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Thinking about non-fiction films
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In developing this resource we have chosen to focus on 'non-fiction' films as a broader category than 'documentary' films.
In our previous short films packs for primary and secondary schools, we have tackled how to work with short films in English by simplifying ways of analysing films through 'Cs and Ss' - camera, colour, character, sound, setting, story. For students who are ready to move beyond these basic categories, we have separated them into different categories of 'code'. Cultural codes are those categories of textual study that are to some extent independent of specific media: character, story, symbol, sequence, setting, for example, are all recognisable areas of study for drama, literature, and film teachers. Technical codes are those categories that are specific to one or other medium, so, in moving image media, would include camera, sound, colour, cutting, composition.
In the first section here we deal with categories of study that are broadly cultural - that is, we identify categories that cross over between non-fiction in print and film; we then look at how the technical codes - film language - are specifically applied in non-fiction films.
