The Nature and Purposes of Research in the Creative Media Industry.

Primary Research/Self-generated Research

Primary research is a certain type of research which is carried out by yourself to answer specific issues or questions. This can involve the use of questionnaires, surveys or interviews with groups or individual people. For my documentary project I created my very own questionnaire which I used to find out what other people knew and wanted to know about YouTube gaming and my channel "Orbit TV" in general. I received some excellent feedback which really helped me a lot when I planned my documentary. Interviews with people before-hand was not needed for my project as Me and my two friends ware the only people involved with the channel. As my survey was made by survey monkey, I was able to send it out to my friends and family to answer, this gave me a wide range of people to gather data from so I got a variety of different answers. At times I did get some feedback that wouldn't be used for the data for me to reflect on as some people messed around and gave improper answers. I simply removed these results and just analysed the feedback that was really useful for me.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is generally collected or gathered from previous research done by someone else, rather than primary which is collected by yourself. For my documentary I researched websites that had information of other YouTubers, stating how they manage to run their channel and their previous experiences. I also done some extra research to examine who are the most watched YouTubers in the UK, this really helped me see what sort of channels people like to watch on YouTube and if people would actually be interested in watching a documentary about Orbit TV. Another good website I stumbled upon something which mentioned "Why is it good to have a YouTube channel" and this was very useful to me as I could easily relate to it. This research was extremely helpful and made the planning go very smoothly for my project. For the PG Tips advert we done some research into the audience that the product is currently aimed at, allowing us to know the changes we need to make to our advert for it to appeal to our teenage audience. We also had to gather lots of research online and compile it into a presentation, which we later presented in front of the class. Lastly for the DepicT Competition we really only had to watch other people 90 second videos for inspiration and to get an idea of what to do ourselves.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is conducted from using statistics and figures. To begin with I already knew that my documentary wouldn't be very popular on TV, so I chose to ignore finding out when these types of documentaries based on YouTube may be shown. Instead, I chose to actually go on YouTube itself and watch look at videos of YouTubers talking about them and how they started in general. By watching these videos I saw that they were very popular amongst people that follow them and lots of positive feedback was left too. This made me feel confident that people would be interested in my documentary about Orbit TV.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research helps to understand reason, opinions and motivations, it also may help to give insights into a problem you may have and help to develop an idea. As mentioned before I examined the comments of other YouTubers personal stories to see how much they enjoyed it. A website also posted a YouTubers documentary based on why and how they run their channel and it got some amazing written reviews. I used this written feedback to understand what people like about these documentaries and what they would like to see more of, this helped me improve certain parts of my documentary to make more people stay engaged with my project.

Data Gathering Agencies

BARB Standards for Broadcasters Audience Research Board, compiles audience measurement and television ratings. The website shows statistics for the highest viewed TV shows, and allows you to find out about a certain TV show of you choice. IMDB stand for 'Internet Movie Database', form here you can find out almost anything about a certain Film, TV show, game and loads of other things. From here you can see what is most popular amongst lots of people to see what they enjoy most. What make this sites data extremely genuine is that it is collect from the general public instead of just people that find the information about from the internet.  

Budget information and reviews on films are the most visited topics on the site "IMDB" as these are what people want to find out before they watch a film and straight after they watch a film. A great example of a movie review to decide whether or not to watch a movie is this "The computerized creation that is Pandora overflows with beauty and terror (those banshees are a wonder) that dwarves the mundane stuff where the villains, military (Stephen Lang) and corporate (Giovanni Ribisi), bluster with predictable results. The last third of the movie, a battle between the Na'vi and their human destroyers, is a groundbreaking blend of digital and live-action. OK, it's unnerving that a movie preaching peace hits its visual peak with scenes of mass destruction. But Avatar is no Hollywood w*nkfest. It extends the possibilities of what movies can do. Cameron's talent may just be as big as his dreams. Definitely worth a watch!" This review was written dedicated to the movie avatar, by seeing this review it will instantly tell you that it will definitely be worth having a look at. As for budget info, people tend to look at this after they have watched a movie, mostly because they are curious about how much it actually cost to make. The budget for the movie "Avatar" is estimated around $237,000,000 and on the opening weekend £8,509,050 was raked in, in the UK (18 December 2009)

