Factual programming News and Documentary Production
News
News programs have many codes and conventions that we expect to see when we watch the News. I watched the BBC news at 10 on 25/02/14 and i am going to explain the conventions of the show. The BBC news always starts with the headlines, this is before anything else and is even before the intro, the news reader reads out the top stories and tells you the basis of the storys that will be features on the story, during these the shot will be on the news reader and sometimes will cut to a very short shot of the VT that will be playing for that story if there is one. The VT is being used to... For example on the show i watched the first headline to be read out was about a man who was arrested for a bombing in london, while the news reader was reading this out it cut to some clips of the VT including that aftermath of the bombing and the man walking into court. Not so much on the BBC but for some news intros you see clips of peoples feet walking, they do this because if they film peoples faces they will have to get permission from every single person for the footage to be shown. The first story is normally the most important and serious and as the show goes on the news gets less important. The first story on BBC news after the intro was over was reported by the news reader but he was standing up with a background behind him showing pictures relevant to the story. The news reporter is dressed in a suit while holding papers in his hand with a serious face expression, this is relevant to the story because if he was dressed in casual bright coloured cloths it would not fit in with the serious nature of the story. The correspondent then starts to talk about the story as it is being played this is a voice over so the audience is getting information while looking at visual information of what has happened, it then shows a shot of the reporter at the scene looking straight at the camera to make the audience feel like he is speaking directly to them. Also if the audience feels like the reporter is speaking directly to them they are more likely to believe what they are seeing and take their views and side of the story. Also during the VT there is a interview with one of the victims relatives. It uses rule of thirds like all news interviews do which is where the person being interviews is slightly the right or the left or the camera so isn't directly in the middle it is comes up with a little title at the bottom telling the audience who the person is. Many News shows use interviews at it is a great way of getting information across and is often accurate if they are interview someone directly linked to the story. This is because we are dealing with the actual source of the information. It also gives the audience the chance to see and hear the people involved in the story in a very direct way. The news is defiantly bias and one sided, and it will try and persuade you to take their side, they did this by interview just one side of the story for example the one i watched they interviewd the victims brother but not from the man thats been acaused, it also doesn't show any clips of him in a positive way, there is only one clip of him and thats of him walking into the court . The language they use also is bias by using negative language against the man acused of the crimes calling the crimes "Vile" "Murder' ect.. .
The show i watch of the BBC news is defiantly structures in a certain way, as it starts with a very serious story about murder with all the reporters dressed very smarty and very serious voice/facial expression and as the show went on the stories got less serious ending with stories about school and football where the reporter was dressed more casually (still smart but more casual smart ) and with a less serious tone of voice, this is done to lighten up the audience after sad/serious news. BBC is well known for being mostly fair when it comes to representation and i agree with this from the show i watched because age, race, gender ext. were all represented equally. In the BBC news broadcast (11.3.14) The newsreader is smartly dressed and speaks seriously about a story featuring a Trade Union leader standing up for his workers. Both of these things represent men in a positive way. When we cut to the Trade Union leader we see a photograph of a well dressed, smiling man, surrounded by his supporters. Again men are being represented positively because he is shown to be strong, in control, serious and smart. After this it has a couple of clips showing people talking about the trade union leader, each of them speaking about him in a positive light. But when it comes to bias everyone thinks of fox news, they are known for being very bias and one sided as it owns by rupert murdoch and all the stories will support his views and the opions he shows in fox news, for example when they had a political debate live on the show they had 3 conservative and only 1 democrat so this obviously make the conservatives look stronger.
All news shows use a multi camera setup, Multi camera basically means where there is more than one camera filming the same thing. Show like this use multi camera because this way it makes the programe more engaging with the audience, whereas if it was a single camera setup it would be boring for the audience as there would only be one shot, If they use a variety of shots it keeps the audience interested in the show. It also makes the show look more professional.
Another example of why shows use multi camera is for shows like Jeremy Kyle, which have very quick cuts when someones is arguing. If they use single camera in a show like this they wouldn't pick up all the footage to make it engaging with the audience. Also because there are several cameras they can pick up the reactions of the host and the audience when something shocking happens. Also when something happens on the show and the host looks directly at the camera with a shocked face it makes the audience feel involved and more interested in the show.
