Many channels like the BBC and ITV will use floor plans to make sure their huge amount of crew members are on set at a specific time. This also includes the lighting setup. It is more likely that the lights will stay the same throughout the entire show. Although due to some different circumstances, the lighting may change so having a plan like a picture or a diagram as to what the lights should be looking like at different stages of the show will allow the crew members to quickly adjust the light intensity and direction without wasting any time. There are many conventions that allow the audience to relate to any news shows and be able to clearly pick out that they are in fact watching the news instead of any other programme. This is simply because of the layout. These elements include;
- A desk in the centre of the shot
- A studio showing either other news readers on computers or the local area e.g. BBC News show a picture of London behind their news readers
- A presenter sitting on a chair behind a desk
- Possibly another presenter standing next to a green screen or television.
These are the four simple elements that are used in both ITV and BBC News broadcasts and they instantly allow viewers to understand that they are watching a formal news programme that will inform them about the weekly news. By having a presenter sitting at a desk, the audience are able to understand his position of power in the programme. This makes him look superior and allows the viewers to trust them more as they look and sound like they know what they are doing. This also shows they understand the story by taking it seriously and this will rub off on the audience.
There are also props that are used, normally placed in front of the presenter that the audience don't expect to see. This makes the environment more comfortable of the presenters and it allows the audience to feel like they are involved in this show making them the fourth wall. Some of the props include;
- Pieces of paper
- A glass of water
- A tablet of some form
- Newspapers
Above shows some of the main props seen on a presenters desk. These props are never spoken or made reference too throughout the programme but some may end with the presenter looking at a computer or tablet screen or even writing something down on a piece of paper that have in front of them. By dressing the desk with these props, it becomes less plain and to the point but also makes it look like it is used regularly instead of just for these news broadcasts. Whilst analysing an ITV News broadcast, I notices that they were seen with a pen and paper in contrast to the BBC who can been seen with a laptop or IPad. The difference between the two is down to the producers and what they think will be more appealing for the audience.
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The use of VT's is very apparent throughout any news show as it allows the audience to have a visual view of the story whilst the presenter is talking and presenting facts about the story. Most VT's contain voice overs throughout the majority of them, whether they are recorded live or pre-recorded. The video is previewed on a screen whilst the correspondent or presenter is talking. Both the BBC and ITV use voiceovers in their VT's as it guides the audience through the images being presented on screen. This is one of the main things the audience expect to see in a news programme as they are able to relate to it easier when they see footage and real quotes from people involved. It also makes the story more interesting and can keep the news show from being biased by showing both sides of the story. This applies whether it is visual or verbal. Statistics show that 90% of news shows are taken up by VT's. When cutting into a VT, the audience expect to see a reporter or correspondent standing in either the centre of the screen of just off to the side showing the environment around them. With the correspondent looking straight at the camera, it makes the story more personal for the audience and like they are talking to them as an individual. This creates a bond between the audience member and the reporter, building up trust in the reporter that they are telling the truth about what is being said. The reporter can also manipulate the audience into thinking a certain view is right but this would make the new show biased to any other views. Before cutting the a VT, the main presenter usually gives a brief statement to the audience about what the following story is going to be about.
The VT shown above is from the BBC News, talking about the recent birth of the royal baby, Prince George. This is a news bulletin that the whole world are interested in. By showing the general public wearing the national flag in different ways, tops, hats, makeup and really portraying the area that Prince George is going to be brought up in as a good and safe place. Talking about the entrance of the baby into the world out of the doors of St Mary's Hospital and showing a montage of pictures of the baby and his parents makes it more involved for the audience. Having an interview with a member of a baby magazine about becoming a new parent makes the audience feel like the newborn is as important as any other newborn. It really comes to light that the Duke and Duchess will go through the same pain and stress that any normal new parents will go through. The audience is about to relate to this video and are able to sympathise and feel the same joy as the rest of the public who are live at the scene.
