Features
Objectives
q
q
q
Documentaries
q
q
q
q
Styles of Documentaries
Minidocumentaries
Point of View (POV)
Concepts of Documentaries
Biographies
q
Special Events
Concepts of Feature Writing
Styles of Features
Concepts in Biographies
S C R IP T W R IT IN G
Feature and documentary refers to anything that deals with non-fiction treatment
of a subject that is not in the straight news, interview or discussion format.
11.1 FEATURES
It does not contain a point of view, analysis, conclusion and comments but it is
away from the relevant fact only approach of the most news stories, by inserting
more detail description.
It goes beyond news stories by trying to discover the interesting or important side
of an event in a way of humanizing the news.
Special event is part of the stream of life, such as a live happening planned by
some source other than media producer such as a national ceremony, the opening
of a new shopping mall and so on.
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The features are more relax and entertaining than the news stories.
F e a t u r e s & D o c u m e n ta r i e s
There are three major kinds of descriptions that should be contained in a feature:
o Description of actions
o Description of people
o Description of place
Description of these types helps readers to see a story, not just watch or listen to
the story.
Features contain more quotations and dialogues. They are used to support the
main point of a story.
There are a few of features styles such as anecdotal features, suspended interest
features, profiles and question and answer.
1. Anecdotal features
An Anecdotal features usually begin with a story of some kind and follows with a
statement of facts to support the point of story.
The writer must keep the continuity of the feature besides of making the story
interesting.
3. Profiles
You can write a general description of the persons life, past and present.
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You also can start with zero information from a chosen particular aspect of the
persons life and then move around it.
A question and answer style is a simple style where an explanatory starts the
story.
11.2 DOCUMENTARIES
They differ from features in a way that documentaries contain the analyzing,
interpreting, commenting, questioning and suggesting activities.
Documentary also can be combined with other elements and produce creative and
artistic style such as:
o Docudrama
o Mockumentary
o Rockumentary
o Others
Docudrama
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F e a t u r e s & D o c u m e n ta r i e s
It is also called:
o drama-documentary
o drama-doc
o docu-fiction
Mockumentary
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S C R IP T W R IT IN G
Rockumentary
It was coined by Rob Reiner in the mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap.
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F e a t u r e s & D o c u m e n ta r i e s
Others
11.2.2 Minidocumentaries
The approach begins with something attention-getting and then fills in the basic
structure with field materials, and finally, adds the voice-overs.
Point of view determines the purpose of the particular documentary that you are
preparing. Are you wanted to:
o Show how the audience can stop pollution?
o Show the effects of smoking?
o Show the community problem from other view angle?
o Present solutions for problems occur?
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Step
No.
1
Explanations
Example
Do the research
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Gather distilled
material
The problems of
the local university
graduate and the
possible acts to
reduce
unemployment
issue.
Styles in the
purpose of
documentary are
like direct
information
presentation and
emphasize the
problems and
solutions.
You can do the
talks with local
university
graduates,
lecturers, ministry
of education or
obtain information
from libraries,
journals and so on.
Decide on the
problems, size,
location and group
of unemployed
local university
graduate.
F e a t u r e s & D o c u m e n ta r i e s
Select several short statements by persons involved from the taped materials and
present them immediately to get the audiences attention and audiences interest.
Use suspense as an ingredient. You can apply the suspense in learning the
motivations, the inner feelings and the attitudes of the people involved even as the
actual event is retold.
Insert the climax such as in a play. You can hold the audiences attention for a
long time and play with their emotions and feelings towards the subject of the
documentary.
The script should imply that there is more than who, what, when and where.
The script can begin to explore motivation, to get behind the problem.
11.3 BIOGRAPHIES
The person who is the biography subject is a famous person, an expert in his or
her field or did tremendous achievement.
