Contents

Introduction



Chapter 1: Documentary Theory

Chapter 2: New Technologies

Chapter 3: Genre


Chapter 4: Narrative


Chapter 5: Representation

Chapter 6: Audience


Conclusion

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Introduction

Jak Edgley
Student ID: 6459365
Documentary Link: https://vimeo.com/groups/72hour/videos/145483193

Documentary is the presentation of factual information about real people,
places and events, generally portrayed through actual images and artefacts.
(Bernard 2004:2)

In 1895, the Lumiere brothers released a short film titled Un Train Arivee. This
film simply contained footage of a train arriving at a station. However this was
the first time moving footage had been shot on a camera. At the time, audiences
were fascinated at how the train was moving across the screen, a concept they
would have never imagined witnessing. At the time, this concept was known as
actuality. While this represents the very early stages of documentaries, it
possesses the core concepts that documentaries today still have, the main one
being the filming of reality.

In 1926 John Grierson refined the term documentary in a review of Robert
Flahertys Moana.

Documentaries became further prominent through the work of Dziga Vertov, a
pioneer documentary filmmaker. His documentary Man with a Movie Camera
was arguably the first time actuality had been put together in a feature length
film. Prior to this, the concept of filming reality was limited to short clips for
most people at the time. Vertovs work was ground breaking as it unearthed a
new type of media that is still avidly consumed today.

Documentaries can be categorised into sub genres, according to Bill Nichols.
These genres are known as expository, observational, poetic, participatory,
reflexive, performative and poetic. Each documentary can be placed into one of
these sub genres based on their conventions, or how they are structured. Due to
the increasing number of documentaries in the media today, having various sub-
genre is beneficial, as it helps consumers categorise content more easily.

Our groups documentary follows the daily life of students, and the emotions
involved during that day. It can be categorised into the observational sub genre.
To fall into this genre, the documentary must present an objective reality with
the filmmaker as a neutral observer. Our documentary fits into this sub genre
best as each group member shoots our footage themselves while they are doing
tasks they would normally do throughout the day. Furthermore, some of the
filming was completely spontaneous, which further emphasises how an objective
reality is being portrayed, because in these sequences, nothing was staged or
pre-planned.

The documentary itself does not include an extortionate amount of fancy edits or
transitions. This is because it would stray out of the conventions of an
observational documentary. The footage from our documentary was shot
entirely on mobile phones giving it a more natural feel, which coincides with the
sub-genre our documentary falls into.


The documentary doesnt have a specifically set narrative, as the main goal is to
get an objective portrayal of student life. To plan a narrative would require
certain footage to be staged, which is not what our group was looking for. We
sought to create an objective portrayal of reality throughout our documentary.

Documentary Theory

Lam Yeun Shan

Student ID: 6461597

It depends on the portrayal of sound and images of actuality to distinguish
documentary (John Corner, 1995). To be more specific, the purpose of
documentary is to report reality with evidence. It contains authentic footage and
rebuilding of events and situations to provide proof or contrast with the
interviewees account (Naborough, 2013). Occasionally, documentary may
involve narration to regulate meaning and sometimes may rely on the unseen
narrator.

Bill Nichols, an American documentary theorist, distinguished the six types of
documentaries. The first is the poetic documentary, which focuses on
emphasizing the lyrical, rhythmic and emotive side of documenting, it is also
somehow against the filmic routine, for instance it has a fix time and space to
investigate the correlation between pattern, portraits and objects.

As for the observational documentary, it attempts to observe aspects of the
historical world as they happen (Willcox, 2013), it normally does not have a
voiceover commentary, no supplementary music or sound, no behavior is
repeated and interviews, objects are seen in their natural setting. To be more
specific, it is quite similar to some reality television shows. For instance, the
British reality TV show Big Brother, one of the main conventions is the hidden
camera that are placed in the Big Brother house, hence their conversations and
actions are totally unpredictable and natural.

