Task 1b -- Draft

Factual programming -- Task 1B

·         Cartel Land – Netflix

·          News broadcast:

·         Al Jazeera : take down:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pddH2sfNKNY

·          Lawful killing of mark Duggen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu04AVHgssQ

Codes and conventions:

Cartel land is a documentary looking at militias formed to combat drug dealers from America and Mexico. It explores how a simple ordinary town’s people formed an armed group to fight a cartel known as the Knight Templars who are known to murder local people and who over tax people. The documentary shows different peoples perspectives on drugs and drug dealers even the cartels themselves. This documentary is observational due to the very characteristics which define it. We see throughout the documentary that we do not see the maker of the documentary. We do not hear voice overs of the maker or the “voice of god”. The camerawork is unobstructed to what is going on. It in a way offers to show a ‘window on the world’ it tries to show from the cameras view on what is going on. A lot of the cuts are very long which seem to be unedited with the camera mainly staying in once place or following a person without cuts. All of the filming is hand held and seems to be on the spot. A lot of the editing was giving the impression that it was real time. The audio of the interview can carry on into the next shot sometimes. This can turn into a voice over within the two shots. A lot of the talking is not directed to the camera but towards the other people who are being filmed. This factual programme is realism and not in any way scripted or dramatized.

Lawful killing of mark Duggen was a BBC documentary about mark Duggen who was killed by the police late summer of 2011. It had interviews with family members of Mr Duggan. Also the documentary had an interview with an expert who talked about the way the murder happened. The documentary’s genre is seen as being a drama doc. We see throughout the programme that they recreate incidents that led up to his death as well as reconstructing scenes of what happened in real life. The actors had a fake interview saying what the actual police officers had said in the released memo. In the programme a lot of dramatic music was used as well as camera angles that are not typically used in documentaries but mainly in films.  One of the main reasons why this documentary is a drama doc is because of the slick editing. It shows a more a fiction story than a non-fiction one however it is based on real events with real people who exist. The documentary has an interpretation of the events which it shows to unfold. It in a way explores both the victims’ side of the story and the police. It has a way of showing how the actual events happened and how each different interpretation of the story is played out. This factual programme is dramatized unlike cartel land.

Al Jazeera; take down: This documentary is about exposing a conspiracy of Israeli government members working on politically removing members of the labour governments. Mainly on MPs who are sympathetic to the Palestinians. This was done as an attempt against the ‘BDS’ movement which boycotts Israeli goods as well as stopping support of Palestine in the UK Parliament  . This is a four part documentary I have decided that I would analyse mainly on the fourth part of the documentary. I believe this documentary’s genre is very hard to point out. It has a few characteristics from being a performative documentary, e.g.: The maker of the documentary stars in the programme, Many of the camera shots where handheld or hidden. However the characteristics of this programme show themselves more as being interactive. The film maker and the subject(s) are filmed either by a secret camera or by a camera crew that is hidden. The programme shares personal information with the subject however it is false under the pretext to get closer to the subject. The undercover film maker directly speaks to his subjects. The programme shows the viewpoints of the subjects and the labour party representative as well as the experts’ opinion. The programme does not seem to show more than view point but shows from the leaked dialogues and discussions. The editing shows the audience the build up to final part. It is constructed in a way from start to end by it also adds interviews to show an insight of what is really going on. Towards the end of the video we see that the argument is concluded and that it goes over the points of what the video was about. We also see what happens to people who were involved in the video and what happened in the end. In my opinion we see a lack of an open ending where the audience could be encouraged to decide the outcome. We do not see a two different arguments going on. However what the subject was doing was illegal so the characteristic of this video is justified. This programme was very different to other programmes in this genre because it had a mixture of different characteristics. 

 BBC News; Asia Business Report: This programme is a report on News from the business sector from the Asian continent and even looks into corruption from business. We see (00.50) the first story about corruption in a South Korean company which is seen as a big scandal. We also see a quick interview with an expert in the beginning and towards the end we see another interview with someone involved with the second last topic (07.50). This is known as being primary research. One of the characteristics of this programme is looking into sales as well as business deals going on.  It relies on facts to back up its point. We see throughout the video there is an anchor who presents the information through the programme. This is very orthodox in news conversions to have someone present information. The bbc news Asia report has all the conventions an codes that a news agency should have. We see this for example in the report that the anchor and people invited on the report all dress appropriately in suites with neat hair. Their appearances and speech is formal and clear. in the programme we see a video explaining snapchats success in the last 5 years since launch. We see in the short clip (04.49 – 05.31) the facts and insight of the app and we are told its losses and gains. We also given an unbiased view on the company and told even the latest company name change , we also hear ‘voice of god’ or narration throughout the clip . We also see screen a on screen graphic of a post by Mark Zuckerberg. Overall through the evidence shown we see that the BBC news used all of codes and conventions appropriately.