Although both of these news shows rarely conduct interviews live in the studio, they do however conduct them where a presenter is at a different location, usually one that is closest to the chosen subject or story. The interviewer, usually the presenter, will ask the interviewee questions about the chosen topic. If there isn't a member of the public present such as someone that can't talk english, the correspondent will take the place of the interviewee and be asked the questions and will be able to answer them based on research they have conducted. Both ITV and BBC News use the same techniques when it comes to interviewing but as the BBC are publicly funded, they are able to use correspondents as there interviewees because they have more money to spend. It is more common to interview someone who has experiences or who has been involved in what the reporter has been talking about prior to the interview. This convention is typically seen in most VT's, interviewing a specialist or someone who has experiences that situation allows the viewers to understand what is was like, being able to trust the news company as well, having been presented facts by an expert. The way the interview in the video above is conducted is very conventional when comparing it to other VT's. It uses a correspondent talking about the birth of the Prince. Also by using a voiceover, the audience become really engaged with the pictures that are being shown to them. With the correspondent knowing all the information that they do, it makes it look like they have researched a lot into this story and allows the audience to build up that barrier of trust with the news company.
By using dramatic and intense music before certain bulletins proves to the audience how important this story is. The majority of news shows have their own theme tune that will be played throughout the programme whether it is being used to break up the programme or allowing the edit to run smoother. This is the use of most VT's. The music played over the videos is non-diegetic and is something all big news programmes use as an element of continuity. This is popular in the BBC and ITV news shows. Audiences expect the opening titles to contain a catchy theme tune. When it comes to editing, the VT's tend to have slow cuts between each clips. This is because VT's are mainly used to show the extent of a certain subject whether it is natural damage or violent damage. If the VT's contained fast cuts, the audience will find it hard to understand what it being shown to them and it may also scare younger viewers.
The video above shows a good use of slow cuts, keeping with the same shot for a while then cutting to another one. This allows the audience time to understand the extent of the problem. By including a voiceover over the video allows the viewers to sill be able to hear what the members of the public are saying and giving them a chance to sympathise for them. Making the VT more engaging and building up emotion, the viewer can physically and mentally feel the struggles that these people are going through.
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News shows tend to follow the same structure, allowing the audience to get used to what is happening at what time. Also by having a similar structure to other news shows, the audience can become familiar with the running order. Below is the general order news shows tend to stick too.
- Theme (tonight's top stories…)
- Intro
- First Story (usually the most important)
- Few more stories in order of importance
- Light hearted story
- Weather
- Sport
- News in your local area
This is the order that the viewers expect to see when they watch the news. However what story is first comes down to the editors. as they have to consider what story will be most important and appealing to the audience. They tend to be the stories that effect everyone in the UK or something that everyone will be interested in. There have been several cases where ITV have different stories to the BBC. By using a story about the storms that hit the UK, ITV chose a story that will apply to most of the UK but the BBC went with a story about David Cameron. The editor of each show had specific reasons as to why they put these stories at the top of the running order.
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Cameras are a major participant in the production phase. Within the news company, it is more common to see the multi camera set-up in the studio shots but a single camera set-up when filming the VT's. The multi camera set up allows the audience to see different views from different points of the camera and this is whether the presenter looks straight at it or you get a side profile of them from a different camera. This discussion will be up to the director of cinematography although all news studios are set up like this. There are many pros and cons of this but the pros always override the cons. One major pro is that the studio always has a backup camera if something goes wrong like a battery running out of charge during filming. Using a single camera set-up when filming VT's is a lot different to the multi camera set up in the studio. Each VT will include a selection of different camera angles such as a pan around the environment that the correspondent is in to actually seeing the correspondent walking or standing still in front of the camera. Pre-recorded VT's tend to have more props involved in them such as a person reading a book whilst a voiceover is played describing and telling the story. This is apparent in some the the ITV VT's as a lady is seen to be reading a book about trains and the story overtop is about trains and the problems they cause. The idea of using props helps the audience to visualise what the correspondent is talking about and also by using closeups and extreme closeups on specific items aid this as well.
