Fly on the wall

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.

[1] 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),[2][3][4] while 1974's The Family, is said to be the earliest example of a reality TV docusoap on the BBC.

[5][6][7][8] 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[9][10][11] made a star of singer[12] and TV personality Jane McDonald,[13][14][15] while Welsh cleaner Maureen Rees[16] became popular after her appearances on BBC One's[17] Driving School.

[18] 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.