What do TV documentaries learn from

film documentaries?

Dominic Magli

Aspects of film documentaries Feature lengths films.

Universal themes such as: sex, motherhood, fatherhood and human nature.

Usually containing a high budget to create.

Vividly entertaining, focuses on a topic and subject.

Genuinely experimental with the audience.

They have more similarities with each other, in contrast to TV documentaries.

Aspects of TV Documentaries The duration of these documentaries usually range between: thirty

minutes and over.

Additionally, TV documentaries can be episodic, meaning that it releases one at a time.

The budget majority of the time is lower than film documentaries.

It’s mainly localised as well as current, therefore being closer to news in terms of it relating to a genre.

Less experimental with it’s subjects and topics.

Similarities between the two They’re both verisimilitude, accountability and vivid or entertaining to the

audience.

Both focus on real life events, topics and individuals.

Usually contains interviews(depending on the topic).

Contains camera shots such as: time lapses, cutaways and zoom ins.

Use the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis in order to create a narrative, which convinces the viewer to continue watching. In addition, both TV and film documentaries usually present an issue that the subject has to deal with, causing suspense to the audience.