News programmes have only one aim. To be non biased and to show all points of view to the audience allowing them as an individual to decide what view to take sides with. however it is very uncommon in the media industry to have a news show that just backs one view therefore pressuring the audience to back their view as well. Being biased really effects the way a person thinks towards a certain subject. This can be displayed in many different ways from images being shown to the way they conduct an interview. The most obvious use of bias comes from the popular news show 'Fox News'. Fox news has been previously mentioned as a news programme but it is said that they only support the conservative party. However, Fox News are not the only news programme that does this. There are many different ways that biased can be presented through interviews. Using the BBC as an example, after the terrible flooding that hit the UK, the correspondent only interviewed the people that had been hit by the flooding, questioning them about the help that the government will be providing to help stop this damage happening again, rather than interviewing a member of the government or an experiences who understands the pain of facing the damage from the floods and how members of the public can prevent it in the future. There are many news shows that persuade the audience by only showing one point of view especially through voiceovers and with the images shown over the top of them. Through the use of voiceover, correspondents may only tell one side of the argument, the side they believe is correct. A couple of years ago, ITV broadcasted a story about a man who got viciously attacked but however the man has recently been causing trouble around the attackers and has been threatening them for weeks on end. ITV only broadcasted the story from the victims point of view meaning the public was not allowed the opportunity to get to understand both sides of the story.
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The way people are represented through the media can have a big impact on what the public think and also who they support. VT's is one of the main places that representation is mislead. When a story comes up about a black person being violent towards a member of the public, this will be portrayed differently to a story about a white person being violent. This is why most news shows tend to use an expert when conducting their interviews as they can be more trusted. If the news programme interviewed the general public about what the government is going to do isn't going to give the best answer therefore the news programme can become untrusted.
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Multi camera set-up allows the visual mixer to choose different angles whilst producing the shows. This simple idea has evolved over the years meaning there are more and more cameras used to create a better multi camera set-up. Most set-ups consist of 3 cameras however productions with a bigger budget may have up to 5 cameras. There usually is a main camera that will be constantly facing the presenter that has an auto cue attached to it so the presenter knows what they are saying throughout. All major news shows like the BBC and ITV News use the multi camera setup as a form of breakup instead of using one consistent angle. After looking over the BBC multi camera set up, i noticed that even though that are a big budget production, they only have 3 cameras who are all controlled by members of the crew in the vision mixing room.
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The news production itself use the same camera angles from the multi-cam set-up on a day to day basis. The start of the news show generally has a presenter looking straight into the camera creating a feeling of direction and making it feel more personal to the audience as the presenter is looking directly at them. Some news shows start with a VT then to make it more personal to the audience, the camera zooms in allowing the audience to get closer to the presenter. After either the first story or the first VT, the camera will cut back to the centre shot of the presenter making sure the personal feeling is kept throughout the whole programme. In the first video below, it is shown that after the opening title, there is a centre shot of the presenter looking straight into the camera. The second video shows the technique of zooming into the presenter making a closer, more personal feel for the audience.
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The way people are represented through the media can have a big impact on what the public think and also who they support. VT's is one of the main places that representation is mislead. When a story comes up about a black person being violent towards a member of the public, this will be portrayed differently to a story about a white person being violent. This is why most news shows tend to use an expert when conducting their interviews as they can be more trusted. If the news programme interviewed the general public about what the government is going to do isn't going to give the best answer therefore the news programme can become untrusted.
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Multi camera set-up allows the visual mixer to choose different angles whilst producing the shows. This simple idea has evolved over the years meaning there are more and more cameras used to create a better multi camera set-up. Most set-ups consist of 3 cameras however productions with a bigger budget may have up to 5 cameras. There usually is a main camera that will be constantly facing the presenter that has an auto cue attached to it so the presenter knows what they are saying throughout. All major news shows like the BBC and ITV News use the multi camera setup as a form of breakup instead of using one consistent angle. After looking over the BBC multi camera set up, i noticed that even though that are a big budget production, they only have 3 cameras who are all controlled by members of the crew in the vision mixing room.