The reflexive documentary is the most self-conscious and subjective within all
kinds of documentaries, It dont see itself as a transparent window on the world;
conversely it draws attention to their own construction, and the fact that they are
representations (Willcox, 2013). Consequently it is highly contradictory of
realism, the main purpose of documentary. One of the famous example is the
documentary man with a movie camera that was filmed in 1929, at that time
this documentary was defined as a story about a story, after the term
documentary was defined and this is the first one. The film is in black and white
and silent with orchestra, basically there is no story and characters within, and it
proposed to film the motor evolution and industrial revolution over that period.

According to Burton (2007), performative documentary focus on emphasizing the
personal subjective experience and response of emotion to the world. They are
strongly alternative, it might be poetic and/or experimental, and might include
unrealistic hypothetical presentations of events proposed to make us experience
how it would be if we hold another specific perspective on the world that we are
not living in, it often has a correlation with personal experiences in political,
historical and realities. Tongues untied in 1989, the performative documentary
about American black gay culture and the racism and sexual orientation
discrimination that black gay experience in society, it intended to put audience
face on the issue, make them emotional and arouse the sympathy and empathy

The expository documentary is rhetorical, it could also be call the voice of god
since it always has a presenter to speak directly to the audiences. In this case,
images has become minor important than the voice of narration, it serves to
illustrate or act in the counterpoint of what is being said by the presenter, the
presenter often brings up a tough argument and standpoint. For example, the
documentary Americas Most Wanted is about a reporter presenting wanted of
escaped criminal that committed any crimes etc. kidnapping, murder, robbery,
child abuse and sexual violence.

In a participatory documentary, the production team will also become the subject
of the documentary, one of the biggest advantage of this kind of shooting
technique is it is able to give audience a more realistic sense of what it is like
when the filmmaker was in the given situation and how that situation alters. In
the documentary, A Day Full Of Emotions, the production team was involved in
the creation and filming.

The attraction of this documentary is about daily life that teenagers all
experience, therefore it would be able to arouse the echo of audiences heart
since. Super size me, an American participatory documentary thats about the
filmmaker recording how is his physical and mental health going to change after
one month of only eating Mcdonalds food. This is a very successful documentary,
since it had brought awareness to public about the obesity and overweight issue
and unhealthy food culture, in America it had also implicitly challenged
Mcdonalds of producing harmful fast food so it has gained the whole world
attention.

Although we all remain on the same timeline, we are in different places and
experiencing different feelings and emotions, for instance while someone is being
poorly punished by their boss, another person is happily having a fine dinner. The
production team of A Day Full Of Emotions has individually filmed about what is
each of them doing and feeling at several fixed time, which means their daily
routine. It could be analysed as the production team has chosen this kind of
documentary since it could be able to strengthen the power of arousing
audiences empathy. The traits of this type of documentary, for instance hand-
held camera-filming style; voice-over by the filmmakers and most importantly
the participation of filmmaker can make the documentary look informal and
relaxed. By using these traits, It could be estimated that the production team A
Day Full Of Emotions aimed to attract the audiences by making the documentary
feel easy- going and flexible, so that it might be able to make the audience feel
pleased and stress- released, they found the traits of this documentary would be
the best sort to present their idea.

New Technologies

Caroline Blaxland
Student ID: 6158479

The factor, which has exerted the greatest impact on urban society during the
last thirty years, has surely been the development and spread of telematic
technology through the convergence of communications and computers.
(Brotchie, Batty, Hall and Newton 1991)

Technology in the 21st century has developed rapidly since the 70s and 80s, this
development meant that a lot of Hollywood filmmakers made documentarys
changed for the better. For example the film A man with a movie camera, the
first classified documentary is based on a man travelling around a city with a
camera filming the urban life. This shows that back in 1929 the producers did
not mind about the lighting or setting they simple just wanted to make a film that
worked. Now high-end movie producers would pick a location, light and setting
just to film the perfect shot if that shot did not work they would have to rethink
the location. This is due to the development of technology that was given in 1929
to 2015. New technology enables further sophisticated forms of organization.
(Tom E. Burns 1961). As the development of technology has become so large
many people have lost their jobs, as they are not needed for production of films,
for example they no longer need Line Producer, as using less technology means
that you will not go over your budget which means the Line Producer does not
need to worry on budgeting.

