Factual Programming Learning Outcome One

Task TwoJack Tanner

Field Reporters

A field report is a member of the news team which visits on site locations to bring the news from certain areas for example you might have a correspondent in Afghanistan reporting on the war effort there but you could equally get a field reporter standing at a student protest rally in london. They often carry out Vox pops and interviews with the public and officials.

Studio Newsreaders

A studio news reader is also known as an ‘Anchor’ and is the person we see sitting at the desk reading us our top stories and is usually the face of the news show. For example Sir Trevor MacDonald

Links To Studio

This is when someone outside the studio (Usually a field reporter) references the main studio or newsreader, the most steriotypical saying we can all recognise as a good example of this would be “Back to you in the studio”

This means that they can discuss the information they have gathered and have shown to the audience, then come to a conclusion on the outcome of the story, a field reporter usually reports the main bulk of a story and the news reader usually introduces it and concludes it as if to offer the audience a certain form of closure.

Interviewing experts & Witnesses

Often when news companies are discussing political matters, they will get an expert politician involved in order to get a professional opinion on any bills that might be passed or other political matters.

Its important that news broadcasters get interviews with experts and witnesses in order to gain information from members of the public or other officials with a well rounded amount of primary knowledge on a topic to deliver a good , accurate story.

Vox pops are very useful sources of information, this is when a field reporter randomly asks a member of the public or someone that happens to be near about their opinions on the event taking place. An excellent example of this would be during the student riots, the news broadcasters were speaking to witnesses that had seen the damage first hand – primary information.

Report Structure

News broadcasters try and keep their viewers interested in the news for as long as then can, to do this they report the most important news first and work they way down the stories in order of importance, this is called the pyramid structure.

Here is an example of news report structure – www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPh7ECq9sc0

Actuality Footage

Actuality footage is footage with relevance to the story being reported. For example if there is a story on NATO troops in Iraq the news broadcaster may show NATO troops at one of their camps somewhere in Iraq.

Mode of address to viewer This is the image that a news broadcaster chooses to

show themselves and how they present their news for example political agenda’s or any bias of any kind.

Broadcaster’s often create a routine in order for viewers to learn what comes when which may give them a sense of belonging but also they know what to expect and when.

1.For example a news broadcaster will often have the same sort of bong sound at the start of their program.

2.Have a short break down of the news stories to come through the program.

3.Tell you the important news. 4.Then the local news. 5.And finally they will move on to the weather.

Documentary Types

Observational

An observational documentary is a programme in which the film makers don’t get involved with the documentary, the simply observe what ever topic the documentary focuses on. An example of a purely observational documentary would be ‘Lift’ which is a documentary that just films the different types of people that take the lift in a block of London flats.

Reflexive

Reflexive documentaries are representations of what happens in real life (realist) and contain re-enactments of events to try to accurately show the audience what happened in a certain situation although they can often be exaggerated because usually these dramatizations are taken from the point of view of those involved, for example the recreations of crimes in the show ‘Crime Watch’

Expository

Expository documentaries often have a narrator throughout the film in a “voice of god” style which gives the narrator a sense of power or reason. In Nick Broomfields ‘Selling of a Serial Killer’ he narrates the whole thing and summarises what the viewer is seeing on the screen

Performative

A peformative documentary is similar to an interactive documentary in that the film makers are involved in the documentary and also narrate the film however the difference is that the producer will talk about the documentaries production and whether or not they would be successful, for example in Nick Broomfields ‘Selling of a Serial Killer’ Nick talks about how he doesn’t want Aileen to receive the death sentence but she still does.

Interactive

An interactive documentary is when the film makers intervene with the action , for example if a film maker changes the course that some people might take by putting across their opinion like in Supersize Me, This is an interactive documentary because the producer gets involved by eating McDonalds for a month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOvrkkj_T-I