I have watched a documentary on Liverpool called Liverpool: Capital of North Wales. I wanted to look at a Liverpool documentary because I wanted to look at the types of shots around. This documentary includes a lot of documentary techniques I will use in my own work.

The documentary starts with a long shot over looking the city that zooms in a little. There are shots of some of the most iconic places in the city which is the liver building and the cathedral which gives the audience an idea of where the documentary is set. The voiceover comes in  during the second shot instead of it being too long. There is a soundtrack playing  quietly in the background.

The documentary has a presenter in who also acts as the voiceover over in this and she appears on the screen numerous times which I won’t do but I will have a voiceover right throughout my documentary to help tell the story.

In this documentary, they have shots of people walking round in public, I will be using these types of shots when I go out to film my cutaways in the city and it will show people getting on with their everyday  lives which is what I want to show in my work. For example, I will get shots of people walking down busy streets likeBold Street or Paradise Street in Liverpool One.

They have interviews of different people right throughout the documentary. They have all been framed as mid shots and they are talking to the person behind the camera. I will have my interviews framed like this right throughout my documentary because they will all be giving stories.

Right throughout the documentary, they continue to use shots of the iconic attractions in the city which I will do continuously throughout my documentary because it is representing the city and the culture and the people throughout the documentary.

 

This is the link to the documentary I used –

I have looked at a Liverpool documentary called The Perfect Day in Liverpool.  I will look at some of the techniques used that I can apply in my own work.

It starts with a short montage including the Liver Building with instrumental music playing over it. Right throughout the video, there are shots of the city’s most iconic attractions. I will do this in my work because this shows the audience that this is a documentary on Liverpool.

 

Throughout the video, they have two men to present it, holding the camera and talking directly to the audience, I won’t be doing this, I will have a voiceover with music with cutaways over and also interviewees.

2 minutes into the video, they begin to give some historical information about the city and how it became one of the richest cities in the British Empire, in my work, I want to give out some historical facts but from the historian rather than from the voiceover.

They use archive and illustrations of maps – which is visual representation so that the audience has an idea of where about they are talking about, I won’t be using these in my documentary.

Later on in the video, they use archive of the city which I want to use in my own work because history and culture is being spoken about and its hard to show the audience what it looked like.

 

I have looked at a documentary which has a voice over in it and I have decided I wanted to use a voice over in my own project to give the extra information that we don’t get from the interviewees.  I know that voiceovers are one of the main theories used in documentaries and have been since after the silent film era ended. I did a brief summary of what and how a voice over is used in documentaries and when and how I will use it in my own work in Documentary techniques.

I watched a BBC documentary called The Empire State Story which is a 50 minute documentary on the construction of the Empire State Building in New York which was the worlds tallest skyscraper when opened in 1931.

The documentary has a montage of archive as it is a history one when it was being built with some dialogue from a short clip of a man and woman speaking.

The voiceover comes in after about 16 seconds later after the archive and begins to introduce the documentary and gives some information on the Empire State Building which gives the viewers an idea of what the documentary is about.

In my documentary, I will have my voice over come in after the montage about 8 seconds later and it will introduce my documentary and tell the audience what it is about. It will come over the montage after the music settles down and then more shots of Liverpool continue to show under the voice over so there is something going on rather than a blank screen with the dialogue over it.

Bbc.co.uk. (2019). BBC iPlayer – Timewatch – 2000-2001: The Empire State Story. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00lmsb0/timewatch-20002001-the-empire-state-story [Accessed 5 Mar. 2019].