Documentary Booklet Ben Myers

ISSUES AFFECTING FACTUAL PROGRAMS  There are numerous issues that factual programs have to take into account before they release a factual program. One thing they have to look at is the human rights act  The Human Rights Act 1998 recognises the right to freedom of expression, which includes the audience’s right to receive creative material, information and ideas without interference, subject to restrictions in law. It also recognises the right to private and family life and to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.  They have to consider the human rights act because it gives the opportunity for people to have opinions on matters and not being told what to say as in an factual program this is important as it would not be true if people didn’t have different views on the matter.

ACCURACY   When looking at the bbc guidelines for accuracy it tells the reader that it is not just based around facts. With a documentary accuracy isn’t affected by just factual information. It is based around facts and opinions. For a documentary you have to look at other factors and make a decision when looking at these and this depends on how accurate you make the documentary.

Blackfish Documentary – Accuracy issues?   Blackfish is a documentary about the mistreatment of killer whales in Seaworld. After the documentary was released it was claimed by Seaworld that it was inaccurate and misleading.  Seaworld claimed that they put stock footage which did not match the narrative. They also claimed that the employees that they spoke to in Blackfish have not worked in Seaworld for almost 20 years and they apparently have little to no experience with killer whales.  One Seaworld trainer claimed that “It has nothing to do with the animals at all”

BALANCE, IMPARTIALITY, OBJECTIVITY  Balance – Balance is a mix between fact and opinion, to make a good documentary you need a mix of opinions and facts and you want to see different views on the matter so you are able to make your own decision about the matter.  Impartiality – Impartiality means when you don’t take one side or the other. This is important for a documentary because you don’t want people to be biased about what they are talking about as it may make the audience sway to one view.  Objectivity – Objectivity is looking at facts and then making an unbiased view on the issue. This is important as they need to show what they are talking about in a clear understanding.

OBJECTIVITY IN THE MEDIA  For BBC news they have to be impartial when talking about a subject and if they get one persons view they have to have another persons view on the matter.  For Documentaries you are allowed an opinion you just are not allowed to make it biased because of this opinion you have to show different views on the matter.

SUBJECTIVITY, OPINION, BIAS Subjectivity – This is based around your own opinions and not from views from other opinions and facts, This means that if you are subjective to something people will not be able to sway your opinion differently. Opinion – An opinion is your view on something this will be based around how you represent facts and your general view of the matter. Bias - Bias is when you only give one view on a matter and it it will try to sway the audience to believe that their view is the right view. Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine was claimed to be very subjective as he showed mainly his views on the matters which meant that the audience was more likely to be swayed by his views as they were the only views he gave.

Misrepresentation Misrepresentation is when a director will show something however they didn't show the whole scene meaning that they may have missed out on some key information that the audience may need to know. This can be a bad thing when it comes to a director trying to represent a person or business because if they miss out on key information it means that people may wrong views on that person and then the documentary may not be as believable An example of this is when a documentary misrepresented the Queen storming away from a photo shoot, people thought that it showed the Queen of in a negative like and it misrepresented what she was actually like.

IMPLICATIONS FOR YOU This will impact my documentary as it means that I have to show different views and it means that I should try to not be subjective. I will address these issues by asking other people about their views and relate it to what I am talking about in the documentary.