1. Documentary modes
Sophie Cooper

2. A documentary film is one that presents people opinions of a certain matter
and reveals to the audience information about factual matters. Some of
the aims of a documentary film would be:
1. to film important events in society
2. Inform audience of certain issues by presenting the videos and
information to go with it
3. To show different opinions
4. Interest
To achieve these, ‘conventions’ are used in documentaries.
Our documentary is based on child care in general and raises two particular
issues within this:
1. The rising costs of child care
2. Free child care for under two’s
During our documentary, we will gather footage significantly related to this
subject by visiting a nursery and questioning the staff and parents. These
are known as “professionals”. We will find out their opinions and what
they feel about the two topics.

3. Actuality
This is a term used for the style of documentary
that films real life events, people and places.
Fictional films will use actors, scripts and sets
that are not real. These types of films are
planned unlike documentaries which film real
life events exactly as they occur.
For example, vox pops (interviews with the
general public giving their opinions on a
matter).

4. Voice-over
This is a commentary given by the presenter and
will take place whilst a montage of images is
being shown or a film is being shown in the
documentary. The film maker will speak to the
viewers, giving them added information, facts
and opinions on the topic.

5. Exposition
Expositional mode occurs at the beginning of the
documentary and introduces the most important
and interesting themes in it to grab the audiences
attention from the outset. This introduces the
audiences to the main parts of the documentary
and means they know a bit about what it will be
based on before it begins. A montage is normally
used at the beginning of a documentary film to
add excitement to the viewing so the audience
are persuaded to carry on watching the whole of
it.

6. Interveiws and interveiws with
‘experts’
An interview enables the viewers to be directly in touch with the people that the
documentary is based around. They will hear the opinions of these people
whilst they talk about the particular event. This will happen as they are
prompted by questions from the presenter and will be questions that the
viewers and most likely wanting to know too.
Interveiws will also be used to show views of people that are disagreeing with the
issue to show the viewer contradicting sides of an argument and a different
range of opinions depending on who is being interviewed.
The interveiws with ‘experts’ reveal a sense of authority to the reader and will
perhaps be people they will listen to more whilst they share their view. The
‘experts’ will sometimes disagree with the message in the documentary but
the presenter will aim to disprove them on this.

7. Archival/found footage
• This footage is not filmed by the presenter
themselves and can be from a film library or a
archive. It is then put into a documentary for
possibly historical purposes if the film is
looking back into the past and things that are
impossible for the presenter to film
themselves now.

8. Reconstructions
• Reconstructions are used a lot in documentaries and is
artificial footage that is presented in a real life manner. It
gives factual information to the viewers and a sense of
‘realism’ because they feel as if they are partly involved in
the event. It is often hinted that the footage is artificial by
the use of:
• Blurring
• distortion
• Lighting changes
• Camera levels different
• Colour changes in footage

9. The style of our documentary is investigative as it looks into the
rising costs of child care and how this effects child care
businesses around the UK.
Our documentary will show at 9pm on channel 4, we chose this
time because it is when we feel it will get the most viewers who
will want to watch a documentary about childcare. This is
because, parents who have children will be the most available at
this time after putting their children to sleep. Also, channel 4 is
where most childcare programmes are shown eg, super nanny
and one born every minute.
For our documentary, we used an off screen voiceover.