Documentary Unit: BAFTA Podcast Review

I've just finished listening to a podcast on the BAFTA website titled 'Is Structured Reality Corrupting Documentary?'. To start, I personally think that the debate that's had between the five people goes off the point very often. Even the presenter, Simon Dickson says towards the end of the debate that he thinks they've gone off topic from the original question and the issue has become "Is structured reality a type of documentary?". And there didn't seem to be much of a conclusion as they all said by the end that they argued about the wrong thing.

That being said, I did pick out quite a few interesting key points about the difference between structured reality and documentaries throughout the podcast...

Claire Faragher started by telling us that the people on TOWIE were already very film ready and 'LA-ish' with interesting and unusual lives and said "We thought we could chart it, make it funny and slightly enhance it...and possibly manipulate it a little bit."

Richard McKerrow then gave his view on structured reality shows by saying "[these shows] should be more purposeful...I can find nothing of interest" and "The one good thing I can say about TOWIE is compared to Made in Chelsea, it's a work of genius...it's populated by lifeless, awful people who can't even portray themselves convincingly. It's not drama or documentary."

Giving a bit of support to the structured reality genre, Simon Dickson said that "Documentaries used to be the TV equivalent of vegetables, like eat your greens. And it's okay for them to be more fun and engaging."

Brian Hill also later stated that "Some young people feel that structured reality is actually more honest than documentaries as it draws attention to the fact that it's structured and artificial. Whereas observational documentaries like to pretend that it's all real when we know it's not and the stories are created in the edit."

I personally think that Molly Dineen was the only person that really tried to stick to the original topic at hand...

She thinks that structured documentaries/reality are kind of pushing out unstructured programmes. For example broadcasters will commission a documentary on a man who goes to Liverpool and experiences what it's like to live as a single mum, but they won't commission one that simply focuses on a single mum's life in Liverpool. She stated that the more entertaining 'documentaries' are coming out on top and she thinks there should be room for both.

She also stated that structured reality shows are "taking up the space they should be sharing" and "it's because documentaries can't always guarantee that there'll be drama...Real life is messy and slow and that's why it's not commissioned as much."

Simon loosely agreed with Molly, saying that structured reality is bringing about a creep in broadcasting, commissioners are pushing other things out in their place.

Where as Richard argued that "Channel 4 airtime has been more focused on rig shows like 24 hours in A&E, which considers itself to be contemporary documentary and there's actually been more of those shows than structured reality coming out of Channel 4."

The most conclusive statement I took from the debate when it comes to answering the question of 'is structured reality a type of documentary?' that the debate became about, is this statement from Richard...

"Documentary is the creative treatment of actuality."

I think that kind of sums it up. As if it's a creative treatment, then technically you can do whatever you want when it comes to filming actuality/reality. Even if it's as extreme as structured reality programmes like TOWIE or Made In Chelsea.

If answering the question 'Is Structured Reality Corrupting Documentary?', which wasn't touched on enough to get a real conclusion, then I would have to say no. Because I personally think, like Richard, that there are plenty more contemporary documentaries on TV than there are structured reality. So I don't think that documentaries are being corrupted or brushed aside.