TV Theory: 'One Born Every Minute' review (Week 1, Term 2)

Season 1, Episode 1 (2010)

One Born Every Minute (2010-) is a medical documentary filmed inside the labour wards at hospitals in Southampton, Leeds, and Bristol, which airs on Channel 4.

Review: 

The thing I found most surprising was how this show portrayed the patients as well as the everyday lives of the staff on the ward. This gave it more of a sense of observational realism, defined by Keith Beattie (2004:15) as being something that, ‘produces the effect that what we are seeing is a record of reality as it unfolds’. To create this effect ‘40 cameras were fixed to the walls of several birth rooms, the corridors and the ward offices’ (Rogers, 2010), allowing raw footage to be captured from several angles without the need for a camera crew to be present, making it much less invasive. I found that this setup allowed realism to be present as the way the people acted seemed natural and therefore birth was presented how it is, as they were just normal people, not actors. However, what made this interesting to me was that I was able to identify with the people as they did not mind having what is a special and somewhat vulnerable moment in their life filmed. As stated by Elizabeth Cowie (1999, 31), I found this identification was caused by ‘taking up the position of the social actors presented by the documentary, so that we are moved by their stories as if they were our own’, as all aspects of the birth were seen, including shots of worried expectant mothers talking to doctors, staff reflecting on their jobs framed as talking heads, and even shots of the receptionist chatting on the phone, showing how the ward operated. Overall, I think this camera setup showing the whole ward allows the programme to achieve it’s goal of showing ‘an alternative’ (Channel 4, 2015) as although it is not glamourized in any way, it doesn’t present birth as being traumatic, but rather as a miracle.

Bibliography: 

Beattie, K. (2004) Documentary screens: Non-fiction film and television. (1st ed.) Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 15.

Rogers, J. (2010) 'One born every minute ... how it was for us' In: RCM midwives 01.04.2010 [online] At: http://go.galegroup.com.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA224933803&docType=Article&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=&prodId=AONE&contentSet=GALE%7CA224933803&searchId=R1&userGroupName=ucca&inPS=true (Accessed on 16 January 2018)

Cowie, E. (1999) ‘The Spectacle of Actuality’ In: Gaines, M. and Renov, Michael (ed.) Collecting Visible Evidence. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. p. 31.

Channel 4. (2015) One Born Every Minute – About the show. At: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/one-born-every-minute/articles/about-the-series/about-the-show/796 (Accessed on 16 January 2018)