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, 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.