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The news production itself use the same camera angles from the multi-cam set-up on a day to day basis. The start of the news show generally has a presenter looking straight into the camera creating a feeling of direction and making it feel more personal to the audience as the presenter is looking directly at them. Some news shows start with a VT then to make it more personal to the audience, the camera zooms in allowing the audience to get closer to the presenter. After either the first story or the first VT, the camera will cut back to the centre shot of the presenter making sure the personal feeling is kept throughout the whole programme. In the first video below, it is shown that after the opening title, there is a centre shot of the presenter looking straight into the camera. The second video shows the technique of zooming into the presenter making a closer, more personal feel for the audience.
By having the same camera set-up for all of the BBC productions, it allows the audience to get familiar with all the angles used however if the news story doesn't contain a VT, news shows tend to use the zooming method. They then cut to the centre shot and the news show carries on as normal. This also is a means of breaking up the news programme changing the shots around creating a new way of presenting.
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Documentaries are a huge part of our television broadcasting industry. Both informing and entertaining the audience throughout the entire programme, the audience are able to relate to and understand the given topic. There are many conventions that viewers expect to see when watching documentaries. Over the past year, I have watched many documentaries but ones that I thought would be good to elaborate on are 'Bowling for Columbine' and 'Louis and the Nazi's'. I chose these ones because of the obvious conventions throughout the whole programme. 'Bowling for Columbine' show a creative use of VT's allowing the audience to really engage with a given topic. In one specific VT shown in this documentary, they go over a brief idea that America has always been a gun loving country. Also giving a brief overview relating to American slavery and also American Independence. This VT contains cartoons and voiceovers to teach all ages of audience how guns became illegal in America and why most people in this generation own some form of gun. This VT has clearly been strategically written. The majority of documentaries will have some form of VT in them whether it be there to teach the audience about something important or a video full of different pictures or moving image clips showing how time has passed. By using cartoons, the VT stated above gains a comedy element to it making it more interesting than having humans talking to the camera. This also draws in the audience's attention more as they won't get bored of watching a cartoon where they might if they were watching a human talking straight to the camera. One down side to using cartoons is that you have to be able to do it in a sensitive way is some of the topics covered in documentaries are quite serious and may either hurt some members of the audience's feelings or even have worst consequences. On the other hand, it can make the VT more interesting for the audience to watch and also become more memorable.
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Another common convention used in a documentary is a voiceover. This allows the viewer to link the sound to the visuals together. At the beginning of 'Bowling for Columbine', Michael Moore is setting both the location and the scene for the audience by informing them about how everything was completely normal, adding footage of people going about their everyday lives. Approximately halfway through the voiceover, Moore quotes 'The president bombed the country, who's name we do not remember'. This shocking and quite serious quote contrasted very well with the family and working life that had beens gown to the audience before. This allows the audience to remember that the government is very controversial and does however write all the rules in to what they need to do. An upsetting image is shown over the top of a voiceover shocking the audience meaning they will have an element of shock of their system for the rest of the documentary.
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Interviews are the main element of a documentary. They allow the audience to experience and understand information from other peoples point of view. There are many different interviews conducted in 'Louis and the Nazi's' as he wants to be able to have everyones opinion about their religion from nazi's to non nazi's. One particular interview that is conducted using a single camera set-up shows Louis standing with a mother with two twins in their kitchen discussing the world that her children are being brought up in. This interview seems to become very heated and quickly turns into a debate. This interview was conducted in a very unprofessional manor as Louis who has an opinion about not being a nazi, was asking questions based on his opinion making the interview very biased. On the other hand, documentaries have a priority to keep the show as non biased as possible. This is because they are informing the audience about a topic they are very passionate about and even though the show should contain mostly non biased views, somewhere in the show, there will be a section explaining the actual views of the production company.
