voice of the people'. They are used to provide a snapshot of public opinion when they are given a particular topic to answer questions about. Often, there will be little footage taken of the questions being answered because the people asked are new to interviews, so they may be nervous about whether they get to see themselves on televison later on. Interviewers don't ask people many questions in Vox Pops for this reason.

DRAMATISATION: All documentaries use a sense of dramatisation. This is when the audience is an eyewitness to the events unfolding on screen. Sometimes, this is done by reconstruction, perhaps with the narration of industry experts who are related to the problem.

MISE EN SCENE: Mise en Scene is always used to advance the arguement. It always has relevence to the problems covered in the documentay. Camera shots of related locations are a common feature.

EXPOSITION: The exposition is when a documentary features the line of an arguement which has a message made up of description and/or commentary.

Infotainment is a form of documentary, although they are much more closely related to current affairs programs. They are often democratic and try to make things better for everyone concerned. A very well known program which did this was Ken Loach's 1966 film 'Cathy Come Home'. This documentary resulted in improved conditions for the homeless because of the widespread attention and publicity it generated. Therefore, this shows how powerful documentaries can be to an audience and questions whether it is right for them to always be the first genre of programs which are cut when TV scheduling has to change.

However, documentaries rarely question the deeper organisation and the fairness of society. For example, when documentaries about the killings by James Bulger are shown, films and popular culture are blamed for his influences. This is the film's own child's play, chosen over neglect that the child received from their parents.Dennis O'Rourke once spoke saying "It is critical that film makers be rid of the fantasy that the documentary can be unproblematic representations of reality and truth can be conveniently dispensed". Within documentaries, ideas of truth and reality can be conflicting at times. For example, when news broke about the then international monetary fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn's sexual assault scandal, more women came forward and made claims about him. These were later proven to be false claims and were just made so the women could make money by selling fake stories. John Corner believes that evidence rather than truth would help this issue. He states that recording technologies on record snapshots of the physical world we live in and can be used as evidence of actuality over reality. In support of the exposition, this evidence can then strengthen the whole documentary. Ideas of truth and reality can be conflicting at times. Biased documentaries are often considered bad documentaries by critics because they only focus on one side of the arguement after asking the main question of the documentary. There are, however, documentaries which are considered ratings winners. Documentaries that are like this often focus subjects such as sex, violence as well as law and order.

Many of these topics are thought of as delicate to talk about by viewers and if they are not presented in the correct way by televison networks, they may receive complaints from its relevant audience as a result. The audience's reaction, however, is part of a three way process within in making a documentary. The other two parts include who the documentary is aimed at and what is featured within the documentary.

Some people would consider reality TV programs such as 'Big Brother' a documentary. However, it does not fully fit in with the codes and conventions of documentaries. It is true that there are cameras watching every movement in the house and the program is narrated so that documentations can be made. Also, the program only contains several minor expositions rather than one major exposition. Therefore, we must call this a 'loose' type of documentary.

Types of Documentary

Fully Narrated

There is a direct address from the "voice of God" narrator off screen. Wildlife Documentary narrators such as David Attenbourogh define and justify the actions which appear on screen, as animals are unable to speak the same language as humans.

Fly on the Wall

The name 'Fly on the Wall' makes sense with some imagination. If you have a fly in a room, it watches the events unfold without everyone acknowledging it's presence. In terms of documentaries, the fly is the observational camera, aiming to witness controversy. Editing in a fly on the wall is important as it defines the behavior of subjects to audience.

Mixed Documentary

This type of documentary is referred to as mixed because of its approach to interviews, narrative and observation. The narration is from inside the scene and is spoken in a similar style to that of news reports. It is vital to mention that mixed documentaries represent objective reality and not just selective construction. Sometimes, they are self-reflective, meaning that you will see the filmmaker in it. By an audience drawing attention to a mixed documentary, the subject's loss is realised.

Docudrama

A documentary drama (or docudrama, for short) are reenactments of an event that actually happened. However, they are often misleading to viewers and can only ever hope to deliver fiction.

Docusoaps

Docusoaps do not fully explore a central topic. The small production team follows the daily lives of people of a certain sociological background and the final film is presents to an audience as though they are eve's dropping. They have a UK origin and they were very cheap to make at first but the modern popularity of this genre means that they are a little more expensive. Steven Barnett says that the watering down of documentaries in sub genres such as docusoaps has had an impact on British culture in what is called Disneyfication.

A common narrative

Beginning

This is when the central question of the documentary is posed to the audience. A common feature in the beginning of a documentary is to see cutaways, fast paced action, archive footage, narration and occasionally some Vox Pops.

Middle

The documentary must present the majority of it's knowledge of the subject here after heavy research during the pre-production stage. It is essential for the conflict to take place here. This allows creative documentary techniques which develop a fully apparent exposition. Appropriate music beds and sound effects are important at this stage because in some minor ways they can help influence a relevant argument on an individual viewer's final judgement. When interviews are shown on screen, the documentary is edited so that only the answer to the question is heard rather than question being asked. The person being interviewed does not look at the camera. Instead they ignore the camera and just face the person interviewing them.

End

This is when the documentary will present a conclusion to the events discussed. A final recap and summary is presented to the audience. This is to allow the audience to make their own final judgement.

Prelim

I began making a prelim which was a documentary focusing on mobile phones. The aim of this prelim was to give us something to base our improvements from for the development process of my main documentary. This is particularly helpful for the editing process in future so we can improve upon where we went wrong last time. I was very happy with how the opening credits of my prelim were edited, in particular how it was in tune to this relevent piece of music:



I wanted the audience to associate our chosen theme tune with mobile phones from the introduction. The non-diagetic music becomes toned down in during the interview but does play throughout. Our film slightly rearranges the order of the song in the opening credits. For example, we cut the first four seconds of the music and pasted it to when the 'LOL' slowly appeared on screen; diagonally letter by letter. This sequence also included a panned close up of a phone lying on a table. The types of lighting on this shot blended in well with each other. There was natural lighting shining through the windows in the back and man-made lighting coming from the roof. We made sure of this by including several close up shots of people using their mobile phones for various purposes, such as Facebook, texting and making calls.

We found someone to interview for this documentary opening. She was a member of our teenage target audience who is an avid phone user called dccbbcgdxccgbcgbfcr; Tessy Adeybi. We were given a set of interview questions to ask her. We filmed the full interview in front of a blue screen. This was so an image relevent to the exposition could be edited behind her. Unfortunately, due to lack of time available to edit, we were unable to finish editing our prelim. We were still, however able to learn from our mistakes from last time.