Documentary

Since the 1990s, there has been an explosion of documentary films and digital media productions accompanied by a correspondingly large number of books and articles dedicated to contextualising and interpreting them. The documentary film form itself is not new, of course. It dates from the 1920s, cinema’s fourth decade, and has long been a realist form associated with state education and political communication. During the experimental phase of cinema’s development after 1895, numerous fictional and nonfictional styles met and intermingled. 

However, it wasn’t until John Grierson, a British film writer and producer, gave the name “documentary” of a nonfiction film in 1926 that the genre began to acquire stability and support.
 Documentary was seen so film could show reality as it was, especially by showing the connections between invisible structural causes (such as colonialism, industrial capitalism, geopolitical conflicts) and their effects, an important corrective to the fantasies being propagated by Hollywood’s celebration of consumerism. 

 A number of factors led to changes surrounding documentaries in the 1990s and beyond: including the increase in film production programs in colleges, the invention and increase in television stations needing inexpensively produced content to fill the hours, new and more affordable video and digital technologies, and the rise of media conglomerates restricting the content of cinema and television screens.
Despite perceived challenges to the original documentary project, documentary remains a mainstay of television and a vital connection between cinema and television. 

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS: The Hobbyist

Story line and narrative structure and its effect on the audience:

The short film follows a documentary about a man who has created an invention that controls  human man to do anything he likes, almost like a little boy who controlling a toy car.

The short film follows the same documentary style such as ‘The Man Who Can’t Stop Putting Things In Bins’ and is very amusing to watch. Using a documentary style narrative, the audience gets fully engaged in the narrative and simply wants to know more about ‘The Hobbyist’.
 

Enigma codes:

How did the man make this invention? Where did he get it from? Why control a human being? Why that human being in particular?
 

How characters are represented and established:

The main character who has created the human robot is first established in the short film. The character appears not to be very intelligent by not knowing what to say sometimes and repeating the word ‘err..’. But this however is then contrasted with the idea that he was able to make his own human robot, making the audience question what they first really thought of him.
 

Locations: 

During the narrative, there are many different locations shown to the audience. Firstly the park is shown and it is where the audience first get introduced to the characters.  Outside the man’s shed is the next location, making the narrative seem very real and basic as it isn’t a special or grand location. The joke of the situation continues on outside the man’s shed as he explains that  he has to leave the human toy in the old shed in order to not disturb its circuits. The basic location makes the situation much more amusing for the audience, making them want to watch much more.
 

Editing techniques and Camera techniques and their effects:

The short film uses strong conventions of a documentary by having similar editing techniques. An example of this would be cutting through shots and having no transitions such as cross dissolves and the shots are very quick pace, close to real life. The effect of this is that the audience focuses more on the content than the editing and focuses on the comedy and the characters. This style of editing makes the short film appear live and unscripted, making the audience feel like this could actually be a true story. An example of effective camera techniques would be recording it using a hand-held camera.  This could be when the human robot runs into a bush and by the camera not being on a track but instead the man just holding it as it runs, the situation seems more realistic and less rehearse as is appears that the director did not prepare for that action to happen.

Use of sound (diegetic/ non-diegetic):

In ‘The Hobbyist’ there is no use of non-diegetic sound such as a soundtrack or music which keeps the short film very basic and realistic to a documentary. The effect of this is that the audience concentrates more on the comical dialogue of the main character and what happens in the narrative. The characters dialogue appears unintelligent, reinforcing the comical element of the narrative. 
 

To what extent genre is conformed to and genre characteristics and Iconography: 

• Comedy elements – Being a comedy, the short film features many different comical elements such as the main big feature of the whole short film – The robot man.

• Strange characters - Another big comedy convention is having different strange characters feature. The man who invented the robot man seems unintelligent by speaking slowly and saying ‘err..’.  By having a funny character, it simply reinforces the genre and makes the short film very successful, making the audience want to simply watch more and more.

Intended target audience and signifiers: 

• Comedy genre – I really enjoyed the comedy element to this short film and I personally found it hilarious to watch. I would love to achieve the same effect with my audience by creating a narrative which is both amusing and mysterious.

• Documentary narrative – I furthermore enjoyed the style of a documentary because it something that I have never tried before when recording different shots and making up a narrative. 

The intended target audience for this short film would be males, aged 18-25, social class working/middle class, White British.  I believe that the target audience however would be of 18-25 because it is a documentary style short film and this age generation would be able to understand it more because of its mature nature. I also believe that a male target audience would find this short film very amusing and be able to relate to the characters as the main character is also a male.
 

Font, colour and positioning of titles:

Like the editing, the title is very simple and basic. The titles use simple colours such as black and white.  The effect of this is that it keeps with the theme of simplicity which is then seen throughout the documentary, but also the actual title of the film is very memorable as there are no distractions from it.
 

When, where and how titles are presented in relation to the action:

The titles slowly fade into the short film very mysteriously at the beginning, heightening the different enigma codes that are given off by the title and the narrative of the short film to the audience. 

Treatment of a short film in this genre:

If I was to make a documentary style short film I would possibly look to cover ideas that affect local villages. For example, I could cover the issues people face like crime, this means I could stage events like robbery's and burglars and show the true effects they have on both sides of the story. I could see the story of a robbery from a well known burglar and follow the footsteps of his life, whilst obviously keeping the identity hidden. We could see how the people affected feel and the aftermath of the incident. We could see the feelings of the robber and what happens after the incident. This could involve hard hitting facts and feelings.