Group Research Activity - Presentation Task

Documentary Presenter
Game Show Host

A) Describe the purpose of this type of presenter
A Documentary Presenter has the role of informing and educating their audience. They use facts and statistics alongside interviews with the public and also interacts with the subject.
The purpose of a Game Show Host is to entertain the audience and present the game whilst interacting with them. They will also ask the contestants of the game shame questions to inform the audience.

B) What types of skills and qualities are required for this type of presenter?
To be a Documentary Presenter, many skills and qualities are required. For instance, you must be knowledgeable about the subject of the documentary, possibly even a professional. You must be confident, so that you're open to improvise many interviews as well as having the interview techniques. Lastly, you must be able to work independently as well as in a team.
Skills and qualities required for a Game Show Host include being entertaining, having a good personality, confidence, improvisation techniques, good sense of humour, likability, outgoing, sociable, and interview techniques. Likability is a very important quality for a Game Show Host being the audience are watching the show for the comedy and entertainment, if the presenter is not likeable then thats a huge disadvantage for the show and decrease in audience.

C) What are audience's expectations of this type of presenter?
The audience expect the presenter to be knowledgeable and confident. Many visual and verbal codes are also expected of them, for instance, expected visual techniques will include body language, facial expressions and appearance appropriate to the audience. Verbal techniques include awareness of language, vocabulary and phrasing, and pace.
The audience expect a Game Show Host to be entertaining, confident, and have a good personality. Visual codes expected from them include appropriate to audience, physical gestures and movement, and facial expressions. Verbal codes expected are catchphrases, language, and accent.

D) How does this type of presenter differ from other types?
This type of presenter differs from others because they are much more interactive with the subject and have more of a 'reality' viewing. They stick to one specific subject and go into depth to explore/reveal the truth. They come across as being very confident in comparison to other types of presenters.
This present differs from other types by being very interactive and energetic. Their humour and witty comments are what is expected from them and provide the audience with their entertainment.
E) Identify examples of this role - use images / audio clips / video clips to illustrate.

Louis Theroux is a good example of a Documentary Presenter. He travels the world to explore and follow on his documentaries on both serious news and stories interesting to the public. Louis doesn't dress formally but also doesn't dress too casual, he manages to balance out the visual codes well.

Keith Lemon is a Game Show Host and has not very many verbal codes. He is purely presenting for humour. 

Assignment 2 : Essay Plan

Codes and Conventions of Factual Programming

Chat shows, talk shows, magazine shows, reality TV, documentaries and TV News are all different types of factual programmes. There are a huge variety of everyday shows that go into each of these different categories. For example, 'Made In Chelsea' and 'The Only Way is Essex' (also known as Towie) are both reality TV shows, these are based on the real lives of a group of people but are made more dramatic for the viewers’ entertainment. Whereas 'Alan Carr: Chatty Man' and 'The Jonathon Ross Show' are talk shows, which involve having famous guests on their show to talk about their lives and recent events.

They are also broadcast and consumed in a number of different ways, such as on TV, cinema release, DVD, and Internet. Internet plays a huge part in broadcasting because of many different social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Many people find out about different factual programmes by their friends online. This helps to broadcast the factual programme and get more consumers. 'YouTube' is most likely the main consumer of the factual programmes as everything is easy to access and stream.

Film and TV documentaries and TV News programmes both have different conventions. TV News programmes need to be objective. This is because they need to cover all sides of the news stories and make sure it’s accurate. Accuracy is a very important convention; it is the quality or state of being correct or precise, for example, statistics and facts in the News. The reason for it being so important in TV News programmes is to give the audience true information and considering credibility. This will make the News trustworthy to the viewer’s, which is a ‘must be’ in TV News as it’s factual. For example, BBC News is a TV News programme and has these codes and conventions. Another code and convention is the formal look of the show, this means having smart clothing in a formal surrounding such as the News studio. This makes the presenter more respectable and trustworthy by taking it seriously and making an effort. Another media product is TV News Bulletins. These conventions include breaking news (current affairs), interviews with respectable people, and images/motion footage. The newsreaders will be sitting at their desk and wear formal clothing. TV News Bulletins are much different from TV/Film documentaries as they also use formal language, whereas TV/Film documentaries can be as informal as needed, depending on the subject of course.

TV/Film documentaries' conventions consist of voice overs, factual information (facts and statistics), witness statements, location footage, and interviews. It will also be a small crew with a single camera capturing live footage, and they will be experts on the topic of the documentary. ‘Bowling for Columbine’ fits in to this sub-genre and is a very good example for its codes and conventions. Michael Moore is very sarcastic and witty; he uses elliptical editing throughout his documentary but specifically in his interviews. For example, when Moore interviewed the headmistress of Buell Elementary School, it was very emotional and she began to turn away from the camera and walk of crying, where she then returned to finish the interview. Moore did not have to show this footage in his documentary but he included it because it showed objectivity and reality by it being unedited. He also had raw footage of the Columbine High School massacre from the security cameras. Raw footage is important in a Film/TV documentary because it creates a huge, emotional impact on the viewer and shows just how serious and ‘real’ the event was. Although Moore does try to include accuracy, he does not do it fairly. For instance, he went to Sarnia, Canada, to get statistics on gun crime. He said there had been one gun crime in three years, not only may this not be entirely accurate but he also made the mistake of only visiting one town which makes it an unfair statistic because there's no comparison.

