2.  The documentary genre is fairly
broad which give great scope for
creativity.
 There are two types interactional
and observational. Out of these we
chose to do a combination of the two
so that we can look at the subject
from a far and close up and in depth.
 To get to this decision we had to look
at current examples of
documentaries made by the
distribution channel we selected
‘Channel 4’.
 Channel 4 tend to have unique and
original print work which we sort to
alienate. Also the subjects of their
documentaries are normally centred
people themselves.

3.  There were a few media conventions we felt we
necessary to maintain the feel of the documentary
 We decided to try and keep the stock characters
used in many documentaries as they are , for most
people, an aspect of documentaries which
differentiates it from fiction
 The stock characters in many documentaries are:
 Experts
 A Presenter
 In regards to the presenter role we felt it was a
necessity as it allows the audience to follow along
more easily and makes it flow a lot better
 The expert role adds to the reliability and trusted
for the audience as it adds some factual
information and with terminology being used the
audience is assured of the documentaries
integrity.
 If we had changed or developed these roles I think
the format may not have been as clear as we
would have liked.

4.  Another convention we felt should be maintained was the
iconography so the main aspects people associate with a documentary
 This meant keeping the main structure of the documentary i.e. using
cutaways, interviews and voice over.
 These aspect we found in various documentaries of all subjects in our
initial research. Programmes such as ‘Planet Earth’ (BBC) and ‘My
Transsexual Summer’ were especially good users of the voice over we
found. In fact, the nature programmes have the best voice over, due to
the fact they are not able to conduct many interviews and so the voice
over is relied upon.
 This again added to how, generally, the text was received by viewers.
We felt that careful shot selection and voice recording would create a
much more professional tone to our documentary and that this would
be conveyed through the iconography.

5.  The way we developed some
conventions were the way we
conducted our interviews and
the constructed the text
around the opinions of the
various people.
 We decided to base our
documentary around the
various opinions rather than
using theories and looking into
a single person or group of
peoples views
 We did this so as to not show
any bias towards any group
and just try to give all sides of
the argument

6.  By tweaking the standard convention of using multiple
experts in a field and incorporating more opinions we feel
we are being fairer to more groups.
 No group can be offended as it is based on just opinions
and everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
 This also allows the audience to make up their mind on
their own and not be as influenced by intellectuals.

7.  To attempt to challenge normal conventions of the
documentary genre we have tried to make our target audience
as broad as possible and use a topic which hasn’t really been
done before.
 This in itself is not challenging the genre, however, we have
tried to include the subject of the documentary in our
demographic to try and hold a mirror up to society
 We felt also that if the challenges were too drastic our audience
demographic of middle aged people may be put off somewhat

8.  We decided to use a younger presenter
who is part of the subject.
 This gives a new spin on the presentation
of a groups as it is normally someone
impartial and not an expert on the subject
 This may appeal to our demographic
because it is a more modern concept,
however, it is a slight gamble as it may just
be too far for some people
 We used a young presenter as we felt it
would help to challenge the current
stereotype and indicate to the audience
that the presenter is in the best position to
understand both sides