Understanding TV Formats & types of format Part B

UNDERSTANDING T.V. FORMATS & GENRES PART -B
Notes By : Ashish Richhariya
Course : FTNMP / BMM
Designation : Faculty at Thakur College Of Science & Commerce
Query : arichhariya30@gmail.com

FORMATS & TYPES OF T.V. FORMAT
Define Format:-
1:the shape, size, and general makeup (as of something )
2: general plan of organization, arrangement, or choice of material (as for
a television show)
3: a method of organizing data (as for storage)various file formats
Format is simply the specific way that content within genre is arranged or
structured.
A TV format is the overall concept and branding of a copyrighted
television show. The most common type of formats are those in the
television genres of game shows and reality shows, many of which are
remade in multiple markets with local contestants
Thakur College Of Science & Commerce,Mumbai

FORMATS
TELEVISION PROGRAM FORMATS:
1. clip
2. docufiction
3. documentary
4. single (one-time)
5. episode
6. made-for-TV film
7. franchise
8. miniseries
9. micro-series
10. mockumentary
11. pilot
1. prequel
2. reboot
3. remake
4. segment
5. sequel
6. serial
7. series
8. short
9. show
10. special
11. spin-off
12. unaired
13. episode/pilot
Thakur Colege Of Science & Commerce,Mumbai

CLIP - ?
 Clip : A clip show is an episode of a television series that consists primarily of
excerpts from previous episodes.
 Most clip shows feature the format of a frame story in which cast members recall
past events from past installments of the show, depicted with a clip of the event
presented as a flashback.
 Clip shows are also known as cheaters, particularly in the field of animation. Clip
shows are often played before series finales, or once syndication becomes highly
likely.
 Other times, however, clip shows are simply produced for budgetary reasons (i.e. to
avoid additional costs from shooting in a certain setting, or from casting actors to
appear in new material).
 Clip shows have their origin in theatrical short films and serials. Every serial chapter
always had a brief recap showing where the previous chapter left off, but, beginning
in 1936, entire chapters were largely devoted to material that audiences had already
seen.
 In these recap chapters (also called "economy chapters"), previous chapters were
summarized for those who may have missed some episodes (which were unlikely to
be rerun). The practice began with the Republic Pictures serial Robinson Crusoe of
Clipper Island.

 Movie studios often resorted to old footage to save money.
 The most famous example is the short comedies of The Three Stooges which, from
1949 until 1957, borrowed lengthy sequences and often entire storylines from old
shorts.
 Only a few new scenes would be filmed as a framework for the old footage.
 This practice was adopted because the studios could charge more money for "new"
films than for old ones.
 Animation studios were also known to periodically make cartoon shorts - often
referred to as "cheaters" - made up primarily of clips for earlier cartoons in order to
save money.
 Examples of this include Betty Boop's Rise to Fame (Fleischer/Paramount, 1934)
 What's Cookin' Doc? (1944, Schlesinger/Warner Bros.)
 regular yearly series of Tom & Jerry "cheaters" such as Smitten
Kitten (1952, MGM).

DOCUFICTION - ?
 Docufiction (or docu-fiction), often confused with docudrama, is the
cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often
meaning narrative film.
 It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is (as direct
cinema or cinéma vérité) and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or
fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality
using some kind of artistic expression.
 More precisely, it is a documentary mixed with fictional elements,in real time,
filmed when the events take place, and in which the main character or
characters—often portrayed by non-professional or amateur actors—are
essentially playing themselves, or slightly fictionalized versions of themselves, in a
fictionalized scenario.
 In this sense, docufiction may overlap to an extent with some aspects of
the mockumentary format, but the terms are not synonymous.
 A film genre in expansion, it is adopted by a number of experimental filmmakers.

