Telling a Story Across Multiple Media: Transmedia Essay

Firstly, it is important to understand how the documentary form is best suited to illustrate the film’s theme. In order to do this, one must have an overview of the documentary style of filmmaking. Documentaries concern themselves with the “exploration of

Media is so powerful that many people in business and politics have long realised that documentary filmmaking is a powerful way to influence or persuade the masses as to which side they should take on certain issues. Although the media claim their documentaries to be neutral, subjectivity is always an issue. Like any form of communication, including journalism, documentary filmmaking involves interpretation and choice-making on the part of the filmmaker, and is therefore unavoidably subjective. You might set up a camera to record a "day in the life of a Year 12 student” and end up with some interesting footage, but until it is shaped and given meaning by the filmmaker, and until

The course provides an introduction to the most prominent forms of media that influence and impact social, business, political, and popular culture in contemporary America. It explores the unique aspects of each medium as well as interactions across various media that combine to create rich environments for information sharing, entertainment, business, and social interaction in the U.S. and around the world.

A documentary is a genre of film that provides a factual report on a particular story, viewpoint, message or experience. In this essay, two documentaries, Bowling for columbine by Michael Moore and Made in Bangladesh by CBC news will be explored to show how persuasive techniques are used to make an audience feel a particular way.

Documentaries aim to explore events or ideas that are true. However the truth is often lost when we consider other influencing factors, which include the filmmaker’s inherent bias, the need for a film to tell a single coherent story, and common documentary conventions which shape the viewer’s understanding. Held back by these issues, documentary makers cannot help but communicate their version of the truth to the viewer through both intentional and unintentional manipulation.

Documentaries are created to challenge or endorse social and cultural values; this is done through the director’s use of film language. Josh Fox, founder and artistic director of the International WOW Company, attempts to influence the audience’s view on the effects hydraulic fracturing has on health and environment through a variety of codes and conventions in his expository documentary Gasland.

Documentary films in particular have been the preferred channel for the diffusion of propaganda because of its association with ‘a truthful cinema.’ John Grierson, coiner the term documentary, defined it as “the creative treatment of actuality.” However, Hilmar Hoffman talks about film’s illusory power by explaining that what exists to the viewer is only what the camera ‘sees,’ and due to the absence of alternate perspectives, the viewer conventionally perceives the images shown as reality. In this regard, documentary films are able to influence, represent, and create a particular consciousness by doctoring events, thus making it untrustworthy and, ultimately, the ideal medium to communicate

When the documentary was produced, media exposure was limited to private and expensive mediums such as television, movies and radio. These outlets were plagued with marketing agendas designed to sell products under the guise of authentic music and entertainment. Formerly non-existent cultural archetypes such as the

To address the questions comprehensively, the researcher conducted a historical research that blended the research elements of documentary research and content analysis. The use of historical research provided opportunity to travel through time and trace the origin and evolution of

In ‘How Netflix is Deepening our Cultural Echo Chambers’, Farhad Manjoo uses the remake of “One Day at a Time” to emphasize the imperative shift of an era focused on streaming that entails a narrow set of refined references. By first exhibiting a remade show on a platform such as Netflix, the re-examination of reality is displayed to be evolving the mainstream identity of millions. From broadcasting, cable then to streaming the secular depiction of being a “vast wasteland” emerges into the view of a “bubbling sea of creativity” that allows for collective groups of individuals to be recognized. Manjoo insinuates that through the shared references viewers attained through television, nothing thereafter will have the direct mass impact of a singular movement of culture that the medium television had at its peak. Although seemingly

My first step to my documentary, I decided to go on the internet to research and understand my topic. I looked up some

“The documentary tradition as a continually developing “record” that is made in so many ways, with different voices and vision, intents and concerns, and with each contributor, finally, needing to meet a personal text” (Coles 218). Coles writes “The Tradition: Fact and Fiction” and describes the process of documenting, and what it is to be a documentarian. He clearly explains through many examples and across disciplines that there is no “fact or fiction” but it is intertwined, all in the eye of the maker. The documentarian shows human actuality; they each design their own work to their own standards based on personal opinion, values, interest and whom they want the art to appeal to.

As a whole, documentaries often do not perform as well as their narrative film counterparts, and so when ‘Hoop Dreams’ soared beyond expectations to make $11.8million at the box office worldwide (according to BoxOfficeMojo.com), the filmmakers famously gave Gates and Agee around $200,000 a piece in royalties. Paying for a social actor’s involvement in the film is the subject of debate worldwide, as many professionals in the industry

In conclusion, although there’s gap between how general society see, understand， accept and engage in documentary photography, Rosler believed that it’s better to find out a method that not only retain criticism about social culture but also run a countering practice of photography.

During my undergraduate work back in Venezuela, I wanted to make news reports because I admire the power and beauty of truth. Although I learned how to produce news and consider myself a journalist, I was missing something. I wanted to work with stories based on realities, that would stay on the screen for a longer period than two to three minutes – the standard news time per package. Moreover, I wanted to combine the power of reality content and the elegance of cinema – something that is not relevant in the T.V. world due to the need for immediacy. Furthermore, I wanted to express a personal voice through my work, which led me to start a filmmaking career to learn how to produce documentaries. In the fall of 2013, I applied