History & Development

Documentaries that are televised find its roots in film, photo journalism and radio. The word documentary was not established until 1926 by a man named John Grierson. Before this, when the first documentaries where shown, these short films were called “actuality” films compared to the name more recognised today as being a documentary.

Early film before the 1900’s was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. They were single shot moments captured on film which were seen to be a train leaving a station, a boat docking or factory workers leaving work.

In 1922, Robert Flaherty film Nanook of the North, generally cited as the first feature length documentary. The film used many conventions of today’s documentary’s that are often broadcast such as third person narration.

Robert Flaherty’s first feature length documentary was seen to look like and include:-

·         Filmed in black and white

·         Use of sharp, sudden cuts

·         Long lasting cuts

·         Shot in a handheld style- Unsteady Camera

Codes and Conventions for modern day documentaries:-

·         Voice over

·         ‘Real’ footage of events

·         Realism

·         Archive footage/ stills

·         Interviews

·         Use of texts/ titles

·         Sound

·         Visual Coding (mise-en-scene/ props/ Setting)

The main difference between modern day documentaries and documentaries that where filmed in the 1900’s is documentaries present are now shot in colour with much advanced technology such as steady cams and cameras that are much more portable which gives a much wider range of footage, and not just scenes of long lasting cuts. This makes modern day documentaries much more appealing and less boring to watch compared to the first set of documentaries that had been broadcast to an audience.

How research has partly helped me with my project of filming an original documentary is recognising that fast cuts are highly important to include in any documentary. Also, I have learnt how to use mise-en-scene within a documentary clip such as showing close-ups in order to show the audience the importance of something and what the main focus the documentary is informing about. Also, I have learnt the basics behind making a documentary clip is the rule of thirds, editing (fast cuts) keep it interesting.

The BBC seems to be the best channel to air a documentary programmes as this channel already airs many documentaries of the sort such as current affairs all the way to documentaries about consumers rights. However, I have acknowledged there are TV channels that are designated to showing documentaries such as discovery channel but do not have near enough the same viewing figures as to what the BBC has.