Charlie Brooker argues that the representation of the real is a blurred
boundary. This is suggesting that many different texts are available on a number
of interactive platforms, which has made people question what is real and what
is not. With this theory, the production group, D3 felt that their documentary
was representing the real idea of a students life in emotions. They made this
noticeable through the violent language and the stereotypical representation, for
example the laziness of not getting up at 7am or the going out clubbing on a
Tuesday evening. They had a very clear demographic audience with a socio-
economic of C2-E, 18 to 24 year olds due to the setting of the clubs.

During the pre-production, the production group (D3) looked at ways to get the
best quality of film without using high-tech cameras. In the end, the group
decided to film from their smart phones. This was mainly decided as the
production group wanted to follow the forms of the film Tangerine. This film
was the best at The Sundance Festival and consumers where shocked that it was
filmed on a iPhone 5s thus allowing the idea of David Gauntletts theory of the
prosumer creating a world of independent media producers, as they were
creating their own type of media with their own technology.

The idea of using an iPhone makes the whole documentary almost feel like its
being portrayed through the eyes of the iPhone. However there are problems
whilst using IPhones to record. For example in the production development for
D3, they noticed the wind being in the background with some of their recordings
which would cause the audience to have trouble hearing. However this can also
be a plus for the group as the audience may not even notice the wind in the

background due to the audience relating to the whole documentary. Using an

iPhone allows the group to be able to upload their documentary onto YouTube or
other social networking sites, which allows them to gain a wider and global
audience, as people will share and like the video allowing the documentary to
become apart of the global village.

By having access of new technologies, the group was able to follow the
conventions of an observational documentary. This was chosen because the
intention of the documentary was to capture the day in the life of teenagers and
their emotions throughout the day from their perspective. Using a smartphone
captures the intention of the documentary as it gives off the idea of becoming a
vlog. This was the way the group wanted their documentary to be portrayed, as
it was their own perspective not how other people see them.

The way the group decided to film the documentary allowed the process of
bringing it all together much easier. In the first scene they woke up at 7am to
film how they felt in the morning, then they filmed at 12am to show the dramatic
change during our first scene. In the documentary many people said that the
group followed the commercial conventions as it was almost to true of a
representation of how teenagers are making it relative. This linear narrative
made it make sense and flow easily into one documentary.

As the entire group videoed on iPhones all they had to do was download it onto a
computer and start editing on Premiere Pro. The editing part was the hardest
part, as the group all wanted to help out, however, there is so much one can do to
help. During the editing the group decided that it be a good idea to put the times
listed at the bottom of the scene so then the audience would understand what
time the current clip was playing from. In the end the Media and Production
students decided they would finalize the whole edit and the other students used
different types of computer-aided technology to help add in different effects.

Overall, the developments of new technologies have allowed many people to try
new and different things. As the production group has used Smartphones instead
of high-tech cameras, it gave them chance to step out of their comfort zone, but it
showed the portrayal through the filmmakers eyes of their phones. The group
really had to think about the pros and cons of using such devices as many things
could of gone wrong with just using smartphones, for example the lighting might
have been off or the camera would have caught the footage blurry, however this
documentary portrayed the new technologies extremely well, it displayed great
quality of footage.

Genre

Toby Read
Student ID: 6261517

When it comes to film genres, there are multiple various and in-depth subgenres.
Films often fit into multiple subgenres, for example, action/sci-fi or
thriller/horror. Deciding on a genre and subgenre are important before
producing any form of media, it makes the objective and intentions clear and can
help keep production on track. Documentaries have six main subgenres and
categories they can fit into They are poetic, expository, observational,
participatory, reflexive and performative.