Whereas documentaries are slightly different – they all use facts to persuade the audience of the filmmaker’s point of view, but they are also split into different types of documentary: expository, observational, and interactive. Expository means to expose, investigate, and reveal the truth. Its characteristics include a use of voice over, lots of images and variety of footage. An example of an expository documentary is the ‘Leveson Enquiry’. The voice over for this documentary tells us to think a certain way about the case and the main opinion is of logic and common sense. War/historical documentaries would also be expository. Observational documentaries are to observe and capture natural environment. This could be any nature/climate documentaries or even ‘The Family’. The characteristics include location shooting, direct sound recording, no voice over (in its purest form) and no interviews. The subject of the documentary also appears to be unaware of the camera. Interactive documentaries are also known as participatory. An example of this would be Louis Theroux’s documentaries, in particular ‘The Most Hated Family In America’. The crew interact with the subject and use a hand held camera, which gives it a much more realistic style of viewing. The interviews dominate, although they are improvised questions they are made formal. Interactive documentaries such as Louis Theroux also have archive material such as news, stills, old footage, letters, headlines etc. The voice over is usually by the filmmaker who is also visible to the audience.

These types all present the facts to the audiences differently, they do of course, all aim to present a ‘realistic’ film/programme, but also like fictional programmes/films create a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, to tell a story to the audience.

There are a number of issues we need to consider when watching and making factual programmes – these are accuracy, objective, impartiality, balanced, and subjective, bias, opinion.

Factual programmes should be accurate and truthful because it’s important to give the audience true information to make the programmes trustworthy. For example, Michael Moore’s documentary ‘Bowling For Columbine’ was very factual as he used a few case studies that the audience would have already heard about, this draws the attention from the audience, especially with using real life affairs, the emotional impact is created. Accuracy in both TV News programmes and documentaries can differ, as they are different styles of factual programmes. Although they both need to carefully consider accuracy, TV News programmes will be more reliable with their factual content in comparison to documentaries. This is because they will have facts in their purest form taken from interviews of true current affairs, whereas documentaries are not always fair with their interviews and facts. Documentaries want to show and tell the information they’re looking for, not necessarily what information they have. Whereas if TV News bulletins didn’t have accuracy, they would be sued by OFCOM and lose the audience’s trust.

The audience expects factual programmes to be objective, impartiality, balanced because they need to be able to make up their own opinion rather than purposely being influenced by the media. For example, a clip of Newsround talking about sport was very balanced. Not only did they have a balanced report on a rugby match, but also included a variety of other different sports to cater to both boys and girls. Newsround mainly talk about their own opinion on the subject, so in this case they were trying to get kids out and active. It's a lot more informal compared to other news bulletins such as 60 Second Update and BBC News at 10 with Huw Edwards. Another example is Michael Moore's 'Bowling For Columbine' documentary. When talking about the media being blamed for being a bad influence on the teenagers and kids, he shows a balanced view on Marilyn Manson, the real person, vs. Marilyn Manson, the media monster. He is equally fair with both sides. TV News programmes and documentaries differ because documentaries are more opinionated and interactive with the subject. TV News programmes are also objective, although they differ because they inform the public and respect the views of the nation. Both of these factual programmes however, do allow the public to make up their own mind. 

All factual programmes are subjective as they are expressing the opinion of the filmmaker… This is used to persuade the audience of the filmmaker’s point of view. Documentaries aim to present a ‘realistic’ film/programme and create a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, to tell a story to the audience, like fictional programmes/films. For example, Morgan Spurlock's 'SuperSize Me' is very bias. Throughout the documentary he is underlying the negativity towards McDonalds. Documentaries are much more subjective than TV News programmes because they can afford to be, whereas TV News programmes are expected to be accurate, impartial, and informative.

News at 10 with Huw Edwards, BBC3 60 Seconds, and Newsround are all different TV News programmes. These three news programmes represent news differently in many ways. Firstly, News at 10 has the oldest audience of around 40 years old; this is because it is very formal in both speech and appearance, and challenging topics with great detail. It is also mainly aimed at men because of the masculine topics and the majority of presenters were male. Secondly, BBC3 60 Seconds has an audience of 22 year olds, possibly university students. This programme covers gossip and is very short and quick. It is mainly aimed at females because of the gossip interest, such as Brad Pitt and Prince Harry. Also, the colour scheme is very feminine as well as having female empowerment. Lastly, Newsround is very different from both of those news programmes because it has a very young audience. The music is quite childish, and is definitely not formal in any way. The presenter is very relaxed, casual clothes, and simple language. The colour scheme is very bright and colourful and the presenter is not sat at a desk whilst telling the news. The main subject is sports, which would mainly appeal to 8-11 year old males.

‘Bowling For Columbine’, ‘The Most Hated Family In America’ and ‘SuperSize Me’ are all documentaries that I have watched and completed case studies on. They all have codes and conventions that may differ from each other. Michael Moore had used juxtaposition editing in ‘Bowling For Columbine’ to create a narrative that supports his agenda. An example of this is when he showed a montage of US leg atrocities, which then cuts to CCTV of Columbine as Moore asks why the boys killed their friends. During this montage, contrapuntal music was played. The song choice was ‘What a Wonderful World’ to create the emotional impact on the viewers. Moore also mediated people’s views as being correct to support his agenda, for example his interviews with Manson and Parker. Secondly, Morgan Spurlock’s ‘SuperSize Me’ is balanced as well as accurate. Not only did he include both sides of the argument and have vox pops from the public to show a range of opinions, but he also had three professional doctors and dieticians to help him and track his progress throughout the duration of the documentary. This meant that there was factual/statistical information throughout, taken from medical journals, which are a reliable source. He used a lot of close-up angles within his editing and backing music when telling facts. Lastly, ‘The Most Hated Family In America’ by Louis Theroux is a frustrating documentary to watch because it’s full of opinionated people. He was very forward and possibly intimidating with his interviews. Theroux is interactive with his documentaries subject; he follows the family with a hand held camera to capture the reality of their lifestyle.

TV News is generally objective and documentaries are generally subjective. News needs to be true, accurate and impartial more than a documentary – in order that we believe it.