1. Lecture 8
Today’s lecture was devoted to preparation for our presentations for the documentary, we
were told what to expect and how to prepare for it, this helped me to have an understanding
of what was expected and what I needed to do to prepare.
We started the lecture looking at how to pitch our presentations for the documentaries for the first
hour of the lecture.
We then watched and examined documentaries, looking at visual signatures, soundtracks and other
constructive elements.
*The rest of these notes are also in my Research section on Yola*
In lecture we watched and examined a BBC documentary about the universe and expansion.
In most documentaries voice is heard before seeing people.
Voice of god introduces themes which are then defined by experts who talk about the topic. The
voice of God simplifies the topic which is then elaborated by the expert. This is supported by a visual
signature – the thing they are talking about. Another frequently used feature in documentaries are
captions, they can be used to show names of people, to make quotes, facts, figures and can usually
substitute an expert.
A repeating aesthetic is often a visual signature which becomes accepted by the audience. They use
a lot of voice of God with graphic signature, it relaxes you down to see and understand what is going
on. The visuals are used because it is aimed at an audience who potentially do not fully understand
the subject and topic. Signatures are also used as cutaways to cut to closer shots smoothly.
Documentaries also use visual metaphors such as the BBC4 documentary Parallel worlds, Parallel
lives where the theory of parallel universes get explained with a visual metaphor of cloning the
primary subject person in the documentary to show the parallel universe being created. Another
signature used was the music used and the pictures of the primary’s father to reflect on the past and
connect with the audience on an emotional level. Top Gear use a visual signature of a map with cars
travelling from point A to B to explain the journey to the audience – We are going to use this as a
visual signature in our documentary to show the progression of the journey that the travellers
undertake and where they have travelled from and ended up.
There is a motive signature soundtrack which is related to the documentary theme (space music for
a documentary about the universe). I plan to use a signature soundtrack in my documentary, as
there isn’t a particular theme (rather an event) the music will relate to the moods of the scenes – if it
is raining and we have no dry place to sleep for example we would use depressing music or an ironic
soundtrack such as raindrops by B.J Thomas. This would give the documentary a dramatic sense.

2. Documentaries often use repeated content and summaries. This reinforces the points made and
helps to drill in the information. We are not educating in our documentary and therefore we will
only use repeated content to look back on what has happened to show the progression of the
travellers and to summarise what has happened to show where they are now and remind the viewer
how they got there.
Our documentary is more decisive than expert driven, the audience will be able to relate to the
characters and will not be antagonised by the way the documentary is delivered.
2nd Units are used in documentaries to get other shots, stills and close ups, they are often roaming
and ready to capture live, decisive moments that the primary camera might miss.
4th Wall Documentary is used in documentary when audience involvement is used – in film the film
stops and the protagonist would talk to the camera. This is a rising convention in documentary. We
could use this in our documentary to make it different and to address the audience to make them
feel more participatory.
Adam Curtis – a controversial documentary film maker. (Tower of nightmares) – I am going to
research Adam Curtis more because he makes use of 4th wall.
Point Of View shots are rarely used in documentaries however sometimes they can be – I plan to use
a lot of POV in our documentary to show the view of the travellers which will again make the
audience feel more participatory and help them to relate to the documentary and the travellers.
Grey Gardens – About a mum and a daughter that live in a house.