11Features and documentaries

Features

Objectives

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q
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At the end of this chapter students should be able to:

Documentaries
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Styles of Documentaries
Minidocumentaries
Point of View (POV)
Concepts of Documentaries

Biographies
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Special Events
Concepts of Feature Writing
Styles of Features

Concepts in Biographies

Process in Developing Features and

Documentaries Script
Format

Know features traits

Identify the concepts and styles of features
Know the documentaries traits
Know the minidocumentaries
Understand the Point of View (POV)
Know the concepts of the documentary
Understand the biographies
Know the concepts of biographies
Understand the process of developing the features
and documentaries script
Know the format of features and documentaries

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Feature and documentary refers to anything that deals with non-fiction treatment
of a subject that is not in the straight news, interview or discussion format.

11.1 FEATURES

Features are straightforward report on an event, situation, person or idea.

It does not contain a point of view, analysis, conclusion and comments but it is
away from the relevant fact only approach of the most news stories, by inserting
more detail description.

It goes beyond news stories by trying to discover the interesting or important side
of an event in a way of humanizing the news.

The feature often is a public service presentation providing informational and

educational content, but not in the factual or academic style.

The range of features is from 30 second to an hour length.

11.1.1 Special event

People sometimes confuse between features and special events.

Special event is part of the stream of life, such as a live happening planned by
some source other than media producer such as a national ceremony, the opening
of a new shopping mall and so on.

Special event have no time limits.

11.1.2 Concepts of feature writing

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The features are more relax and entertaining than the news stories.

They include more detail and description, for example:

News writing: He sits on a chair.
Feature writing: He sits on a large, soft executive chair.
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There are three major kinds of descriptions that should be contained in a feature:
o Description of actions
o Description of people
o Description of place

Description of these types helps readers to see a story, not just watch or listen to
the story.

Features contain more quotations and dialogues. They are used to support the
main point of a story.

11.1.3 Styles of features

There are a few of features styles such as anecdotal features, suspended interest
features, profiles and question and answer.

1. Anecdotal features

An Anecdotal features usually begin with a story of some kind and follows with a
statement of facts to support the point of story.

Quotation, anecdotes and facts are inserted in a feature in logical sequence.

The writer must keep the continuity of the feature besides of making the story
interesting.

2. Suspended interest features

A suspended interest feature is a style that grew a question or audiences curiosity

towards stories or issues aroused.

It is an interesting style to keep the audiences attention.

3. Profiles

A profiles features story centers on a single person.

You can write a general description of the persons life, past and present.

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You also can start with zero information from a chosen particular aspect of the
persons life and then move around it.

4. Question and answer

A question and answer style is a simple style where an explanatory starts the
story.

Then, the interviewers questions are followed by the interviewees answer.

11.2 DOCUMENTARIES

Documentaries is a film, television program, book and others that presents a

social, political, scientific or historical subject in a factual or informative manner.

They differ from features in a way that documentaries contain the analyzing,
interpreting, commenting, questioning and suggesting activities.

The common range of documentary is between fifteen minutes to an hour in

length.

Commonly, people combine both features and documentaries. Information

will be present and followed by analysis, comment or solutions.

11.2.1 Styles of Documentaries

Documentary also can be combined with other elements and produce creative and
artistic style such as:
o Docudrama
o Mockumentary
o Rockumentary
o Others

Docudrama

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A docudrama is a type of drama, film, television show or play that combines

documentary and drama elements.

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It is showed by using actors or actresses to perform recreations of documented

events.

It is also called:
o drama-documentary
o drama-doc
o docu-fiction

v Hillsborough is a 90-minutes dramadocumentary screened in 1996.

v The drama starred Christopher
Ecceleston as Trevor Hicks, whose
story formed the focus of the script.
v Hicks lost two teenage daughters in
the disaster and went on to campaign
for safer stadiums, as well as helping
form the Hillsborough Families
Support Group.
v The Hillsborough disaster was a
deadly human crush that occurred on
April 5, 1989 at Hillborough, a football
stadium in Sheffield, resulting in the
loss of 96 lives.

Mockumentary

Mockumentary is a film or television drama that is presented as if it were a

documentary, though it is not factual.

It is commonly used medium for parody and satire.

Mockumentaries are often presented as historical documentaries, using b-roll and

talking heads to discuss about past events or as cinema verite, followed people as
they go through various events.

Cinma vrit is a style of filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques that

originated in documentary filmmaking, with the storytelling elements of a
scripted film.

It is also known for taking a confrontational stance toward its topics.

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Mockumentaries are often partly or wholly spontaneous, as an unscripted style of

acting helps to maintain the pretence of reality.

v Arrested Development is a comedy

television series that aired from
November 2, 2003 to February 10,
2006.
v The comedy is about a formerly
wealthy and habitually dysfunctional
family.
v It is presented in a documentary film
or cinema verite with narration,
archival photographs and historic
footage.

Rockumentary

Rockumentary is a program on a television or movie documentary about rock and

roll or its musicians.