Some of the advantages to multi camera is that, It looks more professional, you have several shots of the same thing but from several different angels so when they come to edit they have several shots to choose from. Also when the camera cuts to a different angle it makes the audience more engaged and stops them from getting board.
For shows like the news it is important to use multi camera. When the news starts there is normally a panning crane shot which shows the whole studio, this is to introduce the show to the viewer and also makes the set look very professional with the news reporter behind their desk and all the paper etc.. Also normal during a news show the reporter will often get up from the desk and report a story standing up, this is to again to engage the viewer and change it round from them just sitting behind their desk. We used this for our own news show production as we had the reporters behind a desk but we also had the weather presenter somewhere else in the studio which needed several cameras to catch everything. This is also where the vision mixer comes in who has to change the shoot live.
Documentaries also have their own codes and conventions and some of these are similar to or the same as TV news. For example voice-over is one of the key conventions as it is used to give information and explain the images that we see and guide us through the documentary. For examples in Louie and The Nazis, The first scene is Louie in the kitchen with what looks like to the audience a normally family, but as he explains in the voice over they are actually Nazis. Another convention of documentary are interviews. Interviews are nearly always used and are used to give us information on the topic of the documentary. Interviews are also used as it feels like they are talking straight to you and we often feel that interviews are trust worthy in the information they give us. The way sound is used in documentary tends to focus on people speaking in interviews or voice-over. However, some film makers, like Michael Moore, do use music to help make his point clearer such as when he plays the song 'What a wonderful world' over images of terrorism. He does this in an ironic way and also to criticise Americas's involvement in helping to train and finance the terrorists. This is unconventional use of sound but more conventionally the focus is on people speaking. Another convention is inserts and the way they are structured, in most documentaries they follow a conventional order that makes sense, for example in Louie and the Nazis, we meet the family, get to know who they are and information about them, then we see what they do in their daily lives, which is very conventional as it goes in a sensible order, Where as in Bowling for Columbine, it follows a unconventional structure as it jumps from one thing to another and doesn't seem to follow a order, for example it will be talking about the boys who committed the crime then it will suddenly talk about guns laws and Americas attitudes to guns. Even though this is very unconvental i feel it works with this kind of documentary.
The way bias functions in Louis and the Nazis is not straight forward. Theroux gives the Nazis a chance to give their opinions but he often provokes them into saying things that make them look stupid or stereotype them negatively. For example when one of the nazi's asked him if he was Jewish he refused to answer which annoyed the Nazi. He also uses a voice-over where we hear his thoughts about what he has seen but this is actually biased because these thoughts are his opinions, and we don't get any thoughts or voice overs from the Nazis point of view soWe are encouraged to share his point of view and this makes us see things from one side. Again another form of bias is the start of Bowling For Columbine where is shows the clips of volients and terrisom in america, this automatically gives us a bad view against amercia before the program starts and dosnt show or mention all the good that amercia have done.
In terms of representation When Louis met the Nazis is very interesting to discuss as it is all about how Nazis are represented. For example Louis interviews three very different groups of people who are all nazis but are represented differently. If we look at the the twin girls in terms of gender and age we can see that in many ways they are represented as normal, typical even positive examples of 7-8year olds. They are well presented, polite and caring for their horses and show their mother a lot of love. However, when we hear them sing their racist songs they are represented negatively. This is when our biased feelings about nazis are confirmed as we now see them as racist. Mothers are represented negatively through their mum, who has taught them hate non-white races and even sing about it. Clearly this goes against what we expect mums to be like as caring and they want wants best for their children and should give them freedom to believe what they want to believe, instead the mother in When Louie met the Nazis brainwashed her children into believing the nazi ideology. Another Negative representation we get is off Skinheads, in When Louie met the nazis they are represented as aggressive and racist, for example when they ask louie if he is jewish and he refused to answer they started getting angry eventually leading to them making the camera man to turn the camera off.
The majority of documentaries are film with a single camera setup. There are number of reasons for this but one of the reasons is because if you have loads of cameras it would loose the intimacy in interviews, also it makes it feel more real with just one camera and people will trust the documentary more and it makes it more believable. It is also much more particle, especially if they are filming in a house or a small inside location like when they filmed in the mums kitchen in When Louie Met The nazis. It is also much cheaper and reliable. There are some negatives though for example if your filming a documentary as it is happening with just a single camera you might miss a important event or important thing that happens. It is takes longer to film with just a single camera setup.