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Documentaries can have a variety of camera uses from handheld to tripod, steady-cam to handicap. In the documentary names 'Bowling for Columbine', there is a wide range of different camera uses however during an interview containing Moore and a victim of a family shooting (52minutes), there is a slight shakiness to the camera meaning that is was show using a handheld camera and this is also shown when the camera quickly zooms in and out on the father making it look like the cameraman is trying to focus the camera whilst zooming. Although this is very unprofessional, the effect this camera has on the audience is priceless. It makes the audience feel like this man will never talk to the camera again and they quickly caught it on film. It makes the audience feel like they are there and the camera is potentially acting as their eyes. This strategic use of camera is intact very effective in many ways allowing the camera to feel like an extra person in the situation.
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Music and the way it is used can have a variety of effects however if it is used effectively and to its full advantage, it can bring real emotion to the documentary. In 'Bowling for Columbine', halfway through the programme, CCTV is shown of the shooting happening in the school, showing the canteen from several angles. The sound of the CCTV has been muted however, a phone call is being played over the top containing someone who has phoned the police to alert them about the attack on the school. By allowing the sound of the CCTV to be muted it allows the audience to fully focus on the images that are being shown and also allows them to relate to the situation and place the phone call and the emotions portrayed though that with the violent visuals being shown. It is used to build emotion and creates an emotional part in the show where the audience can really feel for the victims who were involved in the tragic shooting. The music being played in the background is also very reminiscing and calm. With some points of the CCTV footage not having a phone call voiceover playing, the audience is able to fully take in the tune of the music. The music puts the audience in an emotional mindset and without it, the CCTV will be more meaningless and the audience won't be able to understand what is going on. It also doesn't help that the footage is in black and white and contains no sound. Within the footage, the editing pace has been slowed down a lot and during the shooting there is no editing or cuts involved. All that can be seen are the four CCTV boxes in the screen showing the canteen from all different angles. By doing this, the audience get a full insight on the shooting. The slow editing continues into the section of the documentary where interviews are conducted on the student victims that were involved on the shooting adding to the emotion the audience already feel for them. This slow pace really helps the audience connect with the victims and feel the full extent of the damage caused. Both physically and mentally. After the shooting ended, a short montage was shown containing clips of how the students reacted. By adding slow motion to this it allows us to see the true emotion felt by the victims. One particular scene in the documentary shows a student crying. Instead of cutting away from the crying, the editor chose to zoom in to her eyes allowing the audience to see the tears falling. This is quite hard hitting for the audience. After watching the montage of clips showing the pain stricken victims, it may make the audience turn against guns and try harder to in force a law to make them illegal.
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Documentaries, like most news shows contain a specific structure allowing the viewers to engage and relate to the topic. They are also used to keep the show interesting and to keep the audience's attention throughout. Broken into;
- Start
- Middle
- End
…. the start has to be able to catch the audience's attention straight away. This is the section that helps set the tone of the documentary. The start of 'Bowling for Columbine' jokes about the president showing although this show is touching a serious subject, it still has some aspects of light humour. This also sets up some sort of conflict or unusual situation for the presenter or actors. The middle contains the main points of the story. There are usually some flashbacks that will take us back to the start, relating the two together. The ending is usually bringing a closure to the story.. The ending of 'Bowling for Columbine' there is a part where the audience are informed about all the different countries that use guns and how they effect the country. This is just one example but all different documentaries have their own unique style and structure.
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Although documentaries follow the same aspects as news shows, informing and connecting with the audience, having a variety of voiceovers and VT's makes this easier. They also have different aspects that cause them both to be completely different such as the fact news programmes are filmed live and documentaries tend to be pre-recorded. More pre-production work is needed for a documentary as there is more location shooting and safety elements to be addressed. Documentaries also conduct less of a formal approach usually using sloppy camera angles, maybe not even using a tripod meaning that the shots are shaky whereas with a news programme, the shots tend to be more professional, used to address the audience and add a personal feel to the programme. Less dramatic music is used in documentaries, they tend to contain calmer, more subtle music to help bring out emotion and show more detail in the pointed being told. News programmes don't have a tendency to contain a lot of music only at the beginning, end and maybe before and after the advert breaks.