It was coined by Rob Reiner in the mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap.

v Dont Look Back is a documentary

film by D.A. Pennebaker in 1967.
v The documentary covers Bob Dylan's
1965 concert tour of the United
Kingdom.
v The film shows a young Dylan:
confident if not arrogant;
confrontational and contrary; but also
charismatic and charming.
v Standout scenes include Dylan's
extended taunting of a much older
Time magazine journalist; Dylan and
Baez singing Hank Williams songs in
a hotel room and so on.

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Others

Others refer to other styles of documentaries.

You can combine documentaries with animation, comedy, musical and so on

depends on your creativity.

11.2.2 Minidocumentaries

Minidocumentary is a series of segments from multiple documentary stories.

Documentary program will allocate between 4 to 20 minutes for each segments.

Normally, it depends on the content of the story itself.

The concepts of writing documentary and writing minidocumentary are same,

except the documentary has longer time to present information and develop ideas.

11.2.2.1 Concepts of Minidocumentary

Most documentary follows the basic principles of journalism:

o Start with strong topic
o Insert the five Ws
o Fill in the details whenever possible.

The approach begins with something attention-getting and then fills in the basic
structure with field materials, and finally, adds the voice-overs.

11.2.3 Point of View (POV)

Every documentary should have a point of view.

Point of view determines the purpose of the particular documentary that you are
preparing. Are you wanted to:
o Show how the audience can stop pollution?
o Show the effects of smoking?
o Show the community problem from other view angle?
o Present solutions for problems occur?
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Step
No.
1

You can develop your point of view with 3 steps:

o Decide on a subject
o Research
o Gathered distilled material
Step
Decide on a
subject

Explanations

In this step, you should

clarify your subject or topic
of interest.
Decide the style in the
purpose of the
documentary.

Example

Do the research

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Gather distilled
material

Try to find as much

material as you can towards
the subject.
The subject and the purpose
were clarified further.
The documentary basis is
executes such as find and
choose specific
interviewee.

The problems of
the local university
graduate and the
possible acts to
reduce
unemployment
issue.
Styles in the
purpose of
documentary are
like direct
information
presentation and
emphasize the
problems and
solutions.
You can do the
talks with local
university
graduates,
lecturers, ministry
of education or
obtain information
from libraries,
journals and so on.
Decide on the
problems, size,
location and group
of unemployed
local university
graduate.

Distilled the materials and

gathered them to a series of
interrelated questions.
After the interviews were
completed, develop a script
that contains the narration
and taped materials.
If the script is dissatisfying,
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you can do the research

again to add more
information and additional
materials.
This is the last step before
the editing process.

11.2.4 Concepts of documentaries

Select several short statements by persons involved from the taped materials and
present them immediately to get the audiences attention and audiences interest.

Use suspense as an ingredient. You can apply the suspense in learning the
motivations, the inner feelings and the attitudes of the people involved even as the
actual event is retold.

Insert the climax such as in a play. You can hold the audiences attention for a
long time and play with their emotions and feelings towards the subject of the
documentary.

The script should imply that there is more than who, what, when and where.

The script can begin to explore motivation, to get behind the problem.

11.3 BIOGRAPHIES

Basically, biography is an account of a persons life written, composed or

produced by another such as A Biography of Stan Lee.

The person who is the biography subject is a famous person, an expert in his or
her field or did tremendous achievement.

It is a combination of features and documentaries

Sometimes, biography is also called a complication documentary.

Then you take it all -- the chronology, the letters, the interviews, your own knowledge, the
newspaper cuttings, the history books, the diary, the thousand hours of contemplation,
and you try to make a whole of it, not a chronicle but a drama, with a beginning and an
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end, the whole being given form and integrity because a man moves through it from birth
to death, through all the beauty and terror of human life. -- Alan Paton, on completing
a biography.

11.3.1 Concepts in biographies

You can present the biographies by

o Telling the persons story in strict chronology
o Narrating it in the past tense (even if the subject is still alive you can use
the past tense in narration).
o Having mostly other people tell the subjects story.

Like an interview program, you have to develop questions and probable answers
for those questions.

The subject is famous and well-known person and has a tight schedule.

Therefore, you have to prepare right answers because of time constraint as well as
budget constraint such as booking the interviews room (normally, a hotel room)
and make an appointment with persons that know the subject.

You also should gathered all the possible materials such as

o Licensed materials (film clips, music videos)
o Photographs
o Action footage or B-roll

You can organize your contents and main points in the proper sheet like below.

Make sure you list down important points that you want from the subject.

From there, you can develop rundown sheet or a more detail outline.

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Biography Research Page

This is a biography of ________________________________________
Birth Date ________________
Place of Birth ___________________
Questions that I would like to research

Write keywords and facts:

Write the sources of information:

Sometimes, you may want to make a dramatic situation by getting two or three or
even four people to give comments about the same question.

The following is an example of comments about the same question from different
people.

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XXX unedited transcript

IN [INTERVIEWER Ibrahim Nin]:
I want to ask you about the most sexiest person in your life, Im looking for a segue, that is of
course, Hanim. You married her on October 23, 1983, but as I understand it according to legend,
was that you visualized what she look like before you even met her?
XXX [XXX]:
Well, its a funny thing about how I met my wife.

