Documentary Essay (mini-task)

What is a documentary?

A documentary is a factual piece of media in which pictures or interviews with people in real life situations are used to provide a factual report on a particular subject. For example, the 'crazy gang' was a documentary based on the Wimbledon FC side of the 1980's.

Documentaries all share the similarity of creating a factual program to educate the viewer on a topic that they may or may not be new to. However, there are different types of documentaries in which they take up different styles, the first of which is:

Expository documentaries: 
An expository documentary consists of images with an authoritative voice over telling the viewer what is happening. It is important that the narrator tells the audience what is happening, this is due to this type of documentary often looking to provide or support a point. All facts and arguments are provided by the narrator, so the viewer knows exactly what to think and believe, often having their opinion for them in the form of a narrator. The images on screen will  be seen in the way that the narrator wants you to see them, whether they are trying to paint a positive or negative picture.

An example of an expository documentary would be: A BBC documentary called: Ocean Voyager. This features sea life in their natural habitats with a voiceover telling the viewer exactly what is happening on screen. 

Observational documentaries: An observational documentary presents a 'slice of life' in which the filmmaker has no intervention and just serves as a bystander to what is happening in the documentary, they also remain hidden from the audience, this helps to maintain realism at all times throughout the documentary. These are focused on what is not contained, For example, commentary,inter titles and interviews,  this allows the viewer to focus on what is happening, also it allows the people in the documentary to help form the viewers opinion instead of the narrator, you could argue that this helps the viewer to gain an unbiased view. This is supported by the fact that they are non judgmental so aim not to take sides meaning that audiences decide for themselves what to think from what they have seen on screen.

An example of an observational documentary would be: A documentary made by 'Vice' on YouTube which looks into a small slice of a Cannibal's life, it is the perfect example of an observational documentary as it is a small look into a Cannibal's life.

Interactive documentaries: In an interactive documentary the filmmakers presence is clear, they are a participant in the documentary there is clear interactions between the filmmaker and the people in which they are interviewing and also the audience, as the audience can feel something from the conversation in which the filmmaker and interviewee are having. These are usually made due to an agenda being present, meaning that the filmmaker is trying to shape the audiences opinion to the same in which they have. Editing is key to these as tricks can be used to support what the filmmaker wants so show.
These have been under fire for misrepresentation and manipulation, however they have been defended by some filmmakers due to the images being more important than the finer details.
An example of an interactive documentary is: Bowling for Columbine this is a prime example of an interactive documentary, seen as a very good documentary although it is infamous for using editing tricks to help manipulate the audiences views.



Reflexive documentaries: In this type of documentary the filmmaker looks to show the audience different conventions of documentary.
The construction of these documentaries are experimented with in many different ways. These consist of shots of everyday life but these are then the foundations in which can be made into vastly different and very experimental films which can vary in many different ways.
An example of a Reflexive documentary would be: Territories as is manipulates footage in an artistic way so that the meaning of the footage in the documentary is 'created'. For example, there is repition to make a point and images are layered to create links between them.



Performative documentary: Performative documentaries represent the world indirectly with an emphasis in the presentation rather than the content in which it consists of. These make use of re-enactments to show the viewer what happened and put an image in their head of the events that occured, they also use soundtracks to draw the audience on and attempt to push their emotions in a certain direction depending on the scene that is being shown
An example of a performative documentary would be: Crimewatch as it shows reenactments of crimes based on testimony.

Personally I like observational documentaries as they appear more real as there is less interference from the filmmaker and the events seem less manipulated.