Producers and Directors Research

INTRO
"In this post I will be researching a range of media practitioners linked to documentaries, paying particular attention to the style and use of conventions in the type of media products they produce.  I will also be making reference to some of their existing products, this will give me a ideas on how I can gain inspiration from their techniques and for my own productions of both the main task and the website. I think by understanding the practitioners linked to my chosen brief, it will enable me to produce a media text that follows and reflects their style more effectively."

 MAIN CASE STUDIES

Farenheit 11/9

Leaving Neverland

Weird Weekends: Black Nationalism

MICHAEL MOORE

• Comedic yet still dramatically impactful. Moore uses dark humour to shock his audience and make his message stay.
• Within his narrative, Moore wanted to show his audience the message of his story, not tell like a FILMMAKER not a DOCUMENTARIAN. 
• He tried to ensure his message was portrayed like an action movie instead of an educational experience so instead of the facts, you can focus on the story of HOW WE GOT TO DISCOVER THOSE FACTS.
• He employs a personal voice who operates like a protagonist, rather than a narrator to ensure the narrative feel
• Moore within his documentaries takes a confrontational approach. As well as tackling the issues head on, his documentaries focus on those that would oppose the views of his more liberal audience
• Sound is just as important as the shots. Moore keeps to fewer shots in his docs to let the people tell the story through diegetic sounds.

DAN REED

Unlike Moore, Reed isn't exclusively a documentary maker. He worked on several crime dramas before his smash documentary hit: Leaving Neverland.

• Whereas Moore believes in a less is more approach, Reed believes in taking the time to ensure the story is told properly. Leaving Neverland was 4 hours long
• Reed took an attitude of neutrality on his part, letting the two men tell their stories, unencumbered by prejudice.
• Personal testimony and observation are key tactics in Reed documentaries. Most of the narrative is told through the two talking heads and it cuts through archival footage and talking heads to produce a narrative.
• In Superbug, Reed's next project, he aims to use modern technology and modern dramatic cinematic techniques such as drama performance to enhance the narrative of the documentary. 
   
  LOUIS THEROUX
  • Neutral, unbiased interview approach. Plays naive in order to get the fullest from interviews
  • A lot of Theroux docs follow a cyclical narrative structure. The narrative is Theroux's discovery into the subject which reflects the audience's journey. As a TV documentarian, Theroux has less creative freedom to tell a story and his documentaries must stick to the 60 minute format. Moore and Reed have more freedom for flexibility to provide a narrative
    
  • Theroux, through body language and mise-en-scene, frames himself as an outsider and outcast figure- almost the complete opposite of the mainstreamer psychographic. 
  • Theroux docs are also different to Moore and Reed in that Theroux's documentaries are almost entirely interview based. Whereas Moore and Reed employ a range of techniques such as info graphics, talking heads and animation / dramatic performance to illustrate points, Theroux purely relies on interviews with primary figures within his documentary.

  
  

  CONCLUSION

Through this research, I've learnt the importance of characterisation and narrative (elements I'd automatically associate with fiction) within factual documentaries. Revolutionary directors and producers rely on media language (usually camera edits, diegetic sound and mise-en-scene) to contribute to the narrative they're trying to form. It is this narrative that they use to show the audience their facts and spread awareness of the message. Even in Theroux documentaries, where neutrality and impartiality is important due to his role on the BBC, he still has a narrative of self discovery and reflection throughout the documentaries he makes as he tries to make sense of topics. As my clientele is BBC3, this is the approach I would need to take to comply with my institutional research.

Media Theory

DOCUMENTARY CASE STUDIES FOR NEXT BLOG POST

Spurlock- Supersize Me, Where On Earth Is Osama Bin Laden
Bowling For Columbine- Michael Moore
Louis Theroux- tv
Tiger King- tv
Frederick Wiseman- mental institutuion doc


CASE STUDIES FOR THIS BLOG

• Extreme Love: Louis Theroux on Autism
• Don't F*** With Cats

INTRO
In this blog, I will see how media theories influence a range of media texts. By doing this, it will start to influence what media theories I use in my final product.

MEDIA THEORIES USED IN EXTREME LOVE

Gauntlett's Identities
Theory: The media have an important but complex relationship with identities. The media gives a diverse and contradictory messages about identity.Individuals can use this to think through their identities and how they express themselves.
Application: Louis Theroux challenges the perceptions of Autism in his documentary by demonstrating a wide variety of people on different sides of the Autistic spectrum. By presenting this from the neurotypical perspective, it allows a neurotypical audience to compare and contrast the way they express themselves to the way the subjects of the documentary express themselves. The subject, despite being about the singular topic of Autsim, covers a whole series of people with different identities and ways of expressing themselves to promote the meaning that Autism is a spectrum of different behaviour

Todrov's Narratology
Theory: Narratives can be seen to go from equibrillium to disequibrillium until a state of equibrillium is returned to
Application: Louis Theroux begins the documentary in a house in equibrillium, metaphorically implying the beginning of the narrative of Theroux's discovery into Autism. The disequibrillium begins almost instantly, showing how the behaviours of people on the Spectrum that don't fit into social norms can be unpredictable and challenging for parents of children on the spectrum. Equibrillium is restored at the end of the documentary when Theroux goes back to visit the main subjects at the end of the documentary to see the progress they've made, before leaving the house to move on from the theme of autism.

Levi-Strauss' Structualism
Theory: Study of hidden rules that shape a structure to communicate ideologies or myths. We understand the world and our place within it through binary opposites
Application: The title of this documentary is seemingly juxtaposing vocabulary, reflecting the binary opposition within this documentary of positive (love) over negative (extreme behaviours) For instance, some of the subjects in the documentary abused their parents. However, these parents still love them and there are several mid shots of the families being close together within the centre of the frame to reflect this love they have for eachother.