Poetic documentaries lack a clear narrative sense. They can often seem abstract
and sometimes even confusing. They tend to have a deeper meaning than other
types. Expository documentaries are factual and informative. Theyre made to
teach and give the viewer knowledge, and give a right and wrong answer rather
than being based on opinion. Observational documentaries attempt to show the
message through the film with little to no intervention from the filmmaker.
Participatory documentaries try to include the filmmaker into the documentary
and merge together to create a different angle to look at things from. Reflexive
documentaries involve everybody learning, you will often find the filmmaker
learns as much as the viewer from a reflexive documentary theyre often seen
as experimental. Lastly, performative documentaries, these types of
documentaries often report on conflicting subjects. The filmmakers are openly
biased about their point of view, and do not try to hide it.

For the groups documentary A Day Full of Emotions, getting the genre right
was important since there was a clear target audience. Different genres often
appeal more to different people. The target audience in this instance was
teenagers. Although the documentary could fit into multiple subgenres, the most
suitable in this instance was the observational genre. Observational was chosen
since the intention of the documentary was to capture the day in the life of
teenagers and their emotions from their perspective.

The documentary was filmed on each group members phone, like individual
vlogs. After much planning and discussion, the group came to the conclusion
that this was the best idea. It shows life from the filmmakers perspectives,
rather than how other people were to see them. It was felt that this was the best
way to show what life was like for that person. It allowed the filmmaker to dive
into the deeper parts of their lives that would usually go unnoticed by others. It
allowed the filmmakers to be more descriptive as they knew exactly what was
going on and how they were feeling on the inside, something that can only be
described by that person. This very much put it in the observational subgenre of
documentaries the viewer was literally observing the filmmakers lives from
their perspectives.

There was no narration; subtitles or any other form of intervention after the
footage was put together besides background music for immersion, a basic
timestamp at certain points of the video to make the documentary
understandable and emojis to show the emotions that were felt at that point.

Using emoticons was a clever thing to add since it fit well with filming on
smartphones, especially as it was a documentary for teenagers. The group
wanted the viewers to see what their lives were like exactly as they were without
any extras. A narration or any intrusive form of intervention would have taken
away from the immersion. There was also no need for a narration it was quite
clear what was going on through the filmmakers explanations and timestamps.
A narration or subtitles would have seemed almost futile.

Another subgenre the documentary could arguably fit into would be expository.
Since the documentary was informative and factual towards the lives of the
filmmakers. The documentary wasnt biased towards any subject or individual,
everything said and shown was factual. The point of the documentary was to
inform the audience of the lives of the filmmakers, and thats what it did.
Therefore, one could argue that these factors make it in various ways an
expository documentary as well as an observational one.

When thinking of a documentary to make, several ideas were listed down and
developed upon before the final decision was made. There were three main ideas
the group came up with, each differed slightly in genre. It was important to have
more than one idea so that if it came to it and one idea could not be completed
there would be something else there to fall back on. Locations, times, dates, etc.
were all factors that needed to be kept in mind. If something was unable to be
worked out and there was no way around it, then a backup would have been
necessary. Different ideas are more appropriate with one specific genre over
another. This was something that needed to be taken in mind when developing
and working on all the ideas, and something that was thoroughly discussed once
an idea was chosen. Luckily, the initial idea worked out and the other two were
not needed. Expansion was needed on the idea discussed, some people were
able to film at certain times others were not. Filming was permitted in certain
locations and special permissions were required in some cases among other
things. This all had to be taken into account before going out to film.

Whilst the documentary didnt have a full narration or story, it still made sense
and flowed well. Times were listed at the bottom left of the screen to make sure
the viewer knew what time it was when the current clip was playing. This was
implemented because otherwise the clips would have jumped from 7am to 12pm
for example, and it would be difficult to understand what was going on. This was
a decision that a lot of thought went into to make sure it was the right thing to
do. Since it may have looked tacky and pointless if it wasnt needed the viewer
may have already known what was happening.