Audience and Market Research

As I have a primary target audience for my YouTube channel (14+) I chose to keep this for my documentary, as people that enjoy watching my YouTube channel would really like to watch this documentary. Although the majority of people that watch documentaries are 18+, because my documentary is YouTube based, it is focused on a more younger audience. After sending out my survey's via email, I was able to see that the majority of my audience is in fact Male, although this may be very bias it is easy for me to identify who I would aim the documentary mainly towards. Based of the survey I was able to see what people wanted to know about Orbit TV, therefore we talked about the main things people asked for in the documentary. For the PG Tips advert, we aimed this at teenagers, allowing them to know PG Tips is the greatest tea. The majority of teenagers that watched the advert also said that this would be their number 1 choice. We also sent out surveys from survey monkey for this project too.

3 Minute Wonder: Behind Orbit TV (Pre-production Paperwork)

Risk Assessment

Ed Talent Release

Ed's house location release

Ed's house location recce

Liam Culham talent release (Me)

Production Schedule

Liam's house location recce

Liam's House location release (Me)

Ryan's talent release

Ryan's house location release

Ryan's house location recce

Interview Questions

3 Minute Wonder Proposal.

In my 3 Minute Wonder I will going behind the scenes of my YouTube channel which consists of three friends (Me, Ryan (my cousin) and Ed). We will be discussing why and how we got into making YouTube videos and what makes us carry on doing it, we will also talk about what you can get out of doing it in the long run but how stressful it can be at times, considering it isn't just a YouTube channel we and other YouTubers have to manage, we have to manage a Facebook page, Twitter page and a Steam PC group. Most people never really appreciate the hard work and effort that can be put into running a YouTube channel, so I would love to take this documentary opportunity to show the life "Behind: Orbit TV". The genre for this documentary would be Reality as it explores the real life events behind how we run our YouTube channel, as for the documentary text this would be expository as we want people to focus on what we have to do, through visual representation;such as using clips of us editing and managing our pages.

The primary demographic for my documentary would be teenagers, both male and female, that enjoy playing games and love to watch gaming videos on YouTube. People that enjoy watching YouTube but not necessarily gaming videos are considered to be my secondary audience, this is because not just people that are interested in gaming videos want to know about behind the scenes, I found this out by my recent survey where people said that they don't really like gaming but are still intrigued to know what happens behind the scenes. so I want to open up this documentary to a wider rang of people that are interested about this aspect of YouTube. The aim, but more the sort of talking point in my documentary is what work actually goes on behind the videos you watch on YouTube and why it is such a good community to be involved in. I hope to make people think twice after watching this documentary about the thorough dedication and motivation that is needed to keep a channel going. Because my documentary is plainly going to be each other the members being interviewed I have decided to shoot at our home environments which is where we do all of our recording, editing, and media management etc. Living close by to the other people in the channel makes it easy and efficient for me travel wise as I can get there very quickly on just a bike, so no transport costs are necessary. As it is just me and my two friends in this YouTube channel, we are going to be the only people involved in the production. No interviewer will be needed as we will answer the questions that can be seen either on a piece of paper or computer screen, even though there will be no-one reading the questions aloud, we will add profession titles on the screen so people know what questions are being answered.


Here are some interview questions that I may consider:

• How long ago did you start doing YouTube and why did you do it?
• What sort of videos do you produce for you channel and why?
• Do you do anything beyond just managing a YT channel, if so how hard can it be?
• Do you find it hard making videos everyday? how do you manage to do this?
• Have you been inspired by any other YouTubers? Who are they?
• Briefly explain how you make your videos and how you know what to make one about.
• Would you recommend more people to get involved in the YouTube community and why?

