Week 11

(Hello, guys, sorry about my late posting, i have not done week 7, 8 and 12 yet, please comments on my week4,5,6,9,10`s posts)
Wk11
How has the documentary genre influenced reality TV and how it presents the ‘real’?

In the Biressi, A. & Nunn (2005) texts (Paragraph One), they points out the documentary genre have influences reality TV from the time since “Direct Cinema, and Free Cinema” occurs. In this paragraph also point out the documentary genre influences the reality TV not only by “the use of new technology” such as, “fly on the wall” , “ by entering the frame the filmmaker avoided the pretence of objectivity, thus creating a more equal or truthful relationship with the subject” noted in PPT slice7, and some voiceover techniques. Those techniques it’s the conveyer of the subject and the camera, which build up a “real” feeling, afterwards, this real reaction will directly go to audiences.

There are many programme in the television recording the competitor`s real, personal lives while they are involve a competition. Such as, the well know programme America Idol, Survivor, the domestic programme, NZ idol. They are using a documentary way to record the real live and showing to audiences. The presenting the realistic its usually contains contestants winning happiness and loss tears, also the environment inside the programme. So, the audiences can easily feel they also involve inside the competition while they following every series or following the contestants they love. I think people`s real emotions never lies while they face on the important minutes.

How does Hill define reality TV?

First of all, Hills have described reality TV a board filed. At the beginning of the article (On pg 41), he says “in early stage of the genre, reality was associated with on-scene footage of law and order, or emergency services. More recently, reality TV is associated with anything and everything, from people to pets, from birth to death”. I think this is because human society`s developing and human needs reality TV as a mirror to reflected the way how we live and live better. This general description for reality TV have showed us the factual programme creators do work hard on the programme to make the TV industry more and more relating to our normal social life.

Then, Hill (2005) on page 42 defines “the most traditional industry term for reality TV is factual entertainment”. After this paragraph, he have categorised the factual entertainment in to 6 different area, “documentaries and contemporary factual; specialist factual; current affairs and investigations; arts and cultural; life skills; and new media. This give us have a fundamental knowledge of new genre structures of reality TV.

Also, Hill (2005) have enumerated a few people from different filed related to Television industry or reality entertainment, they have define reality TV in different ways.
Finally, in the conclusion, he did a sum up for reality TV, even though he says “there is no one definition of reality TV.” Last but not least, he says that s the reason, it is because the reality genera have a wide range merged area of developed genre, also have joined different area of knowledge and form up to their own hybrid genres. So, it’s hard to put it into a specific form to narrow it. I think that is a quite good conclusion within his ideas he may try to explain to the readers.

(Hope more different ideas contribute in the comments,if i have any mistake, please tell me,thank you. )




Reference List:

Biressi, A. and Nunn, N, (2005), Real Lives, documentary approaches. In Reality TV: Realism and Revelation. (pp. 35-38) London: Wallflowers.

Hill, A. (2005) The Reality genre, In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular factual Television. (pp. 14-40)Oxon: Rutledge.