Overall, the genre that was chosen functioned well with the target audience of
teenagers and young adults. Relating to the audience is one of the most
important aspects of any film, and this documentary did it well. It displayed an
interesting perspective that engaged and captivated the audience. The subgenre
was arguably one of the most interesting subgenres out of all the documentary
subgenres, and this was indicated by a positive audience response.

Narrative

Josh Solomon
Student ID: 6450410

It is very important to know the difference between narrative and a story. A
story is a sequence of events that tells us what is happening. Stories will contain
many different themes, genres and have specific targeted audiences. Narrative is
the way that the story is constructed. It takes all the elements used in the story
and carries it out to the audience.

A narrative can be structured in different ways and in doing so it will achieve
various different reactions. A common structure type is known as Linear
Structure. This is when narrative orchestrates a story and runs in chronological
order, from beginning to end. This technique is the most simplest to portray out
of all the techniques and is more than likely the reason it is used quite frequently
in the media. There are five defiant stages to a narrative that helps the story
develop. The first stage would be the Equilibrium, which is a state of peace of
harmony. Like in our documentary, everything started in the morning where
everybody is waking up. There is destruction to this, which then gives birth to a
new state of peace that would emerge at the end of the story. Just like how in the
documentary when all of the subjects (actors) went back to bed after a long
eventful day. This is known as the New equilibrium. Other techniques will feed a
story to its viewers in a different way. There is a technique that is designed to
make the viewers wonder what is going to happen next and in doing so they can
question the story itself. This type of narrative can and in some cases will make
the story more enticing. This technique is known as Open Structure. The last
way narrative can be structured is by letting the audience know there is going to
be a definite ending to the story; these are quite commonly used in Hollywood
films. This technique is called Closed Structure.

Theorist, Vladimir Propp, analysed narrative and suggested that characters took
on specific roles of narrative that fulfilled the purpose. From a complete analysis
of stories, Propp came up with seven different character types: The hero, the
villain, the donor, the helper, the princess, the dispatcher and finally the false
hero. Propps narrative theory uses these seven types of characters so that
audiences can easily identify the characters in the film/TV show. In A Day Full Of
Emotions, the characters were never molded our characters in such a way. They
wanted to show the audience a real portrayal of teens. To define our characters
the way Propp did we would have had to script each character, by doing that it
would of created a false platform and that would have contradicted the whole
point of the documentary.

A story can be told differently but have the same original foundation. It would all
depend on the narrative. A really good example to use would be Dracula. There
are serial different Dracula movies, each directed by different people. However
they all have the same core foundation. Except the narrative is never the same,
therefore giving the audience a different feel and reaction to each Dracula
movie produced. The same methods apply to every Frankenstein, Peter Pan
and Planet of the Apes movies. Everyone has a different feel to each of those
movies, thats why in A Day Full Of Emotions they have many different subjects

involved to help the audience have a different feel to the film. Narrative is not
just something that applies to films. It applies to anything that has a story to tell.
Whether it would be a news report on a world crisis, other documentaries or
even a fictional feature film. The same rules apply to any genre a story is being
directed by narrative and put into use.

A documentary is required to not be biased and portray the truth to an audience.
It must be objective and not be slanted in a particular way. Thats why with A
Day Full Of Emotions nothing was scripted or staged. We kept everything purely
real and shot it on our phones to reinforce that everything shown was true. So
going into the 72-hour challenge the group, as a whole was set on what story
they wanted to deliver. One thing we all did have to keep in mind was that the
aim of any documentary is to teach things the rest of the world will not or may
not have known about the emotional changes a typical student may face in one
day. The structure of narrative that was used was linear. However this structure
wasnt planned on being used because; there was no real pre production
involved. In this documentary the target audience was roughly around eighteen
to twenty five. Instead of focusing on just one teenagers day, the group focused
on multiple. By doing this it would keep the documentary enticing to the
audience. In post production, texts and pictures were used to define each
individual emotional change that the subjects (actors) were representing. This
did in fact help the narration flow quite well and by doing this, viewers could see
how different the teenagers who were being documented are to one another.

