There are a variety of issues facing factual programming directors, these issues must be considered by producers when creating a factual programme. These issues can easily be avoided but have serious consequences if not considered.
Balance & Accuracy
Impartiality
Another issues faced is impartiality, this covers problems such as discrimination against race, hair colour gender etc, this issue is in place to prevent any uproar caused due to offensive content, an example of this would be a program about people who have blonde hair being stupid and unable to hold a job, this would be very offensive towards blonde haired people and would receive bad press and possibly lose the privilege of being broad casted, impartiality is not completely possible as some form of opinion will always exist, a good example of this is again in super size me, the producer has a pre-composed opinion and attempts to push his opinion on us the viewers, this is done by forcing himself to eat as much fast food as possible, whilst making little attempt to show the other side of the story, avoiding this issue would have reprocutions, in the example of super size me McDonald's restaurants could
Objectivity and Subjectivity
As film makers we can either be objective or subjective either we tell a truthful story by being objective or we push our own personal opinions into the production. While it is important to be truthful and show the facts during a production, being subjective is not necessarily a bad thing, Supersize Me was very subjective, the film makers of Supersize Me included their opinions in the production, they clearly believed that fast food was bad for you and wanted to put that across in the film, this can be seen through the focus on the negatives of fast food and the service they provide, this wasn't much of an issue as there is proof that fast food is bad for you and what was discussed in Supersize Me was accurate but put across very subjectively. The opposite of this can be seen in Lift, unlike Supersize Me, Lift is objective, opinions were not pushed instead the Film Maker had no opinion of what would happen when he started recording he instead let the action unfold by itself, creating great raw emotion and behaviour. This issue would effect the production as if the film maker wanted to make a fair honest documentary he/she would have to be objective and stick to the facts keeping personal opinions out of the production, this could be difficult if the film maker as a strong opinion related to the subject, this can cause some subjective views to be taken.
Opinion
When planning a factual programme research is very important in order to pin point the subject and the direction to take the story, although this is effective the addition of public opinion can assist in the subject decision, this can be done by asking the public what they think about your idea or their opinion on the subject matter, this simply gives you more knowledge on the subject matter. The inclusion of the public's opinion in the film gives the audience more security as they know you haven't just done your research you've also gotten others opinions. Supersize Me does this, asking the public about fast food and getting advice and information from professional health care specialists, this gives the viewer the security that what they are watching is true.
Bias
Bias is when one side is favoured over the other or vice versa, News Papers are often bias, mainly in political views, all Newspapers have a strong political view and stories found within these Newspapers will be positive towards their political view but negative towards others, this however means the audience for the paper is reduced as people with opposing political views wont read the paper. In factual programming bias is likely to be an issue as everyone has some form of opinion before hand even if it isn't a strong one, this is likely to creep into production at some point, to avoid this the film makers must ensure they give even positives and negatives on both sides of the story. Supersize Me was very bias, portraying fast food as very bad for you without saying much positive about the food and service, this was clearly the way the film maker wanted the programme to appear, and in the case of Supersize Me it was successful in putting the intended message across mainly due to the overwhelming public opinion that fast food is bad for you. Being extremely bias does have its problems, mainly due to the audience, if something is very against what someone believes, they are unlikely to watch it resulting in a smaller target audience and thus less viewers.
Representation
Representation relates to how characters and people are related to in a film or other form of media text, representation can apply to anyone, representations can be positive and negative and can be applied to huge groups. The representation of women is often raised as in the media women are shown as strong, independent and empowering, this is a very positive representation and creates good role models for young girls. A film maker will think of representation alot, do i want this character to appear to be nice or not, and depending which is chosen will determine the audiences view on that character or group. In Supersize Me the representation of the McDonald restaurants is very negative showing bad customer service and poor health benefits from eating there food, the representation of the American public is also very negative, the focus on obesity levels and how they have risen gives the public a bad image, this however is supported by facts and cannot be pushed aside. Representation can be a big problem if taken to far, programs may be denied broad casting due to poor representations of people which could get the production company in trouble, for example a program that represents all ethnic people as being thieves and carrying knives and just being generally anti-social would cause problems within the ethnic community.
Privacy
Privacy is very important for any type of programme, but for a factual it is a necessity. Getting permission to film a subject is the first step in protecting someone's privacy without the permission ti film you could be invading someone's privacy by pushing a camera in their face. Although you may have gotten permission to film a person or group of people their privacy can still be invaded, you may not be wanted following subjects around there house or at work where they're just trying to live their lives. The privacy of people in Supersize Me was kept as the privacy of McDonalds employees was not invaded at all, and the people being interviewed were just interviewed, no attempt to follow up the questions was made.
In my 3 minute wonder documentary I will take into account all the issues I have discussed above and use them to keep my documentary fair and true. I have a personal opinion based on my 3 minute wonder and I must not include it in my production as I am trying to give a fair representation of the subjects I am filming and interviewing, I will give both sides of the argument equal opportunities to give there opinion, this should give me a fair factual programme. As alot of my subjects are under 18 I will have to get permission to film them, via a contract, making sure I don't invade their privacy. During my production I will try to get the opinion of the public on my subject matter and so must get a fair representation of the public, I will do this by getting a range of interviews from a range of different types of people, this range of interviews should give me an unbiased view, pairing these interviews and keeping my ow opinions out of it should make it successful. All filming will be known of, no secret filming will be done to keep the privacy of all involved. My documentary will be very subjective, as it is focusing on peoples opinions and what they think of a certain subject, this should be ok though as it is not me that is being subjective, it is the people in my film. My 3 minute wonder will acknowledge the issues raised and progress positively in order to avoid these issues and create a fair accurate documentary.
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