Then you take it all -- the chronology, the letters, the interviews, your own knowledge, the
newspaper cuttings, the history books, the diary, the thousand hours of contemplation,
and you try to make a whole of it, not a chronicle but a drama, with a beginning and an
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end, the whole being given form and integrity because a man moves through it from birth
to death, through all the beauty and terror of human life. -- Alan Paton, on completing
a biography.
Like an interview program, you have to develop questions and probable answers
for those questions.
The subject is famous and well-known person and has a tight schedule.
Therefore, you have to prepare right answers because of time constraint as well as
budget constraint such as booking the interviews room (normally, a hotel room)
and make an appointment with persons that know the subject.
You can organize your contents and main points in the proper sheet like below.
Make sure you list down important points that you want from the subject.
From there, you can develop rundown sheet or a more detail outline.
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F e a t u r e s & D o c u m e n ta r i e s
Sometimes, you may want to make a dramatic situation by getting two or three or
even four people to give comments about the same question.
The following is an example of comments about the same question from different
people.
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* * *
Interview with Hanim
IN:
The classic story of your first meeting with Stan, where you were modeling hats, Im looking to go
back and fourth through the stories. You werent expecting to meet him at the first place, as I gather.
H [Hanim]:
No, not at all.
...
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Second, prepare a tentative outline. It is like a general direction of the features and
documentaries contents direction.
Third, do the research. Find all the possible materials that you think suitable with
the contents and try to obtain as much information as you can from them.
Fifth, work closely with the producer and director in order to prepare the full
script and add some additional materials.
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F e a t u r e s & D o c u m e n ta r i e s
Seventh, prepare a full script with the help from the producer and director.
Eighth, develop the final script or the working script. It is use to select and
organize the material to be used in the final editing and timing the program.
11.5 FORMATS
You can write the script for features, documentaries and biographies in a single
column television format or two-column television format.
Normally, people use two-column television format rather than the single column
format, but it is not wrong to use the single column television format.
The format for features, documentaries and biographies are same except the
content of each programs.
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F e a t u r e s & D o c u m e n ta r i e s
No.
Explanation
The line shows time taken to play the recorded interviews next to the
interviewee name.
The videos are indicate in the left side and the audios on the right side.
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F e a t u r e s & D o c u m e n ta r i e s
11.6 SUMMARY
Category
Decription
Definition
Features
Documentary
Features are
straightforward report
on an event, situation,
person or idea.
It does not contain a
point of view, analysis,
conclusion and
comments but it is
away from the relevant
fact only approach of
the most news stories,
by inserting more detail
description.
Documentaries is a film,
television program, book
and others that presents a
social, political, scientific
or historical subject in a
factual or informative
manner.
They differ from features
in a way that
documentaries contain the
analyzing, interpreting,
commenting, questioning
and suggesting activities.
Styles
Concepts
Biographies
Basically,
biography is an
account of a
persons life
written, composed
or produced by
another such as A
Biography of Stan
Lee.
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Point of view determines the purpose of the particular documentary that you are
preparing.
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11.7 EXERCISES
1. Features are
A.
B.
C.
D.
2. Styles of features are anecdotal features, profiles, question and answer and
____________________.
A.
B.
C.
D.
Direct features
Suspended interest features
Interview features
Attract interest features
3. Documentary is a
A. Film, television program, book and other that present real life of chosen
person.
B. Film, television program, book and other that present information in
factual or informative manner.
C. Film, drama, magazine, book and other that show us the reality of life.
D. Film, drama, magazine, book and other that present information in proper
manner.
4. The following are the types of documentaries, except:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Rockumentary
Docudrama
Mockumentary
Popumentary
5. List down the process in developing the features and documentaries script.
6. Explain own your own word the similar features and the dissimilar features
between documentaries and minidocumentaries.
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7. Write down how you develop a point of view with your own examples.
8. Pick one famous person that excels in his or her field, such as politician, celebrity
and academician. From there, list at least ten question that you might asked him or
her for the biography.
9. From question 8, develop your one column television format script.
10. From question 8, develop your two-column television format script.
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