 Origins - ?
 The term involves a way of making films already practiced by such
authors as Robert Flaherty, one of the fathers of documentary,and Jean
Rouch, later in the 20th century.
 Being both fiction and documentary, docufiction is
a hybrid genre, raising ethical problems concerning truth, since reality
may be manipulated and confused with fiction (see Ethics at creative
non-fiction)
 In the domain of visual anthropology, the innovating role of Jean
Rouch allows one to consider him as the father of a subgenre
called ethnofiction.
 This term means: ethnographic documentary film with natives who play
fictional roles. Making them play a role about themselves will help portray
reality, which will be reinforced with imagery.
 A non-ethnographic documentary with fictional elements uses the same
method and, for the same reasons, may be called docufiction

DOCUFICTION
 1926: United States – Moana Robert
Flaherty
 1930: Portugal – Maria do Mar by Leitão
de Barros
 1932: France – L'or des mers by Jean
Epstein
 1948: Italy – La Terra Trema by Luchino
Visconti
 1952: Japan – Children of
Hiroshima by Kaneto Shindo
 1963: Canada – Pour la suite du
monde (Of Whales, the Moon and Men)
by Pierre Perrault and Michel Brault
 1981: Morocco – Trances by Ahmed El
Maânouni
 1988: Guiné-Bissau – Mortu Nega (Death
denied) by Flora Gomes
 1990: Iran – Close-up by Abbas Kiarostami
 1991: Finland – Zombie and the Ghost
Train by Mika Kaurismäki
 2002: Brazil – City of God by Fernando
Meirelles and Kátia Lund
 2005: Iraq – Underexposure by Oday
Rasheed
First docufictions by country

DOCUMENTARY FILM - ?
 A documentary film is a non-fictional, motion picture intended to "document reality,
primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record".
 Defination :- The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a
factual film which is dramatic.“ Others further state that a documentary stands out from the
other types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along
with the facts it presents
 Documentary has been described as "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and
mode of audience reception that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries".
 Documentary films were originally called "actuality films", and were one minute, or less, in
length. Over time, documentaries have evolved to be longer in length, and to include more
categories; some examples being: educational, observational, and docufiction.
 Documentaries are meant to be informative works, and are often used within schools, as a
resource to teach various principles.
 Social media platforms, such as YouTube, have provided an avenue for the growth of the
documentary film genre. These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-
of-accessibility; thereby, enhancing the ability to educate a larger volume of viewers, and
broadening the reach of persons who receive that information

DOCUMENTARY PRACTICE
•Defination :- The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as
"a factual film which is dramatic."
•Others further state that a documentary stands out from the other types of non-
fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts
it presents.
•Documentary practice is the complex process of creating documentary projects.
•Documentary practice: refers to what people do with media devices, content,
form, and production strategies in order to address the creative, ethical, and
conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make documentaries.
•Documentary filmmaking can be used as a form of journalism, advocacy, or
personal expression.

PRE-1900
•Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. They
were single-shot moments captured on film:
• A train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work.
•These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not
coined until 1926.
•Many of the first films, such as those made by Auguste and Louis Lumière,
were a minute or less in length, due to technological limitations.
•In May 1896, Bolesław Matuszewski recorded on film few surgical operations
in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg hospitals.
•In 1898, French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen invited Bolesław Matuszewski
and Clément Maurice and proposed them to recorded his surgical operations.
•They started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898.

•Until 1906, the year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations.
•Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he
had been unaware of.
•For scientific purposes, after 1906, Doyen combined 15 of his films into three
compilations, two of which survive.
•The six-film series Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées (1906), and the four-
film Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne (1911).
•These and five other of Doyen's films survive.

GEOFFREY MALINS WITH
AN AEROSCOPE CAMERA DURING WORLD
WAR I.

