Narrative WIP

Narrative Structures.


There are different types of narrative structures, all of which are pretty self-explanatory.

• Linear
• Non-Linear
• Single-strand
• Multi-strand
• Open ending
• Closed ending

- Getting High Injecting Snake Venom

Below is the link to a documentary on a man that has been injecting himself with snake venom for 20 years.

                                         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q_m-rDUNw0


The documentary starts off with him talking about what he does with the snake venom, just to summarise everything in order for the audience to be interested and continue watching. This narrative structure is linear, because there is a beginning, middle and end. It also does not break off into other subjects, it is all focused on this man and his addiction to injecting himself with snake venom.
He then goes on to discuss the dangers and positive points on what he is doing, giving background information on where the idea came from, and why.

The video itself does not contain any explicit material, the content is pretty much viewable by anyone above the age of 15 in my opinion, there are moments where we see him injecting the venom into himself but other than that it is pretty much just him explaining what he does and how he does it.

The target audience would probably be in their late teens from 15+ because the video is titled "Getting High Injecting Snake Venom" which is a very loose way to explain what the documentary is about, there would be more mature ways to title this documentary if it were for an old audience.
Swearing is also included at various points throughout the video but it is used very lightly and the words are the pretty generic ones and not the more malicious phrases.

Niche and Mass

Niche and Mass


Niche basically means a smaller audience, targeted at certain types of people. For example; a documentary on religion would be Niche, purely because not everybody is religious, and not everyone will want to watch it for that reason. My documentary on the production of electronic music is niche, not everybody wants to know how it's made, but it is something I'm passionate about and I believe more people should know about the effort put in.


Mass means a large target audience, targeted at most people. A good example would be of how the internet may be changing peoples lives, and air it on the BBC channel. Why? Because the BBC is a national broadcasting station that millions of people view every day, the majority of Britain and some other countries know what it is.

The age certificate has a big effect on the end product, it can be the slight difference between mass and niche products. If you target it at children aged 5-10 then you are only grabbing an audience of a few ages. Whereas if you changed the age range to 12+ then you have a huge audience with a variety of different ages. A marketing strategy would be to target a smaller, niche, audience that are wealthy... Such as those that buy the very expensive perfumes, and rinse money out of them. But you could also achieve the same results by selling a cheaper perfume that is unisex and available to all, it is completely up to the product and audience you are looking for.

You can usually tell if a product is Mass or Niche by watching it. If the production quality is very high and it looks like the budget was very expensive, it is most likely a mass production. If it looks more independent, and the effects, locations etc. look more local and not as good, it is most likely niche.

Documentary Information...

Genre within Documentaries


Most people would think that a Documentary is a Documentary, and that's it.
But there are different types of documentary; Educational, Entertainment etc.
Documentaries that are educational include; anything by Ray Mears or Bear Grylls.  The documentaries that Bear Grylls creates also fall under the entertainment category as people enjoy watching him do 'grotesque' tasks in order to stay alive.


Distribution of Documentaries


Distribution is how the audience will be able to purchase or view/listen to the product created. It could be put on the internet as an easy access option, included are sites and programmes such as; iTunes, Youtube etc. Another good idea would be to air it on Television, so a mass audience have the ability to see it also. A documentary would not be suitable for the Cinema unless created in a certain way, a kind of Documentary Film. DVD would be a sensible option because it will be available to the public in store. Online shops are used by most people, so selling the DVD on sites such as eBay and Amazon would attract the online shoppers as well as the in-store customers.

Codes and Conventions - Then and Now


Documentaries should have an introduction, a middle and an end - similar to film.
There should be information in there to help the audience understand what is going on, and some of the information may come from sources that we can easily acquire with the technology of today...
But what about the equipment used many years ago? Locations are also key, without todays apparatus we would also not be able to find locations or even information on whereabouts events happened. If the documentary is based on a certain topic, the program would be rather bland due to the simple fact that years ago we could not look as deep into certain things as we do now, and in some scientific documentaries, experiments would not take place to as high a standard as the present.
Bear Grylls is a survival expert that has his own documentaries where he survives in different locations, such as going to the Sahara desert etc. Without the use of todays technology we would not be able to do so as Bear would most likely die without rescue teams, medical equipment etc.

Audiences

Generally the target audience of a documentary will range from late teens up until as late as 50 or even more! The main reason is that the information that is passed onto the consumer is of a high standard that children of the age of around 10 will not fully understand what's happening and become 'bored' with what is happening. The people between the age of 10 and 15 may not think it is a 'cool' idea to watch documentaries, but there are different types of documentaries that I explained earlier. These could include films on music, TV, famous people, other documentaries etc. the options are endless, you could create a documentary on near enough anything.

Image found at:
https://cdn2-resources.ableton.com/resources/uploads/zinnia/lead.jpg.560x300_q85_crop_upscale.jpg