Radio Feature and Documentary

Feature

A feature is a report or story about a specific theme, issue, community or person. It

is often a regular item in a news or magazine show and a more in-depth discussion
of a topic. Radio terminology can differ from station to station, so you may find
that this type of report is also called a package.

There are various types of features. These programmes generally aim to entertain,
inform and sometimes even influence thought and action. Subjects could include a
leading news story of the day, a sidelight on the news, a report from America, or an
essay on environmental degradation.
In preparing features, you may encounter many of the problems faced in producing
documentaries and informational programmes. A sound structural plan is as
important to feature writing as to other programmes dealing with information. You
should clearly define the general purpose and the central idea before you start
writing. A relevant and logical succession of supporting points should also be
prepared.
The beginning and ending of a broadcast feature are particularly important. Your
beginning should be able to ‘catch’ the listener’s attention. If your beginning fails
to grip, chances are that you have lost your listeners. The conclusion is equally
important because it leaves the audience with a last impression which will ensure
memorability, or guarantee that what you have written will not soon be forgotten.

Experience has shown that material with certain qualities has a high potentiality for
maintaining interest. Among the devices that will help to hold your audiences are
the following: the introduction refers to something striking, novel, or unusual;
references to the familiar; ideas in opposition conflict); suspense slow disclosure)
and specific material which makes abstract ideas concrete.

The feature today uses a number of forms and techniques of broadcasting; and
producers have to know the potential of each form and technique, and the best way
to utilize them in a feature. They are:
1. The running commentary
2. The field interview
3. The eye-witness account
 4. Canned music
5. Drama excerpts

Requirement of Feature
Every feature calls for an idea, research and a script. Some features need actors,
sound effects and music. Many call for extensive recording of sound and voices.
All call for three main processes:
a) Research b Writing and c Production.

Research

The search for material-the living contact with what one is writing about – is really
the heart of the matter. This keeps the vision fresh and renews the inspiration. This
is no mechanical word-spinning.

Feature Script-writing
There are two types of scripts involved in feature-writing:
1. The script commissioned from the writer
2. The script written by the producer himself

The writer/producer will throw himself into the research. He will talk by the hour;
to anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the subject. He will prepare
lists of likely experts and actuality sounds. He will audition narrators and voices.
He will undertake long journeys, if the budget permits, to secure authentic first-
hand information. Finally, he will write his basic script.

When the script is commissioned from the writer, it has the advantage of bringing
two minds and two skills to bear on the subject in hand. The writer has expert
knowledge. He is the one who knows. The producer is the one who transforms,
into radio form, the script. He, by his command of techniques, sense of timing and
sound-values, makes the author’s conception come alive at the microphone and on
the air. As radio features have developed, the tendency has been for the scriptwriter
to be his own producer.

In the second case, where the writer and producer are one, he ‘hears’ the
programme as he writes his script, quite often with specific voices and effects in
mind. But common to both methods are three main processes by which a feature is
produced: a) Research b Writing and c) Production. All successful feature writing
is a distillation of personal experience.

A newsreel is a form of short documentary radio programme regularly released

containing news stories and items of topical interest. It is a source of news, current
affairs and entertainment for millions of radio listeners. Newsreels are considered
significant documents, since they are often the only audio record of cultural events.
Newsreels are typically featured as short subjects preceding the main subject.

Feature Production
one of the richest and most rewarding sources to draw on for features is the world
in which we live. The outside Broadcasting Van and travelling microphone have,
over the years thoroughly exploited this field. Mobile recording techniques have
frequently helped to garner exciting and priceless sound for the feature producer,
whose business is with reality-real men and women, in their natural habitat-at
home, at work, or at play. It is no longer necessary for the feature producer to
imitate reality. He can now go direct to the sources-photographs in sound-edit and
shape them. It s a capacity unique to the feature programme-the stuff of reality-
shaped in a disciplined way and patterned into a form, controlled by a single,
creative mind. The feature programme marked the birth of creative broadcasting.

Structure of a Feature

The structure of a feature is influenced by many factors.

1. The Length - Are you doing a quick piece or a longer story with a more
documentary-like feel? Features can be any length, from a few minutes to
30 minutes, or sometimes even longer.
2. Location - Features are almost always recorded in the field, rather than in the
studio. That's why include: the location is an important element in the story.
How will you make the most of different sounds to tell the story and paint
pictures for the listener?
3. Resources - How many sources of information, and other ingredients, are
you using and how will they be included? You will probably use at least
some of the following:
 I. Interview clips. How many interviews do you need in a feature?
There's no easy answer to that question. But your feature needs to
focus on more than one angle if it is going to be really satisfying.
II. Sounds (for example, background traffic, a busy market, crowds
cheering).
III. On-the-spot descriptions from a reporter (sometimes called stand-ups)
IV. "Vox pops" - or quick comments from citizens or people on the street
about the issue you're covering
4. Deadline - Are you covering a current news event (in which case you'd want
to complete the piece quickly) or are you investigating a story about a long-
developing social issue (for which you can take more time)?
5. Placement - Will the feature appear in a news program or a magazine
program? Features can be used in both types of programs so placement will
influence everything from the angle you choose to the final length of your
piece.

Here are a couple of tips to help you make a feature:

a. Ingredients in a feature
b. Plan of action for producing a feature
c. Logging your recordings

Both news and magazine programs use features. However, because the goals of
those programs are quite different, the features used in each are also different.
RADIO DOCUMENTARY

Documentary is any feature or programme that is based on ‘documents’. Defined

this way, it is a form directed forwards presenting a factual record about real
people, things, and events. It sets out not just to ‘entertain’ but to explore.
However, documentary attempts to persuade and thus the social relevance of
documentary are immense.

