Conventions of Documentaries

BY JOE PEREIRA

Camera shots / movement

It is conventional for the camera footage in documentaries to be
actuality footage, which would be actual footage from the event. This
also means that the people who are in the footage were really there
and are not actors.
Archived footage is very common in most documentaries these help to
show the audience a image or video of old scenarios and
environments.
In documentary footage it contains a lot of interview footage, these are
normally upper body/headshots of the interviewee so that the focus
is on what they are saying and nothing else.
(photo)

Editing
Editing in documentaries are very different to music
videos as music videos are fast paced and the frames
and constantly changing. Whereas conventionally
the editing for documentaries has less frames as
there are a lot of long takes and feature long
interviews in it.
A montage can also be expected at the end because it
tends to be an overall summary of what has been
featured already in that documentary, if it is a series.

Narrative structures (e.g interviews)

These are typical documentary narrative structures:
Direct Interview technique (we see the people talking on camera,
and we see and hear the interviewer asking questions in the same
shot or in part B of a twopart parallel track; suggests journalistic
basis of reporting).
Indirect Interview technique (we see the people talking on camera,
but we don't see or hear the interviewer asking questions in the
same shot; this gives the impression of the character speaking
directly to the viewer.
Direct narration (we see and hear the narrator of the film as the
narration is presented; suggests an intimacy between narrator and
audience; this type of narration is seldom objective its biases
reflect the speaker's background, conflicts, values)

Sound
Voice Overs is particularly a common convention of
documentaries as this is the voice of the documenter
and is their input of them speaking as the
documentary is rolling. This also gives impression of
audience overhearing the character reveal thoughts
and feelings / in another case, the voiceover is done
by a narrator (someone not seen in the film) who
comments on action; this suggests a more objective
voice than the prior example)

Locations
There is only one main convention that ties in with
location and that is realism which is presented by the
documentary , when it uses the real location and
getting a lot of visual evidence to support their
points.
(photo)