Issues relating to factual programming for television

Issues relating to factual programming for television

 

 

If you are a filmmaker looking to make a factual programme there are many issues you will come across, in this blog i will be talking about these issues and how they can impact your work and also on how you can overcome these problems.

The first issue that i will be talking about is Accuracy & Balance. Accuracy is key in a documentary otherwise it then becomes Non-Fiction and no longer a documentary, to overcome this issue you need to make sure you have throughly researched your subject and that all your research is up to date because things can change in a matter of days! Programmes such as Nature of Britain on BBC need to be as accurate as possible with their information otherwise people will be watching something that they think is accurate when in fact the information is wrong.
 Balance, Impartiality is when the filmmaker has no specific viewpoint on the matter he/she is covering. Keeping an open mind is important for some filmmakers so they can get all points of view across to the audience.
 Objectivity is when a filmmaker forces an opinion onto the viewer so they have a certain mindset throughout the documentary, for some filmmakers documenteries are the best way to get their opinion across because they can so easily manipulate the audience into believing the filmmakers opinion.
 Subjectivity is similar to impartiality in the way that no specific opinion is shown to the viewer, for instance a short documentary called 'The Lift' this starts off as subjective because there is no opinion on the matter but as it goes on and the people involved are getting more comfortable with the camera being there they open up more about them and their lives so you as an audience develop your own opinion on the people involved.
 Bias is also very similar to having an opinion on a subject and forcing your point of view onto an audience.
 Representation is also key when making a factual project because you want your subject to feel comfortable with you, the crew and the subject overall. It's all about how you represent your subject and how they represent yourself. In Supersize Me they did try to give Mcdonalds a chance to represent themselves but they refused to comment but they did make healthier options on their menus and put down all the nutritional information on all the food packages which isn't a direct response to the actual documentary and because  this documentary is so one sided they felt like they had to represent themselves in a different way rather than just replying to the documentary. Supersize Me is probably one of the most bias documentary i think of because everyone featured in this documentary has a certain opinion on Mcdonalds.
The last one is privacy which is similar to representation because this is about the privacy of your subject, for instance if your subject does not want to talk about a paticular thing or not want things they have put online used they have the right to refuse to let you do that and you have to respect their privacy and work your way around it. There is a certain amount of privacy used in The Lift in the way that they can decide whether they want to talk or not but the camera is still there watching you so in that sense you have no privacy.




In my 3 minute wonder i have an opinion on my subject but i am going to approach this subject with an open mind and let the audience have there own opinion, i am going to let the representation of my subject be completely natural and let the subject represent itself. I don't really have an issue with privacy when concerned with the main subject because it's about an animal but when doing vox pops i will need to make sure the people i'm asking questions to are comfortable answering questions and having their face, voice or both being shown.