A radio documentary or feature is a radio documentary programme devoted to

covering a particular topic in some depth, usually with a mixture of commentary
and sound pictures. Some radio features, especially those including specially
composed music or other pieces of audio art, resemble radio drama in many ways,
though non-fictional in subject matter, while others consist principally of more
straightforward, journalistic-type reporting – but at much greater length than found
in an ordinary news report.

Planning for Documentary

Research: Having written the basic planning notes, the producer must then make
the programme within the allocated resources of time, money, people, etc. Now
the decision is whether to call on a specialist writer or to write one’s own
script. Depending on this will rest the matter of further research – perhaps it
is possible to obtain the services of a research assistant or reference library.

Structure: There are styles of documentary programme which make no use at all
of links, but each item flows naturally from one to the next, pointing forward in an
intelligible juxtaposition. This is not easy to do but can often be more atmospheric.

Collecting Material: Much of the material will be gathered in the form of location
interviews, if possible while at sea during a fishing trip. If it has been decided that
there will be no narrator, it is important to ensure that the interviewees
introduce themselves – It must be decided whether the interviewer’s voice is to
remain as part of the interviews. It may be feasible for all the interviewing to be
done by one person, who is also possibly the producer, and for the programme
to be presented in the form of a personal investigative report programme should be
consistent to its own structure. But form and style are infinitely variable and it is
important to explore new ways of making programmes – clarity is the key.
Impression and Truth
The professional broadcaster knows that many simulated sounds or specially
recorded effects create a more accurate impression than the real thing. The
producer concerned not simply with truth but with credibility may use non-
authentic sounds only if they give an authentic impression. The same principle
applies to the rather more difficult question of fabrication. To what extent may the
producer create a ‘happening’ for the purpose of the programme? Of course, it may
be necessary to ‘stage manage’ some of the action.

Music
The current practice is to make little use of music in documentary programmes,
perhaps through a concern that it can too easily generate anatmosphere, which
should more properly be created by real-life voices and situations. However,
producers will quickly recognize those subjectsthat lend themselves to special
treatment.

Compilation
Having planned, researched and structured the programme, written the basic script
and collected material, the producer must assemble it so as to meet the original
brief within the time allotted. First, a good opening. Two suggestions which could
apply to the earlier example of the programme on the fishing industry

Programme sequence
There are few rules when it comes to deciding the programme sequence. What
matters is that the end result makes sense – not simply to the producer, who is
thoroughly immersed in the subject and knows every nuance of what was left out
as well as what was included, but to the listener who is hearing it all for the first
time. The most consistent fault with documentaries is not with their content but in
their structure. Examples of such problems are insufficient ‘signposting’, the reuse
of a voice heard sometime earlier without repeating the identification, or a change
in the convention regarding the narrator or interviewer. For the producer who is
close to the material it is easy to overlook a simple matter which may present a
severe obstacle to the listener. The programme maker must always be able to stand
back and take an objectively detached view of the work as its shape emerges.

The ending
To end, there are limitless alternatives. Here are some suggestions:
 1. To allow the narrator to sum up – useful in some types of schools
programme or where the material is so complex or the argument so
interwoven that some form of clarifying résumé is desirable.
2. To repeat some of the key statements using the voices of the people who
made them.
3. To repeat a single phrase which appears to encapsulate the situation.
4. To speculate on the future with further questions.
5. To end with the same voice and actuality sounds as those used at the
opening.
6. To do nothing, leaving it to the listener to form an assessment of the subject.
This is often a wise course to adopt if moral judgments are involved.

Contributors
The producer has a responsibility to those asked to take part. It is first to tell them
as much as possible of what the programme is about. Provide them with the overall
context in which their contribution is to be used. Second, tell them, prior to
transmission, if their contribution has had to be severely edited or omitted
altogether. Third, whenever possible, let contributors know in advance the day and
time of transmission. These are simple courtesies and the reason for them is
obvious enough. Whether they receive a fee or not, contributors to documentary
programmes generally take the process extremely seriously, often researching
additional material to make sure their facts are right. They frequently put their
professional or personal reputation at risk in expressing a view or making a
prediction. The producer must keep faith with them in keeping them up to date as
to how they will appear in the final result.

Difference between Feature and Documentary

A former Head of BBC Features Department, Laurence Gilliam, described the

feature programmeas ‘a combination of the authenticity of the talk with the
dramatic force of a play, but unlike the play, whose business is to create dramatic
illusion forits own sake, the business of the feature is to convince the listener of the
truth of what it is saying, even though it is saying it in dramatic form’.

Whereas the documentary must distinguish carefully between fact and fiction and
have a structure which separates fact from opinion, the feature programme does not
have the same formal constraints. Here all possible radio forms meet: poetry,
music, voices, sounds – the weird and the wonderful. They combine in an attempt
to inform, to move, to entertain or to inspire the listener. The ingredients may be
interview or vox pop, drama or discussion, and the sum total can be fact or fantasy.

The possible subject material for the feature ranges more widely than
the documentary, since it embraces even the abstract: a programme on the
development of language. The production techniques and sequence are the same as
for a documentary – statement of intent, planning, research, script, collection of
material, assembly, final editing. In a documentary the emphasis is on the
collection of the factual material. Here, the work centres on the writing of the
script – a strong storyline, clear visual images, the unfolding of a sequence of
events with the skill of the dramatist, the handling of known facts but still with a
feeling of suspense. Some of the best programmes have come from the
producer/writer who can hear the end result begin to come together even while
doing the research. Only through immersion in the subject comes the qualification
to present it to the rest of us.