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Fly on the wall

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Style of documentary-making For other uses, see Fly on the wall (disambiguation).
A camera up on a wall recording what is happening in the room

Fly on the wall is a style of documentary-making used in film and television production. The name derived from the idea that events are seen candidly, as a fly on a wall might see them. In the purest form of fly-on-the-wall documentary-making, the camera crew works as unobtrusively as possible; however, it is also common for participants to be interviewed, often by an off-camera voice.

Decades before structured reality shows became popular, the BBC had broadcast fly-on-the-wall film Royal Family (a 1969 documentary produced in association with ITV), while 1974's The Family, is said to be the earliest example of a reality TV docusoap on the BBC. In 1978 the BBC aired Living in the Past recreating a British Iron Age settlement. In the late 1990s, Chris Terrill's docusoap series The Cruise made a star of singer and TV personality Jane McDonald, while Welsh cleaner Maureen Rees became popular after her appearances on BBC One's Driving School.

Other British examples include Airline, Dynamo: Magician Impossible and Channel 4's Educating... series, while in the United States popular examples include American Factory, Cops, Deadliest Catch, Big Brother and Weiner, a film about a political sex scandal which developed during a mayoral election in New York.

See also

References

  1. "BFI Screenonline: 'Fly on the Wall' TV".
  2. "'Royal Family': the fly-on-the-wall documentary the Palace doesn't want you to see". HistoryExtra.
  3. "Royal family documentary 'banned' by the Queen resurfaces online 50 years later". Stuff. January 29, 2021.
  4. Shaw, Neil (January 29, 2021). "Banned Royal family documentary from 1969 resurfaces on Youtube".
  5. "BBC - History of the BBC, April 1974 - The Family - the first 'fly-on-the-wall' documentary". BBC.
  6. "The Family first episode". bbc.com.
  7. Miller, Laura (August 18, 2008). "The family says goodbye".
  8. "The Wilkinses of Reading: Where Are They Now?". The Independent. October 23, 2011.
  9. "The Cruise" – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  10. "BBC One - The Cruise, Let the Dream Begin". BBC.
  11. "BBC One - The Cruise". BBC.
  12. "Jane McDonald | Biography & History". AllMusic.
  13. "Jane McDonald | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company". www.officialcharts.com.
  14. "New series of Cruising with Jane McDonald to start this Friday | GoCruise & Travel Franchise". www.joingocruiseandtravel.co.uk.
  15. "Biography".
  16. Owens, David (December 23, 2018). "In search of Mo from Driving School". WalesOnline.
  17. "Driving School". bbc.com.
  18. "MAUREEN REES | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company". Official Charts.
  19. Barnes, Henry (30 June 2016). "Weiner – how a film about a political sex scandal suddenly got more intimate | Weiner | The Guardian". The Guardian.


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