Research

 As discussed with Phil I needed to be able to understand the conventions of what is expected from a documentary and how do we categories them. I decided to look at a list of the top documentaries and categorizing them into different subgenres e.g sports documentaries, music documentaries, biography, etc. 

I decided to look at a website that lists the top 43 documentaries that are around so that I can categories them into what genres I believe they are a part of as part of my primary research into documentaries. 

Sports: 

- for a sports documentary it is important to focus on what is happing within a game and its player's sports documentaries will usually follow a given player or a given sport explaining its origins or how the player got to where they are today. Sports documentaries can also simply be videoing a game that is taking place. 

- Sir Alex Ferguson: Never give in would be an example of a sports documentary. 

In this documentary, they focus on the manager of a British football team. They discuss his successes and what he has achieved throughout his time as manager of the team. Discussing personal never heard before aspects that engage the viewer. 

- Maradona 

- Maradona follows the life of a footballer who has made his way to fame. Maradona focuses on the life of an Argentina football player and his time within the club of Napoli in the 1980s. The common convention of these documentaries is that they take a person with a large pre-existing fan base and give insights into their lives and how they got to where they wanted to be. 

-Free to play 

 - Professional gaming has now become a widely watched sport that now has a large fan base and is shown worldwide with documentaries on people competing against each other for the title of the best gamer and for a cash prize. 

 - All or Nothing 

- This docummentary looks into Manchester City's 2017-2018 premier league season as it was record breaking and included the most wins (32). Players talk about the match giving the audience an insight into the game. 

 
After looking at these types of documentaries it was made apparent that this type of documentary would be quite hard to achieve as I do not have access to the contacts required to document a team and access the players to talk about their up and coming sporting events.Restricted access to games. This type of docummentary is domminated by famous celebrities that are hard to get a hold of. With this type of docummentary it would be complicated to get the managers and team to trust me and be convincing with the docummentary. As well as the fact i have not got experience in the field or a distribution company, all together this type of docummentary in my case would not be the best choice.       

Expository Documentary/ current affairs documentaries: 

Documentaries that tell the story of what is happening in society globally. In an expository documentary, it is used to persuade or inform its audience on certain topics. While I was discovering the concept of this I stumbled upon the camera technique known as Ken Burns effect / Rostrum camera which is commonly used in this type of documentary, this effect includes zooming into specific areas of an image to show something e.g like a person in a crowd. 

- The Social Dilemma 

-It discusses how the media influences us and how its algorithms are designed to keep people logged in. It talks about the most damaging aspects of media algorithims, it has a compilation of interviews with people who were a part of the creation of the algorithim who speak about their views and the internet.

- Human Flow 

-In this docummentary they focus on the movement of humans due to famine,climate change and war. It focuses on Lesbos and Syria to explain human 'displacement and seperation'. Directed by Ai Weiwei.

- World's scariest drug 

- This dicummentary looks into the world of drugs focusing on a drug called Scopolamine, known as 'The devils breath'.It looks into people with horror stories of people using this drug and peoples first hand experience of the drug.

- An open secret 

- An Open Secret focuses on the issue with sexual harassment, it looks at the alleged instances of child abuse of young boys by talented agents. It focuses on the grooming of child actors.

This type of documentary is a possibility on a much smaller scale as there is access to current affairs in the area, especially as seen as Madrid is a capital city their is pleanty of opportunities to film, and celebrity access is not required.

Music: 

Music documentaries talk about the different elements of music and different artists and how they have made it to where they are today or how they developed their musical talents and what instruments and marks they use. 

- Amy 

- This docummentary focuses on the life of Amy Winehouse ,created after she had passed it looked into the hidden parts of her life by talking to her family and people who were involved in her life. The documentary looks into her struggles with addiction as well as her influences.

-The Go-Go's 

- The Go-Go's is a documentary on a predominantely girl run band from the early 80s it explains the story if how the band rised to fame, it recieves hidden insights into the insights of the bands life.

This type of docummentary I am unlikely to achieve as I do not have the access to the celebrities that are needed for this type of docummentary. I also lack the distribution company to seem professional.

Art: 

Art documentaries talk about the different elements of art and different artists and how they have made it to where they are today or how they developed their art and what they use. 

- Art and craft 

- This documentary looks into the game of art forgery. Art and craft looks into the work of art and forgery commited by Mark Landis.It looks into the life of Mark Landis.

-My kid could paint that

- The documentary looks into the family with a 4 year old that could paint, Marie Olmstead paints canvases with paint splatters, however this idea was challemged by art critics that didn't believe she was able to paint the pieces she had.

- This type of docummentary I am unlikely to achieve as I do not have the access to the celebrities that are needed for this type of docummentary. I also lack the distribution company to seem professional.

Natural history: 

A natural geographic documentaries conventions are to show people what there is in nature and what lives in the world amongst us, national geographic documentaries are informative on the nature that is around us. More often than not this type of documentary uses very high-quality camera shots of the natural world around us as well as uses voice-overs most commonly voice-overs using David Attenborough. Very cinematic. 

- Seven worlds one planet 

David Attenborough voices over the natural life that exists looking at different types of life on earth. It is a landmark documentary focusing on the seven continents around the world. This type of documentary usually takes the most amount of time and patients to shoot as for this documentary alone it took 1,794 days including 91shoots globally. 

- Blue planet 

Voiced by David Attenborough, this documentary looks at the natural life of creatures that live under the sea. Looking at a multitude of different types of species. 

This type of documentary is not a possibility as it consumes alot of time which is not avaliable and requires very high end camera equipment and sound equipment that I will not have access to. Not to mention the budget required to preduce this type of documentary, I will not have access to a wide enough budget.

 

Biographies: 

Biographies are interviews that focus specifically on one individual or a small family and their life story. Usually has someone for the most part talking into the camera with a mid-shot.  

- Little Pyongyang 

An interview covered by the Guardian that focused on the life of a refugee who was finding it difficult to adapt to his home in London. He talks about what it was like integrating into British culture as well as what his life was like growing up. 

- Three identical strangers

- This documtary looks into the lives of three men who were tripplets that were seperated at birth, who one day re-met eachother, it unclovers the story of their lives and why they were seperated from eathother. The story consists of story that quickly turns south.

This type of documentary is a possibility as I do have access to people with interesting life stories.Usually using the masterr interview method to look inside to of the stories with elements that people don't know it brings to light new elements of a story. Usually including voice overs with quick cuts back and forth to tell a story of someone.Using voice overs over different section of film to paint an image. Usually background sound is there in this type of docummentary so that the  contunity glitch effect could be achieved.