In terms of equipment, props and costumes everything is going to be pretty standard. The camera will be the best I can get my hands on but regarding costume all of us will dress the way we normally do so people can get a realistic view on what we are really like. I do not want people to misjudge on how we look or act in this documentary so everything you see and hear will truly authentic, 'what you see is how it is'. Because of the simplicity of my documentary there will be no expenses at all, as we already have our won stuff to where and feature in the three minute wonder. Considering everything I need, I already have, there is not really a proposed budget for this production. I will be borrowing a DSLR  700d 50mm camera from college, however this is free too so no money is required for my production at all.


YouTube Gaming Questionnaire Survey Results:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-7YLCPBTS/

3 Minute Wonders

Three Minute wonders are short spaces on channel 4 that publicly broadcasts first time directors three minute TV programmes in the middle of the weekday prime-time schedule. They give an opportunity to small time directors to air their documentaries across TV, getting them recognised by a wider audience, this makes them take their first steps onto the UK film industry. Some directors may even go on to entering documentary competitions such as; FourDocs and Channel 4 Sheffield Pitch. The purpose of three minute wonders is to give people an understanding of a certain story or topic, all information is really short and concise meaning they are easy to follow and stay engaged with. Most three minute wonders are lifestyle related as they are commonly a story from someones previous experiences or something they are interested in. There are other topics that are covered in these documentaries but they are not as common. Karl Pilkington is an iconic character for these documentaries, giving a short insight into his opinions of life and his thoughts. There are fairly humorous but still give some good points and views across on the subject he covers, this is why his documentaries are seen as the most popular three minute wonders.

I would definitely say that in my top three, three minute wonders would be a selection of Karl Pilkington's documentaries; Holidays and Health. I would consider these as my favourites as I think the comedy makes it more enjoyable for me to watch and stay focused to. I also felt that because I could relate to the things he was talking about, it made the documentaries more interesting for me. I have also watched Karl Pilkington on other various programmes before so I already know that I would be more engrossed with his three minute wonders than anyone else's. Karl always speaks his mind in every situation which gives across some dry humor which I really like. Although always speaking what he believes and feels about society, he does it with offending anyone or anything.

My other favourite would be "Pure evil" which is based on an adult street artist that paints walls with spray paint that makes them more appealing when parents with kids walk past. He said it's good because instead of being looked at as if the police are going to come and tell you to stop, parents come up to you and asks for photos with their kids. I would say these are all performative documentaries as the camera is remained focus on the main person throughout the whole thing. It also shows their thoughts towards the topic they are talking about creating an emotional element to the documentary.

Pure Evil - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ5ygSiCWtA
Health - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJya1KxN4HA
Holidays - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjjWJYn2qxQ

On channel 4 there were six documentaries shown on 14th April 2016, two of these were of the same series and shown at mid-day peak time one after another. After these two documentaries, two more back-to-back documentaries of "A Place in the Sun". So here we can see a total of four documentaries spread across a total of four hours covering all of the mid-day peak area. This shows that channel 4 prioritize documentaries at peak time as another documentary isn't shown until 8:00pm later that night.

However there were seven documentaries shown on Quest and only 1 of them were shown at mid-day peak time, compared to channel 4 which broadcasted 4. There are some documentaries shown later and two back-to-back episodes shown at 11:00pm.


In February 2016, 13.04% of people that watch TV in the UK watched documentaries which is 3rd from the top of the list, showing that people do take a high interest in watching factual programmes than what we may expect. There has now been an updated version of these statistics from March 2016 and we can see barely any change overall. The documentaries section has dropped by 0.4% which is literally nothing, they are still the in the 3rd rank for the most viewed across the whole graph, meaning they dominate most of any other channels. We can expect to see documentaries remain the same position for many months to come.

