6.2 Tutor-Marked Assignment
Study the naturalist and the newsreel classes of documentaries. List at least three topics or issues that could best be treated under each category. Give reasons for your answers. Page limit = 2
7.0 References/Further Reading
Agbanu, V. N. (2005) “Propaganda and Public Opinion” In V.N.
Agbanu and C.D Nwabueze (eds.) Readings in Mass Communication. Owerri: Top shelve publishers.
Kogah, V.C (1999). Visual Communication, Film, Graphics, Photojournalism. Owerri: Gust – Chuks publishers.
Owuamalam, E.O (2007). Film and Screen Directing. Owerri: Top Class Publishers.
Unit 3: Purpose of Documentary Films
1.0 Introduction
Documentary films are not just produced in a haphazard manner for the fun of it. They are well thought of and organized in a manner that must communicate something of significance to the viewer. For this reason, every documentary film has key objectives or purpose why it is produced. This unit aims at discussing the purposes for the production of documentary films. The importance of documentary films were also x-rayed.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of tutorials in this unit, you are expected to know:
The purposes or objectives of documentary films
The importance of documentary films.
3.0 Main Contents
3.1 Purpose of Documentary Films
A documentary filmmaker sets forth “not simply to register events and circumstances, but to find the most moving examples of them”
(Bluem, 1972:10). It is so because every documentary is dramatic. It adds an artistic dimension to journalistic and societal aims. It aims at one or more of the following objectives or purposes:
To provide socially useful information or basically to inform the audience. The essence may be to arouse human interest to take a remedial action, on the observed lapses in the human environment. The documentary provides relevant information through compelling pictures and images. It deals with the focused subject so that the issue raised would be appreciated
and understood. For instance, the weekly news presentation on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) network service on Saturdays titled “week-end file” mirrors an aspect of the Nigerian society that requires public attention and consideration. One of the editions as captured by Owuamalam (2007) dealt with the fate of the textile industry in Nigeria. It showed how the industry has virtually collapsed with the decline in the number of textile factories, from more than 200 in the 1990s to less than 40 in 2006, how the workforce has reduced from more than 300,000 workers to less than 20,000 within the same period. It also showed how the cotton farms have been neglected and the yarn machines abandoned. It explains why the scarcity of finished Nigeria prints has led to the smuggling of textiles and fabrics, even now that the materials are currently banned for importation into the country. It brings the travails of the industry to the fore and advocates a socio-economic actions that can return the industry to its prerions glorions moments of boom.
Other purposes of documentaries include
To persuade the audience to take remedial action and to inspire or lift.
To convince people to accept a new idea or to develop a new opinion or attitude.
To persuade the audience to carry out a specific course of action.
A given documentary can accomplish one or more of the above objectives. If however it is well organized, it will be primarily aimed at accomplishing one of them, (Willis, 1967)
3.2 Importance of Documentaries
The documentary film is important and very crucial to broadcasters and media professionals for many reasons. Firstly, it gives them a chance to use the broadcast media to explore the significant issues in their immediate environments, rather than expanding their resources on what may be frivolous and ephemeral.
Secondly, it provides opportunities for experimentation and the exercise of one’s ingenuity not often possible in such formula-obsessed fields as drama and comedy.
Thirdly, it allows broadcasters the opportunity to re-experience creativity, outside the realm of typologies often associated with specific production formats. It allows the freedom to explore the various attributes of performance, as a communication strategy, designed specifically for the audiovisual medium.
4.0 Conclusion
Documentary films are specifically produced for the purposes of informing and providing socially useful information, persuading the audience to take remedial actions, to inspire, to lift and to convince people to adopt or accept a new idea or to develop a new opinion or attitude. They could be produced for the purpose of reinforcing an existing opinion or attitude and to help the audience carryout a specific course of action. They are therefore important because they
allow broadcasters the freedom to exercise the creative potentials inherent in them and to explore their immediate environments.
5.0 Summary
This unit examined the purpose or objectives behind the production of every documentary film. These objectives were examined and example given to show how a documentary could be used to offer solution to a societal problem. The importance of documentary films to broadcasters were also discussed.
6.1 Self-Assessed Exercise
Do you agree on the purposes behind the production of documentaries? Are they justifiable?
6.2 Tutor-Marked Assignment
Watch “weekend file” on NTA. It is a network programme of NTA aired on Saturdays. Identify the type of documentary aired in the edition you watched and enumerate the purposes for the documentary.
7.0 References/Further Reading
Bluem, W. A (1972). Documentary in American Television. Chicago:
Brown Company publishers.
Owuamalam, E. O. (2007). Screen and Film Directing. Owerri: Top class publishers.
Willis, E.E. (1967). Writing Television and Radio Programmes.
Chicago: Holt Rinechart and Winston Inc.