Documentary Mini Task

Documentary Mini Task

A documentary is a piece of media put together in the effort of making it informational about a particular topic, there is usually interviews and footage of things that relate to the subject.

There are 5 different types of documentary that is possible to create.

Firstly there is Expository documentaries, these mostly consist of either a dramatic or calming commentary talking about a particular view of a subject and this accompanies  images and footage of what is being narrated. The narrator's function is to make sense of the visuals that we see and to inform the viewer of what they are watching. This often means that the viewer takes the narrators word that what they are seeing and what is being said is true. David Attenborough is famous for narrating expository nature documentaries; although he is present in some scenes, he largely narrates the action on screen. For example, in this clip of Planet Earth he is telling us about the Vampire Squid From Hell Vampyroteuthis as we see images of it from a submersible.

The next type of documentary is an Observational, this is where the filmmaker would follow a particular group or person, and observe their actions and in most of these documentaries there is rarely any voice overs or interviews. The filmmaker's presence is unknown and they are seen as 'flys on the wall'. They include long takes and can be created with basic filming equipment. These productions are made with the intention of the viewer coming to their own conclusions about the person and subject. A good example of this is Armadillo, it's about a group of soldiers from Denmark who got sent to Afghanistan, for the most part, there is no voice over or narration, and appears to show footage from when the filmmaker followed soldiers as they put their lives on the line, without interfering or manipulating them.




Thirdly, there is Interactive documentaries, these documentaries have a very present filmmaker or documentarist who engages with the subjects / objects and the audience. Interactive documentaries often focus as much on the presenter / filmmaker as they do on the topic and the names of the presenters become well known. Ross Kemp, Louis Theroux and Michael Moore all make documentary films in this way. In Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore uses footage of himself interacting with subjects in the documentary and archive footage to inform teh audience and present his point of view.

Fourthly, there is reflexive documentaries, these usually involve a focus on teh construction of the documentary rather than the topic / content. One of the first was Man with a Movie Camera as it was looking at how technology could be used to tell a story. A well known film maker in this category is Nick Broomfield, who is famous for his independent film making skills, he often shoots with very little camera crew, and sometimes even on his own to make the production as personal as possible to both him and the viewer.

The last type is performative documentaries, these productions usually include more reenactments, and a controversial outlook on the topic, a popular genre for this type of documentary is things such as murder mysteries and crime documentaries, an example of this is a documentary made a couple years after both Biggie and Tupac were gunned down, there were dramatic interviews and reenactments that feature key members of the both the police force and Death Row Records speaking about the incident, and their opinions of the situations and what happened.

My general philosophy of filmmaking to do with documentaries is that I think it's important to be genuine and give an evenly sided viewpoint of the topic, but also give the viewer enough information to come to their own conclusions on the subject. For example, Louis Theroux does a very good job at asking questions to the interviewee that leads to honest and answers that lets the Audience think what they want about them. I also think that if a documentary ever dramatizes the truth to the viewer, then this should be declared.