Documentary research

 My YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/user/thisisorbittv

pages/groups I manage: www.facebook.com/orbittvofficial
                                       www.twitter.com/orbittelevision
                                       http://steamcommunity.com/groups/nomansorbit


This shows why it is a good idea to have your own Youtube channel, to promote products, take up as a hobby and earn some money!
http://marcguberti.com/2015/02/have-youtube-channel/

Statistics showing the best 100 YouTubers in the UK, useful to know what these people have to offer that british people love to watch.
http://socialblade.com/youtube/top/country/gb

why do people love watching YouTube so much? people enjoy that it's free and so easy to watch a video of your choice.
http://dailytipsndtricks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/why-do-we-love-youtube-so-much.html

This post features some YouTubers explaining why they make YouTube videos, how much effort goes into them and how they find success. with so many people out there doing YouTube is can be so hard to make you stand out from other people.
http://dailytipsndtricks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/why-do-we-love-youtube-so-much.html

Web 2.0 is a worldwide phenomenon that emphasises all user-generated content on the internet and ways in which users are allowed to collaborate with each other to share ideas online. Social media are the best places for this like YouTube and Facebook allowing other to share ideas and promote information or products with anyone they want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0



Create your own user feedback survey

Introduction to the News.

For this essay I have recently watched a BBC 60 second news broadcast which fits in as many stories as possible in the the small time frame that they have. In this broadcast the female news reader covered a total of 5 stories which started off with a former footballer 'Adam Johnson' at trial of having sexual intercourse with a child but denied every accusation, 3yr old 'Liam Turner' was killed when his mum ran him over, her husband was teaching her how to drive and to this day his death has been treated as accidental. Laser pens and any other form of lasers should be classed as offensive weapons after a Virgin airline was ordered to turn back after a laser injured a pilots eye. Ronnie o' Sullivan deliberately missed the chance to score at the Welsh Open as he thought the £10,000 prize money wasn't worth it, and she mentioned that it was the last night of Three on TV and people should check the DailyDrop online to keep up to date. The stories were placed into this order, presumably because the rank of importance to the audience, she started of by explaining that it was Three's last new night as this was most important for the channel and then went on to talk about 'Adam Johnson' being accused of sexual assault as this is a horrendous thing to be trialed for and people want to know more about this topic. In this broadcast, typically like every news broadcast there is a CGI intro before the news reader starts to talk, specifically in my news broadcast there is a circle that's meant to seem a clock with the number 60 inside, making it obvious to the audience how long the program will last.

Most news broadcasts are fitted some exciting yet important and authoritative audio that people instantly connects with watching the news, also once the presenter does start talking there are previous stories that would have been covered on the green screen behind her. I assume this is to make it not as boring and making it more engaging overall.

On the 60 second news broadcast I watched, Sam Naz was the selected news reader for this time, she is 26yr old female that began her career in BBC in 2003. A news reader, also knows as a news presenter or news caster  is a person which presents the news on the television, radio or internet, some of which are also journalists, working with others in the collection of news material and may also provide a commentary during the programme. They mostly work at the studio in front of the camera or in some cases present the news in other locations to report a major news event. Ideal skills for a newsreader are as follows; be an effective communicator, have the ability to process more complicated English language, prepared to take and volunteering opportunity to gain extra experience, have a clearly visible passion for news reporting, be extra enthusiastic and professional at all times, you may also need the ability to be a strong team player in the fast live environment.

News ordering is the term used for the order in which certain stories are shown in. This is usually depicted by the rank of importance of the story, how big an impact it has on people or whether it it affects many people or not. Breaking news can sometimes break this order as it's something that needs to be heard before anything else, no one really knows how long the breaking news will last if its a sudden broadcast but once all news so far is covered, the news reader will continue on with the original news order. In the broadcast I have chosen, the main story which is covered first is the sexual assault accusation on former footballer 'Adam Johnson' this is mostly because he is a famous footballer and the crime he has been taken to trial for is very serious, after this the report then carries on to other not so important stories that are more local. After the first story or breaking news, the other stories are covered much more quickly in a way to fit more stories into that broadcast. Prospect lists are something that the news editors produce which includes all the possible news stories for the certain broadcast, up until the broadcast the editor has the privilege to cross out and add new stories depending on which he thinks is more important for people to see. Slow News days are certain times where the news companies report and cover trivial types of stories because of the lack of significant topics. Mostly all news readers and reporters need to act quickly and responsively due to the the time-frame that the stories need to be covered in, also if there is sudden breaking news they need to be prepared for what to say at the last minute, another thing, if reports are corresponding from another location and something they're reporting suddenly happens they may need to make up their dialogue on the spot to make sense of what is happening where they are. News values determine how much prominence to give to a story, they are general guidelines used by Newspapers or media broadcasts. Galtung and Ruge were the founders of this system, they analysed international news to find out what they had in common, came up with a scoring system and a list of values, then based them on how big of an impact they had on the public and the experience of watching it.

