Class reflections: Realism

Going back to Wednesdays discussions and debate about Realism, it made me percieve realism as a more important subject in television. The example i used of Big Brother UK has obvious realism in that it is not scripted and is the monitoring of how 15 people live together confined. However, how much of that is realistic? Many of the people could be acting to the cameras? And how much of the real people do we see in that 1 hour that covers 24 hours of a day. Editing is a system that makes the program more enjoyable, but that doesnt mean they will tweek things in order to make them seem better or worse for better ratings.

However, we now have News and Documentary realism to look at. Traditionally, British broadcasters, for example, in this medium are supposed to be impartial and non-biased. They provide an authoritative and ‘truthful’ news service. This can be seen in the way that news and documentary programmes occupy prime-time slots on TV. Documentaries, too, are regarded as high-status programmes that represent ‘truth’.

In the 1930’s documentaries provided information, education and propaganda to the audience.
From the 1950’s the development of ‘cinéma verité’ (cinema truth) in France moved the representation of ‘reality’ on to the cinema screen.
In the 1960’s the TV became the principal medium for documentaries. The genre was (and to an extent, still is), typified by certain well-defined codes. 

• An authoritative presenter
• The use of ‘voice-over’ commentaries
• Recorded interviews
• Visual evidence via location shots or archive film 

(Val Pope, 2002, News of the World)

These things created (and still create) a sense of ‘truth’ or authenticity, but it must also be noted that editorial choices and values are still at work in the creation of the news or documentary texts. What looks like truth will almost certainly have been ‘filtered’ or ‘massaged’ or manipulated’ or (to use a current term) ‘spun’ by the editorial process. 

From the 1980’s came the ‘fly-on-the-wall’ type of documentary, which has well-defined rules:

• Events are filmed exactly as they happen
• Subjects agree in advance to be filmed
• Participants are shown edited versions of the filming

Sounds ‘fair’ but is it, really? The editorial process still happens and heavy editorial control is applied in post-production. 

Going back to Reality TV (The main staple of most of the output today, it seems!) 

This works in a number of ways:

• By allowing subjects to appear as ‘themselves’, for example the camera tracks professionals doing their jobs, perhaps with dramatic reconstructions of events or real video action sequences.
• The participants become subjects of humour or entertainment (programmes like ‘You’ve been Framed’ and so on)
• Participants are subjects within a ‘fly-on’the-wall’ or verité programme (Big Brother)
• Participants are amateur directors themselves, with personal documentaries of events.

So there is the main coverage of what percieving seperate realism subjects mainly in TV.