In the end narrative can be seen as the voice a story is being told through. It
presents a story in which people understand what is going on. By doing this
narrative also has control over how people feel and react to what is being shown
and the aim of the documentary was, to make everyone feel like they had a bit
more of an understanding of all emotions the different teenagers/ young adults
might face at different times throughout the day. Judging from the response
given, it was clear that the narration of the film had succeeded in its task.

Representation

Alexis Carrington
Student ID: 6347279


The documentary, A Day Full Of Emotions highlights the changing emotions and
experiences someone may go through in 24-hours. Focusing on eighteen to
twenty-two year olds the production team, D3, use stereotypical signifiers that
identify this specific age category to the audience. One of their main signifiers
used within the documentary and to produce the documentary was a smart
phone. This instantly connotes young people and technology to an audience, as it
is stereotyped that all young people are glued to their phones. D3 believe smart
phones are the eyes of the young people and used this to capture their every
move, fortunately their audience ranged around the same age as the participants
in the short film. This made the documentary relative for the viewers, which all
possessed a smart phone.

A documentarys purpose is to inform, explain or cover issues from multiple
perspectives highlighting the medias intake on reality. A Day Full Of Emotions is
a documentary that covers the life of young adults from the perspective of a
young adult, suggesting our perception should be accurate for the audience.
When the Lumiere brothers created the Exiting The Factory film there were no
staged characters or situations, the producers placed the camera in one position
and filmed what was in front of it. Although they have chosen to place the camera
in that particular place, by focusing on that scene without interfering with what
is happening, the Lumiere brothers were able to capture reality in its natural
light. This is called actuality. Though now, cultures, social groups and ideologies
have massively changed and are still currently changing. Therefore, during the
pre-production and production process of creating a media text it is not as
simple to represent someone or something as it once was. In D3s documentary,
creating the stereotypically young adult was difficult as not all are the same and
some of these old ideologies we used associated with them are no longer in
place.

Representation is the portrayal and process of construction that is not innocent.
There are three main levels of representation: Level one identifies the reality of
the text; what is happening? And what are people doing? It can either be a
situation, a character or a setting. This is then developed on to level two, where
the media use technical codes such as lighting, camera angles, editing techniques
and sound to re-present what is being shown in the text. By doing this, the media
are able to create social and cultural ideologies that are accepted by an audience
and alternately by society.

Using this theory audience(s) subconsciously learn how to read media texts. For
example, you wouldnt cast an elderly character to participate in a bar crawl
during a romantic film. The audience(s) would have been familiarised that these
are not conventions that fit together by watching previous media text, nor could
they relate it to their reality. An elderly character would be stereotyped sitting in
an armchair knitting, something all audiences can understand and more
importantly, believe. Props, Non-verbal communication, costume, setting and

sound are signifiers coded within media by the producers, so the audience is able
to read and understand the text properly. In the opening scene of A Day Full Of
Emotions the participants from D3 use a hand-held camera, which is their smart
phones to record themselves waking up at 7:00am. This creates an intimate
scene for the audience where they have a close up view of the characters NVC,
that connotes them to be moody and lazy, this is further enforced using diegetic
sound where one of the participants says Fuck that whilst looking at the time.
Although this stereotype is not particularly true, D3s audiences find these
exaggerated stereotypes amusing, being likely that they have had close
experiences. Throughout the documentary there are iconic props that would be
associated to a young adult such as alcohol, gaming consoles and junk food.
These simple items connote irresponsibility, laziness and immaturity, which are
all stereotypes embedded by media for the wider audiences. Although the
participants that made the documentary are the same age the audience, you
would question, Why the need for stereotyping then? well the media
understand social groups and cultures through ideologies and conventions, not
all positive. However, this is beneficial for audiences that are not particularly
knowledgeable of the some content within a programme, so these ideologies and
conventions make it easier for them to decode the text.