* * *
Interview with Hanim
IN:
The classic story of your first meeting with Stan, where you were modeling hats, Im looking to go
back and fourth through the stories. You werent expecting to meet him at the first place, as I gather.
H [Hanim]:
No, not at all.

...

11.4 PROCESS OF DEVELOPING FEATURES

AND DOCUMENTARIES SCRIPT

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First, determine the subject and the point of view.

Second, prepare a tentative outline. It is like a general direction of the features and
documentaries contents direction.

Third, do the research. Find all the possible materials that you think suitable with
the contents and try to obtain as much information as you can from them.

Fourth, prepare a more detail outline such as detailed rundown sheet.

Fifth, work closely with the producer and director in order to prepare the full
script and add some additional materials.

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Sixth, you have to prepare leads-in, leads-out, interview background materials,

question-answer outlines and other transition material.

Seventh, prepare a full script with the help from the producer and director.

Eighth, develop the final script or the working script. It is use to select and
organize the material to be used in the final editing and timing the program.

11.5 FORMATS

You can write the script for features, documentaries and biographies in a single
column television format or two-column television format.

Normally, people use two-column television format rather than the single column
format, but it is not wrong to use the single column television format.

The format for features, documentaries and biographies are same except the
content of each programs.

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The single column biography program script

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No.

Explanation

Start your script with the programs title.

Make sure the programs title is centered.

Features, documentaries and biographies have the camera movement

description.
Place it in the left of the script sheet.

The line shows time taken to play the recorded interviews next to the
interviewee name.

This section describes the audios that inserted in the program.

Notice that the Narrator and Host have no time indication next to their
name.
It means that their part are recorded or aired at the same time, but of
course not simultaneously.

This line indicates the commercial break slot.

The two-column television format script

The two-column television format script for features, documentaries and

biographies are exactly follows the original format.

The title still on the top of the script and centered.

The videos are indicate in the left side and the audios on the right side.

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The two-column documentary program script

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11.6 SUMMARY

Category
Decription
Definition

Features

Documentary

Features are
straightforward report
on an event, situation,
person or idea.
It does not contain a
point of view, analysis,
conclusion and
comments but it is
away from the relevant
fact only approach of
the most news stories,
by inserting more detail
description.

Documentaries is a film,
television program, book
and others that presents a
social, political, scientific
or historical subject in a
factual or informative
manner.
They differ from features
in a way that
documentaries contain the
analyzing, interpreting,
commenting, questioning
and suggesting activities.

Styles

There are a few of

features styles such as
o anecdotal features
o suspended interest
features
o profiles
o question and answer

Documentary also can be

combined with other
elements and produce
creative and artistic style
such as:
o Docudrama
o Mockumentary
o Rockumentary
o Others

Concepts

The features are more

relax and entertaining
than the news stories.
They include more
detail and description
There are three major
kinds of descriptions
that should be
contained in a feature:
o Description of
actions
o Description of
people
o Description of place

Select several short

statements by persons
involved from the taped
materials and present
them immediately to get
the audiences attention
and audiences interest.
Use suspense as an
ingredient.
Insert the climax such as
in a play. You can hold
the audiences attention
for a long time and play
with their emotions and
feelings.
The script should imply
that there is more than
who, what, when and
where.
The script can begin to
explore motivation, to
get behind the problem.

Biographies

Basically,
biography is an
account of a
persons life
written, composed
or produced by
another such as A
Biography of Stan
Lee.

You can present

the biographies by
o Telling the
persons story in
strict chronology
o Narrating it in the
past tense .
o Having other
people tell the
subjects story.
You have to
develop questions
and probable
answers for those
questions.
You also should
gathered all the
possible materials.
Make sure you list down
important points that you
want from the subject.

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Minidocumentary is a series of segments from multiple documentary stories.

Point of view determines the purpose of the particular documentary that you are
preparing.

You can develop your point of view with 3 steps:

o Decide on a subject
o Research
o Gathered distilled material

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11.7 EXERCISES
1. Features are
A.
B.
C.
D.

News report that contains point of view and further analysis.

Straightforward report on an event, situation, person and idea.
News report that focused on special events.
Story about someones life.

2. Styles of features are anecdotal features, profiles, question and answer and
____________________.
A.
B.
C.
D.

Direct features
Suspended interest features
Interview features
Attract interest features

3. Documentary is a
A. Film, television program, book and other that present real life of chosen
person.
B. Film, television program, book and other that present information in
factual or informative manner.
C. Film, drama, magazine, book and other that show us the reality of life.
D. Film, drama, magazine, book and other that present information in proper
manner.
4. The following are the types of documentaries, except:
A.
B.
C.
D.

Rockumentary
Docudrama
Mockumentary
Popumentary

5. List down the process in developing the features and documentaries script.
6. Explain own your own word the similar features and the dissimilar features
between documentaries and minidocumentaries.

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7. Write down how you develop a point of view with your own examples.
8. Pick one famous person that excels in his or her field, such as politician, celebrity
and academician. From there, list at least ten question that you might asked him or
her for the biography.
9. From question 8, develop your one column television format script.
10. From question 8, develop your two-column television format script.

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