Documentary Mini-Task

What is a Documentary?

A documentary is the filming of real events which are unstaged, to show the audience the nature of events. They must be easily distinguished from fiction films and must contain recordings of real events.

Expository Documentaries

This type of documentary contains a voice over which directly addressees the audience on what is happening on screen, they give meaning to the images not opinion. Facts and arguments are provided by the voice over, this allows/provides captions for the images on screen. The effect of the expository documentary is to show a true and direct representation of a certain subject. This sort of documentary is likely to use handheld or medium sized cameras, this is because there is a lot of moving round, although the shots tend to be stationary 
and don't usually follow.

Out of the five documentaries that we watched in class, the 'Lambeth Boys' was the expository one .Another example of an expository documentary would be 'Living with Michael Jackson', this is an example because it has a narrator through out who emphasizes each aspect of the documentary 

Title screen from 'We Are The Lambeth Boys' 

Scene from an interview in 'Living with Michael Jackson'

Observational Documentaries

This type of documentary contains a unobtrusive construction, and presents a view on a certain type of life. The film maker does not intervene at any point throughout the documentary, they are a 'fly on the wall' in the sense that they do not have any impact on what the people are doing in the film and they are hidden from the audience. It is more centered on what is not contained for example commentary and interviews. It shows a clear record of an event or time period and has neutral views/no-judgmental and is unbiased. It allows the audience to think what they want about the video, it doesn't try to manipulate thoughts or view, its is what it is. This type of documentary would use handheld cameras so that it can follow the action of what is going on, most of the shots usually contain stationary shots,  but in other parts the cameraman /filmmaker will follow someone/something

Out of our 5 documentaries that we watched in class 'High School' was the observational one. Another example of an Observational documentary would be 'Peter Andre: The Next Chapter', in this the camera man follows Peter around his everyday life, and at no point is the filmmaker/cameraman seen during the program, this allows the audience to reach whatever conclusion they wish about the celebrity therefore making it unbiased.

Scene from 'Peter Andre: The Next Chapter'

DVD cover of 'High School' Documentary

Interactive Documentaries

In this type of documentary the filmmaker is present, in front of the camera. The filmmaker/presenter interacts with the interviewees and with the audience. Arguments between two points are usually made, for example in the documentary we viewed in class (Louis Theroux and the Nazis) there were many points from both sides which were argued and discussed by many different people. Although these types of documentaries are more likely to be biased, and manipulation of the text can be used through editing to do this, and sometimes this can lead to the documentary being criticized for misrepresentations.

In class as said above we watched 'Louis Theroux and the Nazis' for the interactive documentary. Another example of an interactive documentary would be 'Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine'. In this documentary there are many arguments presented throughout, between the presenter and the interviewee. The presenter (Michael Moore) is present in almost every scene thus making him a participant. Bowling for Columbine did receive criticism, and was thought not to be a true documentary due to the fact that certain points said were not true making it fiction.

A scene from 'Louis Theroux and the Nazis' 

Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine DVD cover'

Access and privacy (Releases & Permission) can affect a documentary production. For example with access if a certain location is needed for filming and legal releases haven't been carried out then you will not be allowed to film at that location, the permission side of things gives you permission to access certain documents and things to film such as government documents. Permission to film on someones land and permission to have somebodies face in your production will also need permission otherwise their face will have to be blurred out. All of these you will/may need to add content to a documentary.

Reflexive Documentary

In this type of documentary the filmmaker makes very strange and distorted documentaries, they attempt to expose the regular conventions of documentaries.  The construction and/or make-up of the film will be played round with to create a massively different text. The documentary will contain clips of everyday life and past events, and these clips are then pieced together to create a vastly different and experimental text/film.

In class we watched a documentary named 'Territories', this was a reflexive documentary because of its extremely distorted and hard to understand images and sound, although the message of the documentary was clear it was a hard watch in the sense that you really had to pay attention what was going on on screen.

Another example of a reflexive documentary is 'Driving me crazy' by Nick Broomfield, in this the film crew document behind the scenes of a musical. It contains all of the parts of a reflexive documentary. 

Performative Documentary

In this type of documentary the filmmaker portrays the world indirectly and emphasis is on the presentation not the content. They tend to use re-enactments, exaggerated camera positions and soundtracks to help expose the audience to the diegesis (world of the characters).
Overall they aim to show the subject matter in an influenced, expressive and stylized way.

In class we watched a documentary named 'The Thin Blue Line' which is an example of a Performative documentary.

Another example of a performative documentary is 'Paris is burning' by Jennie Livingston. This documentary shows the culture of African-american, transgender and gays in the 1980's. 

Conclusion

My documentary film making philosophy is going to be a reflexive documentary on bipolar. It will include interviews with the a sufferer  of this disorder. I think that a documentarist does not have a contract with the viewer to present them with truth and authentic information because even with a contract, it does not necessarily mean that that is the exact truth. This therefore shows that any documentary that a viewer watches, they're not guaranteed complete truth and authenticity. Many documentary's are filmed to explore a certain topic therefore many of the people they come across to give the viewer information may not be telling the complete truth and may exaggerate some of the information they give to the documentarist.