The audience(s) makes sense of media by responding to familiar elements of
reality that are portrayed through media outlets. D3 have communicated their
intake on reality to their audience by exaggerating real scenarios. Using hand-
held camera shots to capture each of the characters in a club scene, this method
of filming enhances the club atmosphere making it appear more manic. They
further developed this by editing different shots together using a split screen;
this requires the audience to focus on more that one scene showing them how
manic clubs can to be for young adults. The eighteen to twenty-two year old
audiences that D3 aimed their documentary at can relate to this situation more
than the wider audience(s) because it is likely they have shared the experience
the character is portraying, to a certain extend. However, it is still required to
emphasise these negative and positive stereotypes (depending on how the
individuals from the audience take it) because its aim is to amuse the targeted
audience and the wider audience(s), for example international audiences will be
able to understand what is going on through the exaggerated conventions. These
ideologies of young adults using explicit language, partying and being lazy are
conventions constantly used within media texts to represent that category. The
more the audience(s) read text and understand these codes, the more they
become desensitised between reality and the representation of reality, leaving
them to think in this case, Is this what all young adults are like?

Yet, A Day Full Of Emotions shows a range of different stereotyped young adults
that each member of their audience could relate to in different ways,
representing the group accurately.

Audience

Edward Towers
Student ID: 6285041

Audience is a term that can be defined in a various amount of ways. Audience
for any media product is simply those at whom the text is aimed at or those who
are likely to watch it(Dawkins and Wynd 2010: 12) or a silent mass of people,
attending to some powerful text(Branston and Stafford 2010: 379). With the
technology we have now, every media text that is produced will have an
audience. New technology, such as smart phones allow an audience consume the
text and also produce media this is known as the pro-sumer, a term that has
been suggested by a range of media theorists. For our documentary, the group
decided that we wanted our primary target audience to be students aged
between 16 and 21 whereas our secondary audience would be anyone who have
access to watch our video. Our documentary A Day Full Of Emotions follows
seven young students experiencing different emotions at different times of the
day, beginning at 7 oclock and ending at midnight.

As it has been discussed in the previous chapters, when creating any media text,
not just a documentary, all four of the key concepts i.e. audience, genre, narrative
and representation all need to be considered during all stages of production.
These are used to gain full attention from an audience. For a media text to be
successful, the writer needs to have a specific audience, which the documentary
will be aimed at. Audience has increasingly been seen by both academics and
producers of media texts to be much more complicated(Dawkins and Wynd
2010: 12). Audiences are constantly changing as every member of the audience
has their own preferences such as a specific genre or actor. An audience can be
influenced by a leader of a higher social class which is proposed by the two step
flow theory which was used to describe the important influence not of the
media but of local networks and opinion leaders(Branston and Stafford 2010:
379).

Modern audiences has moved away from this theory as they have become active
rather then passive. The term passive audience addresses members of the
audience who dont question any of the information they are being given from
the media. The hypodermic needle theory suggests meanings are injected into
the single mass audience by powerful, syringe-like media(Branston and Stafford
2010: 382). One of the main aims of a documentary in my point of view is to
either entertain or educate the audience, so therefore the information in the
documentary needs to be accurate and correct so that the audience doesnt move
from a passive audience to an active audience. Our documentary requires a
passive audience, as we wanted students to agree with what they are seeing. A
day full of emotions consists of footage recorded from each member of the
group at the beginning of the students day at 7 oclock and concludes at
midnight. We choose these times as they are specific times of the day which have
a key effect on the emotions which students are experiencing, therefor the target
audience will be able to relate to the students in the documentary which will
encourage the audience to continue watching. Our target audience will be able
relate to the students in the video on the other hand, the secondary audience
may negotiate with the preferred reading which occurs when the meaning

arrives at a result of a process if give and take between the readers assumptions
and the preferred reading offered by the text(Branston and Stafford 2010:
438).

