The documentary film production and screening practies on digital platforms: The example of BLUTV

Documentary film, with its simplest definition, is a form of cinema in which the director shoots reality with her/his own creativity. Documentaries present a genuine representation of the world in which we live. This film form has been changing and renewed as a result of its relationship with technology from historical process to the present. The process, which started with leading documentaries such as Robert Flaherty, Dziga Vertov and John Grierson, took a new form of documentary with Cinéma Vérité, Cinema Direct, Free Cinema and Candid-Eye Movements with the developments in technique in the 1960s. With portable cameras and portable audio recorders, directors were liberated, and documentaries were shown on television due to financing problems in cinema. As a result of this renewal, this film form, which has been named as documentary film in cinema and television documentary on television, takes a new name in digital platforms. Today, new media and the audince determine the production practices, form and content of documentaries on the digital platforms. Documentaries on digital platforms adopt a dynamic audio-visual language. This new documentary language consists of observational shooting, actual and moving camera, natural lighting, close-ups, fast and frequent shooting, jump cut, dynamic music and dynamic editing principles. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the new documentary language in digital platforms by examining the documentary film production and screening practies of digital platforms in the example of BluTV co-production documentaries. Interview technique, one of the qualitative research methods in social sciences, is used in the research. In this context, interviews were held with BluTV and its producers and directors. The data obtained as a result of the interviews were analyzed with the descriptive analysis method.