Negativity - These are always rated above ‘Positive’ stories (Royal weddings, celebrations etc.)
e.g. ‘Five people die after car goes off pier into sea’ – Eastern Daily Press.

Closeness to home  - Audiences supposedly relate more to the stories that are close to them geographically.

e.g. ‘Have your say on shaping region’s treasure for the next two decades’  “Maintaining the Broads” – Eastern Daily Press.

Recency - Newspapers are very competitive about breaking news – about revealing stories as they happen.

e.g. 

Currency - Almost a complete opposite to ‘Recency’, In that stories that have been in the public eye for some time already are deemed valuable. For example; a murder of a child may run for weeks and weeks even if nothing new really happens or arises.

Continuity -  These stories have a high value when the story breaks in the news therefore making the audience want to tune in everyday to keep update of what is going on. Events that have an ongoing narrative such as a war or sports event that have a continuing impact on the audience.

Uniqueness - A story or given a unique headline of which pursues an unusual event. ‘Norfolk Man Marries Dog’ would be gain news values in this respect as it covers a unique or unusual event.

Simplicity - Some people prefer these stories over others that are harder to follow and hard to understand. Stories or events that are  easy to explain and understand, for example; ‘Cat stuck up tree’

Personality - Stories that are that are about a particular person, this is because they are presented from a ‘human interest’ angle, particularly if they involve a well known person. Lots of people say that this value has been distorted through the years  and that news organisations over-rate these personality stories, especially those that involve celebrities. “Katie price goes to the beach”. 

Expectedness  - This is whether the story or event matches the expectations of an audience or the news organisation, or includes what was expected to happen. If a news story that is being covered conforms to the prediction of the news organisation then it will have a high value for expectedness.

Elite Nations or People -  These are any stories that cover an important, powerful nation that has greater news values than a story which covers a less important nation, this is the same for people aswell. 

Exclusivity - If only one newspaper or news programme is covering a breaking story then it will get scored a very high score in this topic. The UK Sunday papers are very fond of exclusives, and will often break a story than no one else has.

Size - The bigger the impact of the story, the more people it affects. The more money/resources it involves, the higher its value, this is know as ‘Threshold’

The main story in this broadcast is 'Adam Johnson' sent to trial for sexual assault against a child but denies all accusations. Adam Johnson is quite obviously the main focus in this coverage as the story is aimed at him. Other people that are featured in this is the press and camera crew from other media companies trying to get information and recordings or Adam leaving the trial, this emphasises the importance of the story as we can see more people trying to cover it, this would get a high value in the size new value section. Adam Johnson is represented as a bad person in this story with a heavy guilty conscience, this is done by showing him isolated form everyone else and being pestered by lots of people wanting to know his side of the story, the news wants him to look guilty so they use dialogue and camera shots to make this seem true as possible. I felt like I truly believed this story and agreed with what they were saying about the case as they are more reporters covering the same story making it more trustworthy. There wasn't really any structure to the news broadcast however it did seem like they ordered the stories to most important to least, obviously the story regarding a celebrity would be first on screen.

Numerous news stories can be influenced by attitudes of the people that do the interviews or writers and editors etc. Some bias in the news is done on purpose to give a forced opinion form the audience on the events reported, this is called bias through selection and omission. An editor can express bias by choosing whether or not to use a specific news story. Within one story they can choose whether to leave out certain parts depending on how they want you to feel; for example a speech from the prime-minister and only leaving in the parts where people are booing and replying with negative comments, giving across the message that people do not like him. Bias through placement is where a story is placed influences what people think about it's importance; for example, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened this would have been on every newspapers front cover as soon as possible, because this is more important than any other it would be put at the front instead of with the stories at the back of the newspaper. Another bias technique is through headlines, editors make the headlines bold and easy to see conveying something exciting or intriguing that is infact very mis-leading; for example "Israel kills pregnant mother and her daughter in revenge attacks" although what has happened is really said, but Israel was not targeting anyone specifically and indeed not intentionally aiming for a pregnant mother, this was just by chance. The news make try to make them sound like malicious baby killers instead of just terrorists.