•Travelogue films were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. They were
often referred to by distributors as "scenics.“
• Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time.
•An important early film to move beyond the concept of the scenic was In the Land
of the Head Hunters (1914), which embraced primitivism and exoticism in a staged
story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans.
•Contemplation is a separate area. Pathé is the best-known global manufacturer of
such films of the early 20th century. A vivid example is Moscow Clad in
Snow (1909).
•Biographical documentaries appeared during this time, such as the
feature Eminescu-Veronica-Creangă (1914) on the relationship between the
writers Mihai Eminescu, Veronica Micle and Ion Creangă.
•Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor—known for the
feature With Our King and Queen Through India (1912) and Prizmacolor known
for Everywhere With Prizma (1919).

MODERN DOCUMENTARIES
1. Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly
successful in theatrical release with films such as
2. Fahrenheit 9/11,
3. Super Size Me,
4. Food, Inc.,
5. Earth,
6. March of the Penguins,
7. Religulous, and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples.
8. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower
budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a
limited theatrical release can be highly profitable.
9. The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 20 years from the
cinema verité style introduced in the 1960s in which the use of portable
camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between
filmmaker and subject.

DOCUMENTARIES WITHOUT WORDS[
Films in the documentary form without words have been made. Listen to
Britain directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister in 1942 is a wordless
meditation on wartime Britain.
From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the similar Baraka could be described as visual
tone poems, with music related to the images, but no spoken content.
Koyaanisqatsi (part of the Qatsi trilogy) consists primarily of slow
motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across
the United States.
Baraka tries to capture the great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in
daily activity and religious ceremonies.
Bodysong was made in 2003 and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best
British Documentary.“
The 2004 film Genesis shows animal and plant life in states of expansion, decay,
sex, and death, with some, but little, narration.

NARRATION STYLES
Voice-over narrator
The traditional style for narration is to have a dedicated narrator read a script
which is dubbed onto the audio track. The narrator never appears on camera
and may not necessarily have knowledge of the subject matter or involvement in
the writing of the script.
Silent narration
This style of narration uses title screens to visually narrate the documentary.
The screens are held for about 5–10 seconds to allow adequate time for the
viewer to read them. They are similar to the ones shown at the end of movies
based on true stories, but they are shown throughout, typically between scenes.
Hosted narrator
In this style, there is a host who appears on camera, conducts interviews, and
who also does voice-overs.

HYBRID DOCUMENTARY
The release of The Act of Killing (2012) directed by Joshua Oppenheimer has
introduced possibilities for emerging forms of the hybrid documentary.
Traditional documentary filmmaking typically removes signs of fictionalization in
order to distinguish itself from fictional film genres.
Audiences have recently become more distrustful of the media's traditional fact
production, making them more receptive to experimental ways of telling facts.
The hybrid documentary implements truth games in order to challenge traditional
fact production.
The hybrid documentary is not explicit about what should be understood, creating
an open dialogue between subject and audience.
Clio Barnard's The Arbor (2010), Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of
Killing (2012), Mads Brügger's The Ambassador (2011 film), and Alma
Har'el's Bombay Beach (film) (2011) are a few notable examples.

Docufiction
Docufiction is a hybrid genre from two basic ones, fiction film and documentary,
practiced since the first documentary films were made.
Fake-fiction
Pseudo-documentary § Film
Fake-fiction is a genre which deliberately presents real, unscripted events in the
form of a fiction film, making them appear as staged. The concept was introduced
by Pierre Bismuth to describe his 2016 film Where is Rocky II?
DVD documentary
A DVD documentary is a documentary film of indeterminate length that has been
produced with the sole intent of releasing it for direct sale to the public on DVD(s),
as different from a documentary being made and released first on television or on
a cinema screen.

Compilation films
Compilation films were pioneered in 1927 by Esfir Schub with The Fall of the
Romanov Dynasty.
examples include Point of Order (1964), directed by Emile de Antonio about the
McCarthy hearings. Similarly, The Last Cigarette combines the testimony of
various tobacco company executives before the U.S. Congress with archival
propaganda extolling the virtues of smoking.
Poetic documentaries
Poetic documentaries, which first appeared in the 1920s, were a sort of reaction
against both the content and the rapidly crystallizing grammar of the early fiction
film.
The poetic mode moved away from continuity editing and instead organized
images of the material world by means of associations and patterns, both in terms
of time and space.