MEDIA THEORIES USED IN DON'T F*** WITH CATS

Barthes' Semiology
Theory: Study of signs. Signs can create denotations and connotations derive from these denotations. Denotations and connotations create ideological myths.
Application: The documentary features a lot of cultural and referential codes to illustrate the delusions that the killer was living under- that they were the Sharon Stone of their own Basic Instinct esque adventure. In addition, the internet is used to symbolise the danger and power of internet crime. The accessibility of the horrific graphic content is denoted from the shots of FaceBook notifications and YouTube videos throughout. This connotes the horror and callousness of crimes and the denotations make it alarming for the viewer. This creates the ideology that the internet is too powerful and cannot be regulated, also alinging with Livingstone and Lunt's view that traditional regulation on online platforms is challenged by digital media and convergence

Hall's Representation
Theory: Through stereotyping and communication of ideology, power fixes the meaning of a product so that there can only be one true meaning. Despite this, preferred readings (meanings) can be contested by alternate readings (meanings) Meaning is created by representation and what isn't being represented. Stereotypes need to be picked apart to reveal facts about ideologies.
Application: This documentary has a variety of readings used throughout. A preferred reading from the protagonist and producers for instance is that Luka Magnotta is evil and cruel but before the final revelation, a lot of viewers would have taken a negotiated reading about his personality. His actions would've been attributed to a disastorous start to young adulthood. Even in the ending, one might use the negotiated reading of this to justify such actions (like Magnotta's mother)

CHALLENGES: Butler's Gender Performativity
Theory: Gender roles are ritualsied and repeated to the point of normalisation.
Challenge: Stereotypically, men are portrayed as the powerful & dominant one in crime and action adventures. However, the protagonist in Don't F*** With Cats is Deeana Thompson and she is repeatedly presented as the leader and most active and dominant one in the group.This is also shown through the fact that Deanna repeatedly uses her real name and the male doesn't want to in order to preserve his identity implies she is more confident and dominant than the man.

CONCLUSION (TBC When I plan more of my production)

Instituion Research

In this task, I intend to research the BBC, who are the clientelle of the documentary and website I choose to make. I will look at the products they make and how BBC3 has changed since becoming almost exclusively online only. I'll also be looking into the ethos of the company and seeing how this is encorporated into their products. I'll also see how company values are reflected in BBC3 productions- one prior to the decision to make BBC3 fully online and one after. This will help generate ideas for my website and documentary that are appropiate for my clientelle. By doing this, I will be better able to produce a media text that follows and reflects the ideologies, ethos and values of the company as well as maintaining their style.

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BBC PROFILE

KEY SOURCE: politics- bbc article

NAME: BBC

CONTENT: Audio, Audio-Visual, Online
They emerged as a radio show (2LO) in 1922
TV begun in 1936 and they were first to provide a HD broadcast service

TYPE OF COMPANY
Independent, Public Service Broadcaster institution
Cross Media
NO COMMERCIALS whatsoever. They only self-promote between shows

SISTER COMPANIES: BBC Radio 1, BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, BBC World Service, S4C, BBC Alba, BBC 1Xtra, BBC Radio 2, Asian Network

METHOD OF REVENUE: TV License

COST: £157.50

This graph shows just how reliant the BBC is on the license fee for income

Below is a relevant excerpt from a BBC News report on the BBC Annual Report looking at expenditure and revenue:

PLEASE NOTE: The distribution of £12.54 to TV, radio and online has been changed at April 2020, 10 months after this report.
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PROFILE BBC3
Launched 9th Feburary 2003 as a TV channel
Online launch: 16th Feburary 2016

The remit of BBC Three was to bring younger audiences to high quality public service broadcasting through a mixed-genre schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent. The channel should use the full range of digital platforms to deliver its content and to build an interactive relationship with its audience. The channel's target audience is 16–34-year-olds

Nowadays, this is what they look for when comissioning shows:

 KEY POINTS: Bold titles, NOTABLE IMAGERY, Young perspective, mostly under 25 cast, "snackable content", try to find witty and charming casting.

ETHOS, VALUES AND MISSION STATEMENT (Applied to BBC3 in Italics)

5 public purposes of the BBC
1- Show the most creative, highest quality and distinctive output and services
2- Provide impartial news and information to help people engage with and understand the world around them
The website doubles as a news service that because it's under the BBC rules, does not take a political bias.Before it was online only, this was via 60 seconds.
3- Support learning for people of all ages
BBC3 documentaries target the young but are accessible to a wide variety of audiences- as targeted by the fact content is still broadcast on 
4- Reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all the UK's regions and in doing so, support the creative economy across the UK
A wide variety of races and sexualities are highlighted in BBC3's programming. Content such as Muzlamic, Queer Britain, Rupaul's Drag Race UK and Stacey Dooley Investigates look at a diverse array of people that the mainstream tend to ignore.
5- Reflect the UK and it's culture.
All BBC3 shows place an emphasis on reflecting the culture of the whole of the UK- not just the South East.

BBC SLOGAN:

INFORM, EDUCATE AND ENTERTAIN

Johnny Vaughan, Dermot O'Leary and Johnny Vegas feature in the first ever 10 minutes of BBC3.
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CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I have learnt about the ethos, values and style of BBC3 documentaries. I will therefore try to make how I tell the story of the generation gap between the youth and the elderly as innovative as possible and focus it on the perspective of the youth. It needs to be innovative and reflect a wide range of cultures as much as possible (hopefully this will be attainable if Lockdown measures are lifted when filming starts). I will therefore ensure technology is an aspect I lean into on the documentary. I intend to focus on technology for the website where "snappable content" is needed since it could work as a short clip within itself and within the wider context of the documentary.