Bias through photos or captions can make a person look bad , silly or sick etc. Newspapers and editors try to capture these moments to make people think less of them or vice versa; for example the photo of Ed Milliband eating a bacon roll, this photo makes him seem not powerful at all and pretty stupid considering his job however this is not the case, it is just through media people make this judgment.  Bias through names and titles is quite common where the editors try to make people sound more bad than they actually are;for example and "ex-con man" which was actually referred to a man that served time 20 years ago for a minor criminal offense. Lastly Bias of the use of language is sometimes common as people can be influenced by the use of negative or positive words giving across a certain connotation, News readers can also often put on a tone in their voice when saying specific words; for example the seaside fights between the mods and rockers in Clacton, the news reports were labelling them as if they were animals and blowing everything out of proportion causing media amplification. "Vermin" "louts" "Animals".

Documentary Forms

Documentaries are series of events that must be un-staged excluding re-enactments for purposes that it cant be recorded at the time of the event. The element of it being un-staged makes it all believable to the audience, this is what give them their authenticity. The world depicted in the documentary all real and not imaginary, the film-maker basically attends certain events and records their observations on what happens to share with the audience.

Expository Documentary

An expository documentary directs speech towards the audience and throw in rhetorical questions in hope to persuade and enforce a strong point of view or argument. Voice-overs are commonly used in these documentaries. It is known as the classic mode of documentary and is now commonly used in TV documentaries. These types often take a lot of time to plan in terms of camera angles and sequences of shots as they try to show what they believe in. Life on Earth is a great example of this type of documentary Attenborough narrates over the top of the video, images are used to illustrate this. He talks specifically to the audience, and includes footage or picture specific to the what he talks about. It shows Earth's natural wonders and how beautiful the planet in which we live actually is, beneath the pollution and industrial areas that are dominating the planet. The film-makers travelled the world to get the most extreme shots of animals that could of taken months to get even a 5 second clip. David Attinborough being the voice-of-god in the film makes people instantly take an extra liking to it as he is well known for excellent documentaries


Reflexive Documentary

Reflexive documentaries are usually associated with the word 'experimental', viewers are just as intrigued about how the film was made as the actual content. They make the viewer more aware of the problems the documentary maker faces while they make the film. I have chosen A Man With a Movie Camera as my example of this. Its shows the audience the process of construction and production whilst using video footage of the movie director filming and editing a movie. This allows a critical response from audience as they are able to see what happens behind the scenes of what is being recorded. There are various in-depth shots of different things and equipment to show how technical and awkward it can be when producing a new film. Throughout the whole movie there is no speech audio that informs the audience what is happening, music is overlayed instead to ensure that it doesn't get boring whilst watching it. It is amazing to see in this documentary how complicated it was to get some shots back in the old days, where as now, film-makers that find getting complicated shots too hard, they often use CGI and Special FX to capture what they want instead.

Observational Documentary

These types of documentaries show the perspective of the film-maker in the film, looking in at what’s happening. Used to show how things react in certain situations, normally wildlife documentaries. The film-maker is usually out of the shot during the film and rarely influences what happens. They allow the audience to reach their own conclusion of the film by showing footage that helps them make a decision on if it's the right thing to do or if they agree on it. Titicut Follies is a acceptable example of an observation documentary type as it shows you the film-makers perspective on the in-mates in the hospital. These people are turning mentally/criminally insane as a result of being in there for so long. It shows how bad the conditions are for the people that are inside and how they turn mental. The maker has no presence in the film at all which is another key thing for observational documentaries. They also film a lot of the inmates in their cells with low angles to show their physical and mental weakness. It was filmed at Bridgewater State Hospital in New York city and the movie as release in 1967.

