U27

LO2.2 Documentary report

Definition
Example
Example explained why

Documentary formats

Expository - Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often in the
form of an authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a
strong argument and point of view. These films are rhetorical, and try to
persuade the viewer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfafGx3LPBo - Americas Most Wanted

This documentary has voice overs and presenters who talk directly to the viewer
and use images and enactments to provoke to create certain types of emotions in
the views. They want to make the viewer feel and certain way and feel a certain
way about these crimes and criminals.

Observational - Observational documentaries attempt to simply and spontaneously
observe lived life with a minimum of intervention. Filmmakers who worked in
this sub-genre often saw the poetic mode as too abstract and the expository
mode as too didactic. The first observational docs date back to the 1960s; the
technological developments which made them possible include mobile
lightweight cameras and portable sound recording equipment for synchronized
sound. Often, this mode of film eschewed voice-over commentary, post-
synchronized dialogue and music, or re-enactments. The films aimed for
immediacy, intimacy, and revelation of individual human character in ordinary
life situations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GQzkzmRpDU - LOOK BACK DON'T LOOK BACK

This documentary follows a band; they dont try to show things not for how it is.
We just follow the bad and see things for how it is. There is no presenter or voice
over, we just see events unfold and the documentary gives us a full over look of
how what was going on and what they where doing.

Interactive - An interactive documentary that is made well will allow the filmed
people to express their opinions and views, and the film maker may juxtapose
one opinion with a contrary opinion, therefore offering the spectator a balanced
view. It arose from the availability of same mobile equipment & desire to make
filmmakers perspective more evident. This mode wants to engage with
individuals more directly while not reverting to classic exposition interview
styles. It allows filmmaker to account for past events via witnesses and experts
whom viewer can also see. Archival footage becomes appended to these
commentaries to avoid hazards of re-enactment & monolithic claims of voice of
god commentary. Interactive documentary would include any attempt to
document the real that utilises digital technology and forms of interactivity

either in the form of delivery technology or through production processes. Aston

& Gaudenzi (2012) argue that in fact interactive documentaries are not the result
of a linear evolution of the documentary genre. But a distinct and separate mode
of practice that goes beyond simple representation of the real, moving towards
one that constructs the real through an immersive and enacted user experience.
http://geld.gr/gr/ - Money And The Greeks
The documentary follows a border story and allows the viewer to experience the
documentary in there own way. They have choices to make and can adventure
though the documentary in different ways. Giving the viewer a choice on what
part the watch next letting them discover at there own pace and revelling things
in there own way. They have made the presentation of the video interactive
giving the viewer choice.
Reflexive - a reflexive documentary, the filmmaker acknowledges their presence
in front of the camera and provides a narrative to the documentary. The reflexive
style of documentary is usually associated with experimental documentaries,
where the viewer is just as interested about how the film is constructed, as they
are the actual content. They dont see themselves as a transparent window on
the world; instead they draw attention to their own contractedness, and the fact
that they are representations. How do documentary films represent the world?
This question is central to this sub-genre of films. They prompt us to question
the authenticity of documentary in general. It is the most self-conscious of all
the modes, and is highly sceptical of realism. It may use alienation strategies to
jar us, in order to de-familiarize what we are seeing and how we are seeing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MspO5rC6Vps - TALES OF THE GRIM
SLEEPER

The reason this is a reflexive documentary is because they look into the truth
and question a lot of officials. The documentary doesnt set up a good or bad guy
they want the viewer to question who did what, and who is in the right and who
is in the wrong.

Performative - stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world.
They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or
experimental, and might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to
make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain specific
perspective on the world that is not our own, e.g. that of black, gay men in
Marlon Riggss Tongues Untied (1989) or Jenny Livingstons Paris Is Burning
(1991). This sub-genre might also lend itself to certain groups (e.g. women,
ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, etc) to speak about themselves. Often, a
battery of techniques, many borrowed from fiction or avant-garde films, are
used. Performative docs often link up personal accounts or experiences with
larger political or historical realities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2zzc9ZDGu0 - The Danube Exodus

This documentary looks at the subject of historical events. And using archive and
home footage to show a different look at these big events in a personal way. They
talk about history in a different way as its not all fact its more showing the
frottage and giving a felling for the event.

Realism
Placing the audience in the action with Location Shooting some hand-held
camerawork, Natural Light, Following the action live. Film-makers visible
presence. Synchronous sound recording Interviews with witnesses. Techniques
that allow the audience to be objective Voiceover Archive footage Expert
Material shaped into a narrative Material structured into an argument. They
follow real events and people and often record most of it then and there. The
media always mediate or encode reality. It is therefore impossible to gain a first-
hand direct experience of the world via the media, no matter how transparent
or virtual their representation of reality is. More gritty and showing things for
how they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE_PkUc3C7I - Ross Kemp On Gangs
Los Angeles

This TV documentary is realism because they focus on interviews and showing
real people. Things are shown almost in real time and for how they are. There is
not exactly one overall story they are just showing things for how they are and
giving an insight in to that life and place.

Dramatisation
A docudrama (or documentary drama) which features dramatized re-
enactments of actual events. it is sometimes known as documentary theatre. Its
basically a television programme whose story is based on an event or situation
that really happened, even though it is not intended to be accurate in every
detail. Often seen in documentaries that are prejudice and bias. Dramatisation is
the exaggeration that gets built up within a documentary. Dramatisation can
sometimes be very bad in the way that its really strong towards a certain view
but also the general narration and the documentary is self has become over
exaggerated. Rather then using real people you can have actors who re-enact the
event, its more for entertainment purposes rather then for a educational one. Its
more dramatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXh9AQDqWLY - The Mouldy Burger

This example shows a real event that happened. We have voice over from the
person at the event, but the footage we see has been filmed since the actual
event, they made acted version to give a almost true representation of what
happened for understanding of the event.

Narrativisation
Narrativisation is normally always seen or heard in a documentary. Narrative is
an effective way of addressing to the audience and telling the story or in this case
the documentary. They basically presenting what happened in the format of a

story with a beginning, middle and end. Its mainly the from of structure they use.
Narrativism in documentaries is communicating events or experiences to
audiences in narrative from (storytelling), in order for the audience to better
understand them. The audience feel as they are reliving the events/experiences
with the subject and create a relationship with the characters while
watching them develop. Wish narrativism the documentary will have a motive
with what the story will portray and how audience will respond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kaT5dDiISw - Murderball

Murderball, is an example of narrativization because it tells personal stories of
different players/ subject in the documentary, a specific example is Zupans back
story. And we see a progression though the film and there is a beginning middle
and end. Its a documentary with a story.