Expository documentaries
Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an
authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a strong
argument and point of view.
These films are rhetorical, and try to persuade the viewer. (They may use a rich
and sonorous male voice.) The (voice-of-God) commentary often sounds
"objective" and omniscient.
 Images are often not paramount; they exist to advance the argument. The
rhetoric insistently presses upon us to read the images in a certain fashion.
Historical documentaries in this mode deliver an unproblematic and "objective"
account and interpretation of past events.
Examples: TV shows and films like Biography, America's Most Wanted, many
science and nature documentaries, Ken Burns' The Civil War (1990), Robert
Hughes' The Shock of the New (1980), John Berger's Ways Of
Seeing (1974), Frank Capra's wartime Why We Fight series, and Pare
Lorentz's The Plow That Broke The Plains (1936).

OBSERVATIONAL
Observational documentaries attempt to simply and spontaneously observe lived
life with a minimum of intervention.
Filmmakers who worked in this subgenre often saw the poetic mode as too
abstract and the expository mode as too didactic.
The first observational docs date back to the 1960s; the technological
developments which made them possible include mobile lightweight cameras and
portable sound recording equipment for synchronized sound.
Often, this mode of film eschewed voice-over commentary, post-synchronized
dialogue and music, or re-enactments.
The films aimed for immediacy, intimacy, and revelation of individual human
character in ordinary life situations.

FILM TEAM AT PORT OF DAR ES SALAAM WITH TWO
FERRIES

Participatory documentaries believe that it is impossible for the act of
filmmaking to not influence or alter the events being filmed. What these films do is
emulate the approach of the anthropologist: participant-observation.
Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we also get a sense of how situations
in the film are affected or altered by their presence.
Nichols: "The filmmaker steps out from behind the cloak of voice-over
commentary, steps away from poetic meditation, steps down from a fly-on-the-wall
perch, and becomes a social actor (almost) like any other.
The encounter between filmmaker and subject becomes a critical element of the
film.
Rouch and Morin named the approach cinéma vérité, translating Dziga Vertov's
kinopravda into French; the "truth" refers to the truth of the encounter rather than
some absolute truth.

Reflexive documentaries
Do not see themselves as a transparent window on the world; instead, they draw
attention to their own constructedness, and the fact that they are representations.
Performative documentaries
Stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world. They are
strongly personal, unconventional & might include hypothetical enactments of events
designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain
specific perspective on the world that is not our own, e.g. that of black, gay men in
Marlon Riggs's Tongues Untied (1989) or Jenny Livingston's Paris Is Burning (1991).
Performative docs often link up personal accounts or experiences with larger
political or historical realities.
Educational Films
Documentaries are shown in schools around the world in order to educate
students. Used to introduce various topics to children, they are often used with a
school lesson or shown many times to reinforce an idea.

An episode is a narrative unit within a larger dramatic work
or documentary production, such as a series intended for radio, television or on-
line consumption.
An episode is a coherent narrative unit within a larger dramatic work. It is
frequently used to describe units of television or radio series that are broadcast
separately in order to form one longer series.
An episode is to a sequence as a chapter is to a book. Modern series episodes
typically last 20 to 50 minutes in length.
The word derives from the Greek term (Ancient Greek: ἐπεισόδιον) (epeisodion),
meaning the material contained between two songs or odes in a Greek tragedy.

The tentative list of the most-watched television broadcasts around the world
in selected countries, with the corresponding peak viewership records, the
corresponding year of such broadcast, and the mentioned media research
organizations tallying nationwide viewership records.

