The Detectives - How is the 'The Detectives" Constructed?

How is the Film Constructed?

I watched an episode of an on-the-fly police documentary called The Detectives. During the course of the episode, I took notes of the codes and conventions of the documentary and the degree of harm and offence that they can cause to the viewer.

Mode of Address

The documentary consists of many various codes and conventions with varying levels of potential harm and offence.

The content is very in-depth and graphic and can evoke different emotions. For instance, the music played throughout the documentary is highly upbeat and vibrant, and some viewers may become distressed by this as the music contradicts the impact and aftermath of the actual crime.

The interviews also express graphic and unsettling descriptions of the crime and the interviews also go into extremely in-depth details about the act. This could upset the viewer and make them highly distressed. Some of the interviews also show or feature the suspects being interviewed by the police and showing no remorse, which could also contribute to the harm and offence.

As well as this, the observational footage, which includes police officers examining a suspect’s house and finding children’s names on the walls, could harm the viewer and make them feel disgusted with the documentary as a whole.

The interviews are stored in the police archives and this can make the viewer feel unsettled and harmed because the victim’s emotion, for example is entirely genuine.

The narration in the episode is very much like a story and provides even further detail into what the police and the interviewees are feeling and how the case is affecting them both emotionally and psychologically. The narration also provides some more details about what the interviewees experienced and what the long-term effects of the experience had on them.

As well as this, the narration also tells the viewer about the various obstacles that the police have to deal with in order to continue a case and bring prosecutions to the suspects. This can also cause a certain degree of harm to the viewer, as they may believe that the victims will not have justice and the case will not be pursued any further.

In addition, the narration adds a certain degree of seriousness to the documentary, as the narrator talks in an extremely seriously and melancholy tone about a traumatic and horrific incident. This may not distress as much as the music, as it follows the tone of the documentary, but it would still prove highly harmful as the narrator talks about such a subject.

 The visual imagery in this documentary is extremely varied and depicts a plethora of images that could disturb the viewer and cause them psychological harm. An example of this would be the emotions on the suspect’s face as he is being charged with the crime, which suggests that he is only concerned about his own fate. This could distress and harm the viewer and make them think that they cannot trust anyone.

On the other, the documentary also uses visual techniques such as cutaways and observational footage in an attempt to make the viewer see more of the case from the police’s perspective and the victim’s perspective to evoke sympathy and empathy.

How Does the Documentary Stick to the BBC Guidelines?

The documentary is accurate because it is in a fly-on-the-wall format that follows a major over-arching storyline and nothing that is displayed in the documentary is inaccurate.

The documentary is partly impartial, but at the same it is not. This is because the documentary expects the viewer to feel sympathy towards both the victim and the suspect, so in that sense it is impartial, yet it seems to focus more on the victim’s sympathy and the polices’ attempts to secure a conviction, so in that sense it is not impartial.

The documentary is quite harmful and offensive. The reason for this is that it informs the viewer of in-depth descriptions of a serious crime and then shows the suspect being questioned and the victims in a great amount of distress.

The documentary does seem to respect people’s right of privacy and does not include people who have not been given consent to do so. This is shown in the sense that they censor out the names of the people who have not given permission for their names to be broadcast on television.

This documentary also respects the BBC guideline regarding children and young people and their right to safeguarding and consent. This is demonstrated in the way that they choose not to show nor name the young victim of the crime.

As well as this, the documentary also acknowledges the Reporting Crime guideline. This is because the certain crime depicted in this documentary is in the public interest and also respects privacy. This is shown in the radio extracts that the crime of exploitation gained notoriety as the number of reported victims began to grow.