Jade: As Seen on TV

I then studied a Channel 4 documentary on Jade Goody as I felt it would be interesting to see how such a famous figure was represented and what editting was used to create this. This documentary aired two months after she lost her battle against cervical cancer and it features unseen footage, exploring the Jade Goody phenomenon.  

The following codes and conventions were used in this documentary:

• Fast paced music reflecting the upbeat mood- symbolising her life
• Cutting- from one person talking and then being interviewed then cutting to shots of her in action
• Zoomed in shots to emphasise her importance in the documentary
• Close up shots and shots from above to create sympathy
• Question from the narrator: did she make fame alone?
• Footage of her in big brother and interviews with her
• Narrator: providing the narrative- creating the story and letting it unfold- background information
• Old videos of her, shots descending, pan shots
• Prompted with what to talk about- certain topics need to be discussed to represent her in a certain way.
• Slow, therapeutic music whilst talking about the sad moment when she died
• Contradicting views about her life are discussed- showing she was a controversial character of modern day celebrity
• Shows how she was constructed by the media, how it went wrong, how she slid in public affection, rebuilds herself and then suffers a death in highly public circumstances
• Important message is addressed: Inspired millions to go for smear tests

The Family: Teen Stories

The next documentary I looked at was Channel 4’s series ‘The Family’ which focussed on the Hughes family, documenting their life for 100 days and nights. It focussed on the stories of the three teenagers in the family. The issues faced by these teenagers link to the lives of thousands of young people. The episode I analysed focussed on Emily, the ‘family rebel’ and a lot of careful editing was used throughout to build up a representation of gender and age within the family unit.

I found the following codes and conventions were used in this documentary:

• Opes with a description about the daughter; 'She's the family rebel'
• Close up camera shots of her to emphasise she is the main subject
• Careful editing: showing the extremes- emphasising her messy bedroom
• Close up shots when intervewing her and her parents- dont look directly at the camera
• Shows a sequence of arguments between her and her parents- use these parts to create a negative image of her- only represents her as an argumentative teenager
• Side shots of facial expressions
• Narrator not on her side: ‘Spends most nights out with her friends’
• Camera looking down on her
• Purposely showing scenes where they are discussing her bad attitude and the fact that she doesn’t pay them any rent
• Shows her talking about stereotypical teenage topics
• Emphasises her mum tidying her room, doing all the work, while shes still in bed
• Music for effect, to suit the mood they want to create
• Black and white camera affect used when the mum and dad are tidying her room- to represent negativity and a bad mood she has created
• Camera shots: far away to show the whole bedroom- where the mum, dad and daughter are arguing, then from different angles
• Close up of face- side shot- to create sympathy for the mother who looks distressed.
• Edited to show all the clips that represent the teeange daughter negatively to create a good storyline for the public to watch and feel interested in: needed something to focus on for the individual episode
• Close up shot of the daughter crying to create sympathy
• Reaction to her story from a group of teenagers
• Questions come up on the screen- have been prompted with what to say as this was set up unlike the documentary.
• Shows clips from the programme then close ups of the individual teeangers with their name appearing on the screen- they individual views.
• Interviewer asked certain questions to get the responses they want.
• Used certain clips from the documentary to be able to ask these questions.

The WI Ladys Guide to Brothels

The first documentary I studied was the E4 programme ‘THE WI LADYS GUIDE TO BROTHELS’ where the Hampshire WI members Jean Johnson and Shirley Landels lead 7,000 strong members to advocate the legalisation of brothels in Britain. They are joined by journalist Nicky Taylor who helps them find out what makes the best practice brothel and how the laws need to change to create one in the UK.

I found the following conventions were used to create this particular documentary:

• Close up camera shots to emphasise facial expressions
• Side view close up shots of important figures in the programme
• Prompts by the narrator to get the responses she wants e.g. ‘Is it places like this?’
• Talking to students who are ‘mostly addicted to Class A drugs’. Prompts again by the narrator e.g. ‘do you not find it dangerous’
• Expose of prostitutes; ‘I’ve been raped’ ‘I’ve been knifed’ 
• Judging the subjects the entire time- mockery by the narrator
• Camera angle: looking down on them to make them appear vulnerable
• Careful editing: chosen the most explicit content and the worst cases/people to represent it negatively
• Big question: How can we make Brothels in Britain legal? This is discussed and researched throughout the documentary. At the end, there is a campaign to raise this issue and present it to the Prime minister
• Camera shots: newspaper articles- pictures becoming bigger and bigger as if moving towards you to emphasise the dangers- to make you sympathise with them
• Editing- from one place to another
• Interviewing pole dancers- to gain the information they need in their research
• Set up- window brothel experiment- pretending a Brothel is going to open
• Camera angles: blurred or just showing the waist downwards because some subjects do not want to be exposed
• ‘Im shocked… they seem normal’ showing the narrators negative representation
• Negative representation; mocking them: ‘Proud of being bunny of the year’

Intentions of production piece

For my production piece, I intend to produce a documentary about the reality TV series ‘The Only Way is Essex’, interviewing people from this area to emphasise the representation of this particular region. I also intend to show possible prompts given to interviewees to emphasise the falseness of such shows and the exaggerated Essex stereotype. This will be linked to my critical investigation which discusses whether 'scripted' reality TV programmes are a negative and poor representation of society.

Before I create this documentary, I need to analyse a range of existing documentaries to look at the codes and conventions I can replicate to make it successful.

I will be particularly focussing on the follow conventions:

• Camera angles used in different situations to create certain effects, e.g. to create sympathy, to appear vulnerable, to appear unsympathetic
• Camera editing techniques used to manipulate footage
• Representation of their subjects
• Possible scripting and/or leading questions
• Styles of narrative by the presenter, e.g. empathy, emotive language, whose side are they on? ‘the big question’ raised from the beginning and evaluated at the end