Theory problems

I have had a few problems and changes to my audience and documentary theories from the beginning of my project.

A problem I have had with my documentary theory that has changed since my Proposal was the Narrative Structure of my documentary. The narrative of my documentary was linear which goes from one interview to another without the same interviewee appearing on screen again apart from Frank who I have summarising the whole documentary at the end, I made this decision once I had all my shots and interviews done, this was so I could write the Voiceover Script. It starts with an introduction and ends with Frank finishing it off and his interview is the only one that is seen again on screen. Most documentaries don’t use the linear structure and usually go back to most interviewees throughout the films but mine doesn’t so it doesn’t meet all of the documentary conventions.

Another problem I have encountered was that my documentary was all positive and made the city only look good rather than having the negative sides of the city and there was no debates. In my proposal, I spoke about how the documentary will be two sides and I will talk about the culture and the development of the city but also discuss homelessness in the city. My documentary didn’t end up being a balanced documentary and it begins to look bias as it only has a positive outlook on the city. My idea changed as I began to do more research into the culture of the city and the history and after doing my Focus Group with Frank.

I didn’t do any vox pops to put into my documentary because I didn’t need any comments or opinions on anything because that’s what I had my interviews and voiceover for. A lot of Expository Documentaries use this technique in them but I only did Vox pops – primary research because I needed to use other sources to get more feedback on my audience. I am once again not using these documentary techniques, in my Pitch, I spoke about how I would use vox pops in my production so I am getting a wide range of opinions but that was when my documentary was balanced and I had different ideas.