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.
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You have basically described aspects of documentaries and this post along with your basic representation post has put you at a pass for GC4. However to hit the merit level the unit outlines "Learners will talk about a genre in such a way as to show how the distinctive codes and conventions of that genre define it, how they relate to the genre and what sort of pleasures they might derive from it Learners will understand, for example, that audiences recognise the formulaic and often very predictable outcomes of genres, and will derive much of their pleasure from that."
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