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The clothes that are worn are also very different in both shows. Having formal clothes worn on new shows and casual clothes worn during documentaries, the choice is simple. Documentary presenters want to blend in the crowds, not drawing any attention to themselves. On the other hand, news show presenters want to do the opposite. They want to stand out and want to show that they are smarter than the public by wearing very sophisticated clothes. So although documentaries and news shows have some of the same elements in their shows, there are also elements that make the two shows completely different.
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Documentaries, like news shows, are there to inform the audience about a given topic however, unlike news shows, documentaries dig a lot deeper into the story and the lives of the people effected. This gives and audience a better understanding about what happened and making sure they are able to relate to the victims. Like news shows, their main aim is to keep the show non biased by showing all points of view that are available to them. However the presenter or interviewers opinion will always be put across more than other opinions and they have a huge impact in the persuasion of the audience. It can also be used to gain their support and votes. Documentaries are a fiction factual news show meaning they are using real life stories and certain pieces of imagery that can easily persuade an audience member. In 'Bowling for Columbine' Charlton is seen showing what impact guns can have. He does this by showing some very disturbing CCTV footage to the audience, making them watch on helpless at 12-16 year olds running around frantically and hiding under pieces of furniture from a man with a gun. By showing this to the public, it makes them realise that school shootings are a real thing and that they do occur more often than people think. This footage has been used to automatically make the audience against guns. On the other hand, the footage has been used to make the audience feel sorry for the students, not really giving them the chance to come up with their own opinion. In other documentaries, there are many different elements that are used to persuade the audience into thinking the same as them making them significantly biased. 'Bowling for Columbine' uses a montage to start the documentary to show the audience how the use of weapons has changed over the years. The footage used shows the audience the different uses of weapons have changed as the years go by. Some of the footage has been included to tug on the audiences heartstrings, especially the parts where dead bodies are shown being pulled out of the rubble. Using footage instead of writing, being able to describe war is happening and what has happened over the past year allows the audience members to really get a feel as to what effects guns really have on people's lives. The song 'What a wonderful world' is played throughout the montage adding emotion to the story as it is quite a slow song and really hard-hitting. The song is a real contrast to the idea of death and violence. In my own opinion, I think the editor used this song as it will stop the audience feeling too angry at the footage but to make them more sympathetic instead. The lyrics of this song suggests that if we carry on all this violence, this is how the country is going to end up meaning this is what we want it to be. This will hopefully make the reality of this seriousness of violence hit home to the audience and make them change their ways. Ironically, this suggests that America have created a terrorist driven country and they are slowly ruining our world. By allowing the music to fade at the end of the montage, it reveals the screams of the scared and wounded and it really shocks the viewers and reminds them of previous happenings such as the world trade centre collapse in 2001. By fading out the non diegetic soundtrack, the audience feel like they are involved in the shooting but having a slow, emotional song tugs on the audience's heartstrings. The whole montage uses a lot of different persuasion techniques from the song in the background to using images of dead bodies being pulled from different parts of the school. Biased points are also put across in this montage, especially towards the end with the 9/11 footage. Fading out the audio halfway through the footage allows the audience to really focus on what is happening making them feel the hurt and pain the victims felt, either getting hurt, losing friends or family or even dying alone. There are many other events that people encounter in their lives but this is the most recent well known event therefore fading the music out at this point of the montage makes it biased.
The way people are represented in documentaries has a huge effect on what people trust and believe and also what side they support. 'Bowling for Columbine' interview a variety of people however the people that they do interview are mainly gun owners and their views come across as quite ignorant and uncaring. These people on the other hand may only be trying to protect their family like any parent would do. The way the camera is used during most interviews are freehand, creating the idea of freedom of speech and this is reflected by the movement and positioning of the camera. 'Louis and the Nazi's' can be seen as quite cold and a dry representation of the show. This may be due to the Nazis being looked down on and showing the Nazis as having a good and fun time will contrast with the documentaries reasoning. The opening scene of the documentary shows two seven year old children playing a game around a sign. These visuals show and imply to the viewers that they have chosen to become a nazi using their parents influence. This also contrasts to the idea of children playing with and around a sign which was once thought to of been 'deadly'. This is also an attempt of making the audience think that the children are playing near and around a fire.
