Documentary Mini Task

Introduction

I would define a documentary as a factual piece of cinema or television that engages the audience and specifically makes them learn something about the world.

Expository documentary

An expository documentary is when a footage of the subject matter is overdubbed with the opinions of the presenter this is a great way of showing nature and is often used for Wildlife documentary's.

Key features

• An overseeing voice that directly addresses the audience about whats happening
• Made to look objective and unbiased however it can never be the case
• Generally used for wildlife documentary as it doesn't require an on screen presenter which could make animals react un-authentically .
• Camera sped up or slowed down to add more meaning to the footage showed
• Often given additional meaning through the narrator that you wouldn't feel otherwise.

My example is the David Attenborough series Africa.  Which uses cinematography to turn a fight over territory between two giraffes into something that was as much tension and meaning as a spaghetti western.





Observational documentary

An observational documentary is that of a camera that acts as a fly on the wall to the lives of those it's watching.

Key features

•  No speaking to try and show life with as little variation as possible.
•  Little editing. Obvious camera movements inside shots.
• Commercially very niche film-making
• Camera movements often done by hand
• It feels like there was very little equipment used besides the camera and a shotgun mic on top of it
• Extremely long takes

My example is the 1967 fly on the wall documentary for Bob Dylan.  Don't look back was a documentary Following Bob Dylan on his 1965 tour It was made by D.A Pennebraker who also did the famous Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from Mars a documentary into David Bowie which was filmed in a similar style.




Interactive documentary

An Interactive documentary is that the filmmaker who gets involved in the world they are trying to expose. This is often caused by them expressing their views on camera conducting interviews and even sometimes shaping the structure of the documentary to suit their purpose.

Key features

• A Narrator / Presenter 
• Arguments and different agendas as they are often entertaining to watch.
• Arguably the most popular along with expository
• Can take place over multiple weeks as you see a presenter hunt for some information or somebody else to interview.

My example is a personal favorite looking into the man who eats badges the original documentary 

The man who eats badgers and other tales from Bodmin Moores 

Which follows a group of excentrics inside the isolated Bodmin. This won multiple awards due to its off the wall nature.

Unfortunately due to an issue with You-Tube the intended documentary (Daniel Vernon) was sadly unavailable to me sadly unavailable to me so I made do and found a 20 minute doc on just this man alone.

Reflexive documentary

A reflexive documentary experiments with the classic assumptions of documentary film-making it attempts to challenge and expose these methods.

Key Features

• Breaks the rules of contemporary and logical film making
• Often relies on meaning and subtext instead of what is said
• Often very abstract
• Its possible to have no form of chronology in a reflexive documentary

An amazing example of this I have discovered is the 1929 silent movie Man With A Movie Camera. For a very long time this has fluctuated in the critical top ten best movies of all time list.






Performative Documentary

Per formative documentary is a documentary form where you re-intact a series of events because there is no existing footage of the event, animals or person.

Key Feature

• Staged out too better control meaning
• Based on real events played out like a drama
• Often makes use of presenters 
• Utalisies better production values as they can use extra lighting and effects too enhance mood.

An example of this would be the BBC television show Walking with Dinosaurs which followed CGI representations of the extinct creatures.  This show functioned like a presented wildlife show however all of the creatures shown where CGI models made to interact with the presenter In the style of creatures they inspire.



Dramatizations

People argue whether or not dramatizations are actually viably authentic as a form of informing people.
On one hand it is much easier to clarify the information however the information shown will not be as precise and you cannot guarantee the validity.


Poetic documentary?
Poetic Documentary is another documentary mode I have discovered evidence of it strikes me as very similar as reflexive documentary. Again playing with the conventions of a more con formative documentary it explores with metaphor and suggestion allot more than direct images.

Personal contract with the viewer

I believe that documentary film-making needs to have 100% authentic truth however I am still subjective to my cause as in my opinion telling the truth doesn't mean you have to spout the truth at every oppotunity.  Eg A female friend asks if she looks fat in a dress. Instead of telling a white lie just saying nothing is 100% honest as you haven't made a part of conversation that's untrue.  This attitude to film-making alows me to be subjective in my editing however still ethically viable in my production.

Access and Privacy

All documentary types require specific regulations in the same way dramas do.  Ofcoms polices on personal privacy are the keystone to this however documentary makers are also required to have there own code of ethics for practice.  These regulations are in place to protect people from the eye of public and the forces of documentary makes and paparazzi chasing them.

An example of things in the Ofcom regulations could be. Door stepping ( When you stop somebody outside of there home for an interview where you haven't arranged anything prior like "Vox Pops" )



Conclusion


In conclusion I can't say I can pick just one of these types as I have to pick from authenticity and creativity and therefore I need to pick two.  Creatively I like reflexive documentary as it feels like the director is trying to tell authentic truths through abstract perceptions. Before I worked on a team for an interactive documentary I would have argued that it was the most authentic form of documentary making, however now with experience of making some it feels allot more constructed.  The documentary form that I feel is most authentic might have to be Observational as there is so little done to change the footage already shown.