· In a documentary there is usually a voice over/narrator which is usually authoritative which suggests knowledge. This voice over makes the documentary flow and makes it coherent. It tells the audience relative information and ties elements of the documentary together.
· Also a convention of documentaries is using “real footage” (or what the maker of the documentary wants to portray as real footage which is often fabricated in some way for the documentary). It keeps the documentary close to the truth and keeping its credibility in telling the original story.
· Documentaries are usually secretive, secret filming/fly on the wall documentaries, to entertain a sceptical audience. This evidence makes the documentary truthful and with fly-on-the-wall documentaries, nothing would be played up for the audience.
· Makers of these documentaries want the audience to believe that the footage is real and un-altered – although editing and the voice over can affect the opinion of the audience which would make the audience believe in the story that the makers want us to believe.
· Natural sound and lighting is generally used in documentaries to make the footage seem real and not set up.
· Archive footage is also used and stills which provides evidence to the point that the documentary is trying to make to entertain a sceptical audience.
· Another convention of documentaries is interviews with experts which provide the audience with believability. The experts can also, with the archive footage, provide evidence of the point that the documentary is trying to make.
· Rule of thirds is a convention of documentaries. The interviews need to be set up for the camera, so the person being interviewed eye line needs to be one third of the way down of the screen.
· Graphics and titling is a convention of documentaries as the audience needs to know who is being interviewed and what they do and if that relates to the documentary’s subject matter. Opening graphics or titles also make the documentary entertaining for the audience and makes the documentary look more professional as a whole.
· Non diegetic post production audio – audio that people in the documentary can’t hear, audio just for the audience – is used in documentaries. Sometimes the audio will be emotive or progressive to help the audience understand the story and to help the story progress.
· Re-constructions are a convention of documentaries as the help explain a past story that wasn’t originally filmed for example the murder scene on the documentary “The Devil Made Me Do It”.
Here is an example of the rule of thirds on the Simpsons documentary that I have analysed:
