Session 4: Documentary

In the forth session (our second with Roy Stafford) we were taught about the history, production and marketing of a documentary. We were shown propaganda used during the second world war and part of a recent documentary about the fast food industry. It was interesting to see the juxtaposition between both the times they were made and the content in terms of how they were shot and the tone they gave to the audience. We were told that documentaries differed from drama. Documentary usually has a narration and footage of non scripted events, whereas drama may take a real life situation or problem to build the story upon. In terms of commercial success, documentaries seem more tailored to television as they can be segmented and easily advertised. they may struggle in cinemas as they lack a story to keep an audiences attention for a long period.