From talking about our target audience being able to relate to the content of the
documentary, brings up one of the key audience theories, which is still being
criticized up to date. The is the uses and gratifications theory put forward by
Bulmer and Katz an active model of audience behavior, emphasizing the uses to
which audiences put even to the most unlikely texts(Branston and Stafford
2010: 444). The theory suggests that the power lies with the individual
consumer of the media(Branston and Stafford 2010: 388). The audience can
choose why they want to watch the text. For our documentary we used emojis
signs, which appear alongside the time to help enforce the different emotions,
which the students are feeling. Our target audience will recognize these as are
they are cultural factors, which they can recall from their background. Our
secondary audience may not be able to acknowledge what the emojis mean as
they werent part of their teenage life. An audiences needs to be gratified by a
text can be diversion, escapism, for information, comparing relationships/
lifestyles of characters with ones own and for sexual stimulation(Branston and
Stafford 2010: 388). With our documentary our target audience could compare
the characters within our text to their own lifestyles. The audience could touch
on their personal identity with the documentary as well as their social identity as
the audience may feel like they can use the documentary for communication with
their social group.

As I have discussed, when creating texts in the media, it is important to have a
target audience in mind throughout the whole production. Whilst this is a
necessity there are drawbacks to having a specific target audience. Thought
about where the video will be viewed needs to be considered as how will the
video be able to viewed by the target audience. As our target audience is
teenagers aged between 16-21, we distributed our text on Vimeo and Facebook
as this age group commonly uses these sites. Our video was described as vlog
unlike most documentaries which makes our video different which will appeal to
the younger age group as a common phrase used to describe documentaries is
boring.

Students have received a variety of stereotypes, which we have portrayed in our
documentary but the interesting thing about the recordings is that none of the
takes were scripted. It was just how we felt at these specific times but its up to
the audience to believe the stereotypes. With these stereotypes, the humor and
informative narrative, I believe that our group has put together an effective short
documentary.

Conclusion

Jak Edgley
Student ID: 6459365


Throughout this book, the documentary has been critically analysed and picked
apart using various theories within the media. The documentary itself has been
analysed using documentary theory. Some of this includes the concepts of sub
genres within documentary, and how our documentary fits in with specific sub
genres. The chapter in question focuses on all documentary sub genres, not just
the one that best fits our documentary. This is to ensure that the key theories
surrounding documentaries are fully understood. As a result, the group could
justify their decisions easily using the relevant theoretical content.

New technologies were also a key component within the documentary. Due to
the fact the documentary was shot entirely on mobile phones, it became essential
to discuss the impact of new technologies. Because of this, the group could justify
why mobile phones were useful in the documentary. The real- life feel this style
of filming had, made it perfect for the sub genre that was selected. Furthermore,
the difference between the types of technology is a good talking point.
Technology has undoubtedly developed, and the fact the documentary was
filmed on mobile phones proves this idea.

Genre was also covered. Similar to documentary theory, this looked at sub
genres and how they fit into the larger genre that is the documentary genre,
which bases itself on factual information. Understanding the different sub genres
was imperative for the group, as it allowed us to identify what sub genre the
documentary best fit into. As a result, the final product was polished and it is
clear what was trying to be accomplished.

While the documentary doesnt have a set narrative, it is still important to
understand this key concept. Some documentaries do have a narrative that is
followed, but in the case of our documentary, there was no explicitly set
narrative, as most of the filming was spontaneous, a fly on the wall approach.
The group clearly understood this, which means the way the documentary was
set out was entirely intentional and was planned by the group.

Representation was also a key concept to consider during the production of the
documentary. In particular, identifying the target audience is absolutely vital. If
the target audience is wrong, the documentary wont represent their interests,
rendering the whole documentary pointless. This is arguably one of the more
important key concepts, as knowing who you are trying to represent goes a long
way in successfully targeting your target audience, something the group did
extremely well. It became clear from the outset that students were the target
audience, subsequently; the filming reflected this, with the use of shots, language,
locations etc.

Overall, the group collaborated successfully throughout the entire process of
creating the five-minute documentary. All of the key concepts were clearly
understood, which made the whole process much easier as time wasnt wasted

having to go over the key concepts. The finished product has incorporated all of
the key concepts, all of which have been critically analysed in this collaborative
book.

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