Interactive Documentary

These documentaries are usually contrasted by observational types, instead of the film-maker not being present in the movie, the film-maker has a substantial presence throughout the whole thing. As he or she interacts with the people or events around them, the audience is then driven to remain direct contact to the film-maker. When Louis Met Jimmy is another typical episode of Louis accompanying them in there day-to-day celebrity life and interviewing them about their lives and experiences. He tries to ask smart questions in hope to stump Jimmy, leaving him not knowing how to answer. Throughout the documentary Louis constantly voices his opinion onto Jimmy and we find out what Jimmy thinks about how Louis feels making it more engaging for the audience. In all of Louis' documentaries you can see the he camera work is not very perfect neither is the quality, meaning that the camera used wasn't a very good one. The both travel to several locations with eachother to places which Jimmy would usually go to in his everyday life, this give a good understanding for Louis and the audience of what Jimmy gets up to.

Performative Documentary

These types take into consideration the emotional elements of documentary, it shows meanings of different types of context and is commonly presented in an autobiographical way. The Film-maker is mostly always present and explains what is happening or the context behind it. Supersize Me is a documentary where Morgan Spurlock carries out a Mcdonalds diet throughout 30 days. This we see the dramatic impact fast food can have on your body, leading a fatal possibility to death. Throughout the whole thing, the film-maker is the main focus on the movie as we see him battle through extreme hospital tests and fills his face with the biggest amount of Mcdonalds ever. These types of documentaries primarily directs the speech to the audience, the film-maker explains to the audience the effects of what he is doing has on other people, we can see this done by him using voice-overs on certain cut-aways they use. Overall the shots, audio and interviews they get off dietitian specialists really helps to sell to the audience how bad fast food really is for your body and why you shouldn't eat it. Most Performative Documentaries feature well made re-enactments of an event that the documentary is focused on, these involve actors that and the director that re-construct a scene making it as near realistic as it looked when it actually happened. These help the audience visualize what the people that are being interviewed are talking about, however some of these re-constructs do not go to plan as either the acting or overall performance of the re-enactment does completely match what happened meaning the audience don't get the proper story into their heads. In Supersize Me they use a cartoon re-construction of how Mcdonalds actually makes their Chicken Nuggets, although these might not be 100% accurate, they do actually use a re-construction which meets up to the expectations of a Performative Documentary.

My favourite documentary type has to be "Performative", this is because I love to see the main narrator or actor in the film. The speech is directed towards you so you can completely understand what they are talking about, it also involves you within the documentary making you more engaged throughout. Most performative documentaries you see the main person experience things real-time which makes everything that is happening more believable. Because I am a person that really enjoys comedy, I found that these feature more humorous scenes and parts than other documentaries, especially "Super Size Me".

Documentary Formats: Texts

La sortie des usines Lumière
This Documentary seemed visually truthful to me as it all looked like everything happening was unpredictable as to what was going to happen. I believe that the film-makers just positioned the camera outside the workshop waiting for the people to leave the factory, Some people would think different however to me, it seemed everything just unfolded in front of them. This whole film was just one shot, making it even more realistic and believable.



Night Mail
From watching this I understood that the maker setup most of these shots to get across the message very easily, this must have saved time as instead of waiting for everything to happen, he could just direct the shots when he wanted to take them. We could also see that it was staged when we aw the an pulling the levers to switch track for the train, form then on we knew that everything as was planned just like this shot. Also the actors talking near the start seemed to coincidental to have happened when the camera was rolling. Something cool that made the documentary a bit ahead of its time though was an ariel shot that was captured using a train set model, for the short period of time this shot is for makes the shot believable that they actually managed to get this shot realistically.

