How It’s Made

About…

First premiered on the 6th January 2001 How It’s Made was a Discovery Channel documentary series showing how common, everyday items such as bubblegum, engines, musical instruments i.e. guitars, and sporting goods, such as snowboards are manufactured. The show avoids showing a narrator or host onscreen, and often doesn’t have employees of featured companies speak on camera, and keeps human interaction with the manufacturing process to a bare minimum. Someone off the screen normally narrates it. Each show generally contains one historic product. Due to there being no host there are generally no interviews that take place.

Mode…The documentary is produced in the expository mode and also the observational mode. The audience get to observe how to make various products ranging from pinball machines to baseballs, this mode is a good documentary technique because it effectively educates the audience with the voiceover guiding the audience on how products are actually being made. However it is also an expository because there is a voiceover, a prime feature of expository documentaries and the voiceover isn’t actually a typical feature of an observational documentary. The audience are learning how to make these products therefore the documentary-makers are exposing how to do this.

OTHER DOCUMENTARIES…The Discovery Channel has been home to many documentaries but the most popular have been “Shark Week” first aired in the late 1980’s, “Deadliest Catch” and “MythBusters”. Its no surprise by the channel name that this channel looks at great discoveries and it also has a great connection with wildlife and animals. Sea creatures also are very importantly regarded hence why the donated a whole week to the Sharks. These documentaries are used to shock the audience and expose them to new findings.