HISTORY
On July 20, 1969, an estimated 650 million people watched the live global
broadcast of the Apollo 11 Moon landing (this constituted around one fifth of total
population of the world at the time)
The boxer Muhammad Ali drew record global television audiences during the
1970s to early 1980s. Estimates of Ali's worldwide television audiences for his
"Rumble in the Jungle" fight against George Foreman in 1974,"Thrilla in Manila"
fight against Joe Frazier in 1975, rematch against Leon Spinks in 1978,and "Last
Hurrah" fight against Larry Holmes in 1980, range between 1 billion and 2 billion
people.
The 1996 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, where Muhammad Ali lit the
torch, was watched by an estimated 3.5 billion viewers.
The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997 was watched by an estimated
2 billion people globally, making it the all-time most-watched royal event on live
television in the world.

IN INDIA
India measures the viewership of shows through TRP (Television Rating Point).
Shows used to have higher ratings in 2000s as compared to present decade.
The present shows that regularly score above or around the 3.5 mark
are Kumkum Bhagya, and its spin off Kundali Bhagya along with Yeh Rishta Kya
Kehlata Hai.
Sometimes these shows touch 4 which is still quite low as compared to highest
rated shows of the last decade.
Other than that Naagin (2015 TV series) is the only show now that scores above
4.7. All of these shows are produced by the same banner Balaji Telefilms except
Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai.
Currently, Bigg Boss 13 has been the most watched Show of 2020, recording an
11.3 TRP for the Final and an average of 8.3 TRP on regular episodes,being the
most watched reality show in India.
Mahabharat (1988–1990), the television adaptation of Indian epic Mahabharata,
had a share of 97.8% among Indian viewers.

Television film

The term telefilm is a portmanteau of the words "television" and "film".
A television film is a feature-length motion picture that is produced and originally
distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made
explicitly for initial showing in movie theaters.
Such a production has also been called a TV movie, TV film, television
movie, telefilm, telemovie/tele-movie, motion picture made for television.
Made-for-television movie, made-for-television film, direct-to-TV
movie, direct-to-TV film, movie of the week, feature-length drama, single
drama and original movie.

Film production was an unstable business with challenges facing early
participants.
Many television networks were hostile toward film programming, fearing that
it would loosen the network's arrangements with sponsors and affiliates by
encouraging station managers to make independent deals with advertisers
and film producers.
Conversely, beginning in the 1950s episodes of American television series
would be placed together and released as feature films in overseas cinemas.
Television networks were in control of the most valuable prime time slots
available for programming, so syndicators of independent television films had
to settle for fewer television markets and less desirable time periods.
This meant much smaller advertising revenues and license fees compared
with network-supplied programming.

PRODUCTION AND QUALITY
In a 1991 New York Times article, television critic John J. O'Connor wrote that
"few artifacts of popular culture invite more condescension than the made-for-
television movie".
Network-made television movies in the United States have tended to be
inexpensively-produced and perceived to be of low quality.
Stylistically, these films often resemble single episodes of dramatic television
series.
Television films are made to "cash in" on the interest centering on stories
currently prominent in the news, as the films based on the "Long Island Lolita"
scandal involving Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher were in 1993.

The movies tend to rely on smaller casts, one such exception being those
produced for premium cable, such as Behind the Candelabra (which featured
established film actors Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in the lead roles) and a
limited range of scene settings and camera setups.
Even Spielberg's Duel, while having decent production values, features a very
small cast (apart from Dennis Weaver, all other actors appearing in the film play
smaller roles) and mostly outdoor shooting locations in the desert.
Movie-length episodes of television shows
Occasionally, a long-running television series is used as the basis for television
movies that air during the show's run (as opposed to the above-mentioned "reunion
specials").
Typically, such movies employ a filmed single-camera setup even if the television
series is videotaped using a multiple-camera setup, but are written to be easily
broken up into individual 30- or 60-minute episodes for syndication.

Understanding TV Formats & types of format Part B

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