Introduction to Documentary Production A Guide for Media Students Edited by Searle Kochberg
2002
192 pages
1-903364-37-X	£15.99 (pbk)
1-903364-46-9	£45.00 (hbk)

This introductory book, drawn from the industry and college experience of the contributors themselves, maps out for students the key issues that will inform their first documentary productions.

Introduction to Documentary Production: A Guide for Media Students is a comprehensive review of the main practical and ethical issues which college students must take on board in their non-fiction productions. In the book, the process of documentary filmmaking proceeds logically chapter by chapter, from research and development, through pre-production and production to post-production. Included are sections on documentary script and structure, directorial style, target audiences, production management, camera techniques, sound, editing and new technologies. The chapters are all written by specialists in their given area. Collectively, the contributors make up the staff responsible for studies in Video Production at the University of Portsmouth. For this reason they have chosen examples which help bridge the gap between the world of college and the world of commercial production.

Searle Kochberg is Course Leader of the BA in Video Production at the University of Portsmouth. He has published widely on Film Studies and acts as a consultant to various media-related organisations.

	Reality TV Realism and Revelation Anita Biressi and Heather Nunn
	2005
	208 pages
	1-904764-04-5	£15.99 (pbk)
	1-904764-05-3	£45.00 (hbk)

Reality television has little to do with reality and everything to do with television form and content. Reality TV: Realism and Revelation takes the reality television phenomenon to be a significant movement within documentary and factual programming. This book analyses new and hybrid genres including observational documentaries, talk shows, game shows, docu-soaps, dramatic reconstructions, law and order programming and 24/7 formats such as Big Brother and Survivor. These programmes are both popular with audiences and heavily debated in the media; they are at the centre of heated discussions about tabloidisation, media ethics, voyeurism and the representation of the real. Through detailed case studies this book breaks new ground by linking together two major themes: the production of realism and its relationship to revelation. It addresses ‘truth telling’, confession and the production of knowledges about the self and its place in the world.

Anita Biressi is Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Surrey, Roehampton. She is the author of Crime, Fear and the Law in True Crime Stories (2001). Heather Nunn is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Surrey, Roehampton. She is the author of Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy: The Political Culture of Gender and Nation (2002).

‘The showbiz energies of popular factual entertainment have placed an instructive pressure on our sense of what "documentary" was, is and could be. Here is a measured overview, critically astute in drawing comparisons and illuminating in the use it makes of film and television history.’

– John Corner, University of Liverpool

Big Brother International Formats, Critics and Publics Edited by Ernest Mathijs and Janet Jones
2004
288 pages
1-904764-18-5	£15.99 (pbk)
1-904764-19-3	£45.00 (hbk)

Big Brother is one of the key cultural phenomena to mark the move into the twenty-first century. Both scandal and commercial hit, it has revolutionised television practice, changing the status of live multimedia events and challenging cultural theory.

Big Brother International: Formats, Critics and Publics tells the story of its international impact. It chronicles many of the most striking moments of the show’s global career, from the sexual exploits in Italy, near-bans in Germany and Africa and the cheating of Nasty Nick, to American attempts at sabotage, putting these events in perspective by linking them to their respective cultural contexts and media audiences. This multinational volume includes essays on Big Brother in Africa, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, Uruguay and the US. Media scholars from around the world have collaborated to compose an integrated view on Big Brother as a first step in our relationship with media culture in the twenty-first century.

Ernest Mathijs is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is the co-editor of Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 (2004) and editor of The Cinema of the Low Countries (2004). Janet Jones is Lecturer in Television Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Formerly she was an editor at the BBC. Her research has been published in New Media and Society and the Journal of Media Practice.