Documentaries use a completely different camera set-up from studio based productions. Only using one camera throughout the whole documentary allows a use amount of flexibility for the camera crew and the programme itself. The cost to hire a camera for a documentary would be an extraordinary amount as they usually follow the lives of more than one person. meaning they would need 3 cameras to follow each person. However the cost is not the reason as to what documentaries use single camera setups, the atmosphere created by using a one single camera throughout adds a key purpose and allows the audience to feel like they are really there, following the people as they live their day-to-day lives over a period of time. It proves that the camera lens is in fact taking the place of their eyes. In 'Louis Meets The Nazis', Louis who is playing the part of the presenter/interviewer at this point, is talking to a mum of twins about their religion to the Nazis. As the conversation becomes more heated the camera moves quicker guiding the audience to who is talking. This allow the audience to get a feel of the whole conversation making them feel the feelings of Louis, Awkward and threatened. Instead of having two cameras breaking up the conversation, the use of one camera makes the conversation more intimate. Also allowing the audience to feel like they are present at the time of the conversation. This can make the debates seem less threatening to the audience rather than displaying two and three different angles on it. 'Bowling for Columbine' contains Charlton, the presenter and he goes into a Kmark store, where they sell bullets for guns. By using one camera to follow him around the store, the contents of the store become less apparent to him and also the people around pay less attention to him rather than having two or three cameras following him around.
The way people are represented in documentaries has a huge effect on what people trust and believe and also what side they support. 'Bowling for Columbine' interview a variety of people however the people that they do interview are mainly gun owners and their views come across as quite ignorant and uncaring. These people on the other hand may only be trying to protect their family like any parent would do. The way the camera is used during most interviews are freehand, creating the idea of freedom of speech and this is reflected by the movement and positioning of the camera. 'Louis and the Nazi's' can be seen as quite cold and a dry representation of the show. This may be due to the Nazis being looked down on and showing the Nazis as having a good and fun time will contrast with the documentaries reasoning. The opening scene of the documentary shows two seven year old children playing a game around a sign. These visuals show and imply to the viewers that they have chosen to become a nazi using their parents influence. This also contrasts to the idea of children playing with and around a sign which was once thought to of been 'deadly'. This is also an attempt of making the audience think that the children are playing near and around a fire.
Documentaries use a completely different camera set-up from studio based productions. Only using one camera throughout the whole documentary allows a use amount of flexibility for the camera crew and the programme itself. The cost to hire a camera for a documentary would be an extraordinary amount as they usually follow the lives of more than one person. meaning they would need 3 cameras to follow each person. However the cost is not the reason as to what documentaries use single camera setups, the atmosphere created by using a one single camera throughout adds a key purpose and allows the audience to feel like they are really there, following the people as they live their day-to-day lives over a period of time. It proves that the camera lens is in fact taking the place of their eyes. In 'Louis Meets The Nazis', Louis who is playing the part of the presenter/interviewer at this point, is talking to a mum of twins about their religion to the Nazis. As the conversation becomes more heated the camera moves quicker guiding the audience to who is talking. This allow the audience to get a feel of the whole conversation making them feel the feelings of Louis, Awkward and threatened. Instead of having two cameras breaking up the conversation, the use of one camera makes the conversation more intimate. Also allowing the audience to feel like they are present at the time of the conversation. This can make the debates seem less threatening to the audience rather than displaying two and three different angles on it. 'Bowling for Columbine' contains Charlton, the presenter and he goes into a Kmark store, where they sell bullets for guns. By using one camera to follow him around the store, the contents of the store become less apparent to him and also the people around pay less attention to him rather than having two or three cameras following him around.
