Documentary Styles

 

INTORDUCTION:

What is a documentary? / how would you define ‘documentary’?

A documentary film is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record".

I would define Documentary as a programme or a film that is true to life and fact-based. I think that documentary’s show what is happen in the world that you may not have known, but also show similar story’s to what people have in their everyday life’s.

What Is an Expository Documentary?

Expository documentaries set up a specific point of view or argument about a subject and a narrator often speaks directly to the viewer, emphasizing the relationship between the images presented on-screen and offering verbal commentary.

Generally, the formula is a resonating, authoritative voice (like the silky baritone of Morgan Freeman in March of the Penguins) that tells you something with corresponding footage. In (March of the Penguins you can hear A voice specking though most of the video which show they are directly specking to the viewers.

What is an Observational Documentary?

Observational documentaries eschew interviews, voice-over narration and a soundtrack, and instead present footage of real life as it unfolds. ... The effect is a documentary that tends to show, not tell, and invites each viewer to draw his or her own conclusions from the film.

5 Characteristics of an Observational Documentary:

·       Realism and immediacy

·       Handheld shots

·       Long takes

·       Little to no voice-over

·       No re-enactments

What is an interactive documentary?

A web documentary, interactive documentary, or multimedia documentary is a documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—video, audio, photographic—by applying a full complement of multimedia tools.

What is a Reflexive documentary?

Reflexive documentaries are like participatory docs in that they often include the filmmaker within the film. However, unlike participatory, most creators of reflexive documentaries make no attempt to explore an outside subject. Rather, they focus solely on themselves and the act of making the film.

In which the film maker acknowledges their Presence- they are in front of the camera and give some narrative guidance.

What is a performative documentary?

Performative documentary films focus on the filmmakers' involvement with his or her subject, using his or her personal experience or relationship with the subject as a jumping-off point for exploring larger, subjective truths about politics, history, or groups of people.

Some examples of performative documentaries are:

Tongues Untied (1989).

Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1994).

Supersize Me (2004).

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004).

 

documentary filmmaking philosophy?

The Philosophy of Documentary Film aims not only to explore the relation between reality and the filmic medium and to examine how a truth-value can be attributed to a documentary film, but also to question the strict separation of fact and fiction as such.