My documentary develops and challenges many different
conventions.
First of all the narrative of my documentary follows the
Todorov theory; First of all there is clear conflict of interests between the
owners and the fans, this is explained throughout the video but the overview of
it is that the Allam’s, which are the owners tried to change the name in 2013
which turned the majority of the fans against the Allam’s. Throughout the
documentary I interviewed a variety of fans and the clear message was that
there is a clear hatred towards the Allam family. From Todorov’s theory there
is an Antagonist and a Protagonist. In the documentary the antagonist is the
Allam family; this decision was made due to the fact that most of the football
community is against the methods that they take in running a football club. The
protagonist in this case would be the fans; this is because they are seen as
‘right’ by the football community which includes other fan bases of other
clubs. In this theory there has to be a disruption; the disruption in this
narrative is the name change and all of the other new methods of owning a
football club, their methods have come under scrutiny and have turned the fans
completely against them. Todorov also mentions in his theory that there has to
be a ‘quest’; the whole aim of this documentary, especially if it was produced
on a professional level is to try and represent the fans opinions on the
matter. I have tried to get a wide variety of opinions the majority have made
it clear that they are against the Allams. The quest in this case is to try and
spread awareness to other fans, there are a lot of football clubs that are going
through a similar situation and you could argue that if this documentary was
published that it would help to force the FA into taking action.
A massive convention of a documentary is the use of archive
footage; the reasoning behind using this is that I wanted to use drone footage
of the stadium as a way of setting the scene. This is a technique used in many
different documentaries and has been used since the first the documentaries
were published. Documentaries have often featured ‘real footage’ in the video,
however, due to my documentary not being particularly based around that I
decided to use clips of Hull City matches instead to keep the important
convention in my piece. The effect which archive footage has is what makes it
such an important convention; it helps to give your documentary an extra bit of
credibility which is obviously important when the main purpose behind almost
all documentaries is to inform the viewer, without credibility the documentary
might not fill out its purpose.
The next convention is a Voiceover. The purpose of a
voiceover is to guide the audience through the video, whilst also adding a bit
of extra information to video. I believe that my documentary challenges this
because instead of using primarily, just my voice I have also added in sections
of other people talking; this includes Andy Comfort, who is a presenter on BBC
Radio Humberside and Ian Wright from Match of Day. The reasoning for me
choosing to do this was so the audience could listen to somebody a bit more
‘recognisable’, when I created my first draft I was the only voice which could
be heard, I then decided to do my own miniature audience feedback which showed
that they would have preferred to have listened to somebody a bit more
‘credible’; I then acted on this and opted to use a popular local figure in
Andy Comfort and a Football legend, Ian Wright to help add a little bit of
extra information to the documentary. Voiceovers help to add that little bit
more credibility, which is vital for a documentary; as a result of this, the
voiceover should sound authoritative in order to highlight the importance of
the fact. I tried to put an emphasis on my voice when talking as it was
important to make sure the viewer is listening, due to the complex nature of
the situation.
When conducting my interviews I wanted to make sure the
framing wasn’t repetitive, as a result of this I decided to frame each
interview differently. It’s important that the framing of the documentary isn’t
repetitive as you want the viewer to remain interested; therefore I have
followed the conventions. Almost all documentaries have interviews included in
them, the general framing of them means that the interviewer isn’t included;
the reasoning behind this convention is so the viewer is fully concentrated on
the interviewee; people don’t watch the documentary to see the interviewer. The
media theorist Goffman has a theory on framing; he believes that framing is one
of the most important factors of a video, with this in mind the faming of my
interviews was set so the audience could see David Burns, but also see the area
in which he works in. This in itself is a convention of not only documentaries,
but interviews in general.
Lower thirds are a very important convention; they introduce
the interviewee to the audience. They include the name and title of the
interviewee. My use of the lower thirds doesn’t challenge the convention. For
my lower third I used Hull City colours to keep a consistent colour scheme.
These are important for any documentary as the audience need to know who they
are, and why they’re relevant to the topic. An example of one that I used was
when I first introduced David Burns; locally, he’s known well, but it’s
unlikely that somebody from another area will know who he is.
I think that the way I’ve used audio follows the conventions
of a documentary, in most documentaries there will be some form of diegetic
music as well as the non-diegetic background music. The reasoning behind this
is that the majority of the documentary will consist of archive footage and
interviews. The use of non-diegetic background music allows me to control the
volume of it; this was useful for me, because I wanted to keep the background
music consistent throughout the documentary, whenever there no diegetic sounds,
I raised the audio levels. This is used in almost every documentary; the audience
expect to see background music, which is why it was important for me to use
this convention. The piece would look very unprofessional without this which links
back to the audience; a professional looking documentary will appear more
credible which is important for every documentary.
John Grierson created one of the first ever documentaries, he
suggested that it as the ‘creativity of actuality’. With this in mind it was an
important convention which I had to stick with. A documentary has to be
un-biased and as much as I tried to make this happen, at times the documentary
may appear that way; to balance it out I tried to include some of the good
moments that have happened during their time at the club, it was hard to get
some un-biased interviews due to the fact that the majority of the fan base is
now against the owners. The decision to interview David Burns was based on
trying to give a balanced argument; he works for the BBC which means that he
has to be impartial.
Media language, from my research is an important factor in
creating a documentary. The first thing which I considered was the Mise En
Scene; for this I had to make sure that the setting was related to Hull City,
with this in mind I used the KCOM stadium as the background for a lot of my
shots and vox-pops. With the David Burns interview, it was a little bit harder
as for sound quality reasons I couldn’t shoot outside, however, the place in
which it was shot is still related in a way; it’s shot in the recording studio
in which he talks about Hull City on a programme called Sports Talk. One thing
which was important for me was how the audience will interpret my Documentary,
to help me with this is used Roland Barthes theory of connotations and
denotations, I tried to use different technical codes in order to do this. I’ve
used an amber and black colour scheme which represents the colours of the Hull
City kit, by doing this the audience will connote that the documentary is about
purely Hull City. Another technical code which I’ve used is lighting, by using
poorly lit rooms it gives the effect of misery, which is generally the feeling of
the Hull City fan base. The day in which is shot the vox-pops was a cloudy
afternoon and it gave negative connotations.
In conclusion, I believe that I have kept the conventions of
documentaries and not tried to challenge them, I feel like this important
because without these conventions, would the piece appear credible? I don’t think
that it would and as a consequence of that, I tried to stick with the key
conventions.
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