Bowling for Columbine

For the brief time I watched this documentary I could tell it was staged almost straight away, the film-maker is meant to see how easy it is to setup a bank account and obtain a free licensed rifle. Making it look so easy to the audience, what he doesn't show is that this process would a take many days if not weeks to finish, however in this particular part it seems that he got the gun in the same day he set up his bank account. He done this buy wearing same clothes and weather being almost the same as the day he set up the account. Another thing he didn't say at the start is that the bank is also a fully licensed arms dealer meaning they are fully secured to sell guns and aren't just giving them away because they have them. Michael Moore tries to make the audience see bad in things that aren't so bad in reality.

When Louis met Jimmy and the Nazi's

In this documentary Louis met up and spent some valuable time with Jimmy Saville. During this it seemed very believable to me as when he asked questions to Jimmy he didn't know what to expect, also the same for Louis as he didn't know what Jimmy's reaction would be. Everything was really comedic which made the whole thing really funny to watch. Also in the Nazi's episode Louis seemed to enforce his belief on the people he was interviewing as he proved their opinions to be incredibly wrong in the sense of politics and society. The Nazi episode especially shows how narrow minded people are against black and Jewish people, showing how much people can hate someone for what they believe and how they look without giving any reason.

The Thin Blue Line

Whilst watching this documentary we can see that everything happening is truthful as it was more of a standard interview movie. We can see cutaways from all of the witnesses and suspects perspectives to show their point of view on what they saw. All cutaways were re-constructed that were based on the crime, making it un-realistic in some respect however this allows us to visualize what happened. These clips were being replayed over and over again to try and allow you to make some sort of assumption of who done it yourself. Seeing Randall trying to describe his innocence towards the murder seemed very truthful as when we saw David Harris being interviewed he was wearing a prison suit showing he has been put away for the murder and that he was the one who actually killed the policeman. This documentary for more was more embracing than all the others as it left you questioning throughout the whole thing who actually committed the murder. The previous ones just informed you of peoples cultures and how and what its like to live and work where they are.

The Lambeth Boys

I felt like this documentaries wasn't very authentic as most scenes felt as if they were planned and the people knew what that had to do in that specific part. Moments when they were talking to each other sometimes felt real however you could partially tell they were acting because the camera was rolling. It showed things that would definitely not of happened if it was completely un-staged, such as when they were shouting at the back of the truck and having a large conversation in the chip shop. In the chip shop scene you can see one of the people take a short glimpse at the camera, showing that they weren't supposed to make eye contact with the people recording, emphasizing it was fake. There were short montage clips that slightly broke the authenticity of the whole documentary and really long dance scene that got really boring. The overall recording of the documentary really didn't fee like I was watching a documentary, it was more of a movie styled film. This also detracted the authenticity from it making everything that was happening less believable.

The Act of Killing

What is the film about?

Film-makers traveled to Indonesia, recording a documentary about a group of gangsters that slaughtered Communists for a living. The documentary consists of the gang leader 'Anwar Congo' explaining his life of killing and directing his own movie to show what happened back when he was in the crime of torturing communists. (1965-1966)

Was there a scene that stood out to you? What was it and why?

At the end of the documentary there a was a scene where 'Anwar Congo' suddenly realized the horrific crimes he actually committed. This stood out for me as in the 1960's when the killings happened, he didn't think anything of it as that was the way of life for him and was taught that it was the right thing to do, however now reflecting back on his past he comprehends that everything he did was wrong. He felt even worse when he had to rein-act a scene for his movie of a communists about to get his head cut off with wire, this being something he used to do made him understand what they used to feel when he tortured them.

Did the Film- maker have a presence? How and in what capacity?

During the documentary, the people that participated kept referring to the director whilst it was being recorded (Joshua Oppenheimer). There was a brief scene where Josh asked a question to 'Anwar' however he contained no visual presence on the film at all.

What two honoured documentary film-makers had executive producer credits on the film?

Two of the world's most honored documentary filmmakers were credited in The Act of Killing, these were Werner Herzog and Errol Morris.

What was the follow up/"sequel" to the film? Find the title and describe what it is about.

A documentary named 'The Look of Silence' was the follow u to 'The Act of Killing'. From the same director 'Joshua Oppenheimer' this is about an optician that confronts the men who killed the brother he never knew during the 1960's Indonesian genocide.