Documentary Genre

• The purpose of a documentary is to document something that has happened.

• It can be shown by using actuality footage or reconstructions.

• It can use a narrator’s voice over to anchor the meaning or rely on the participants themselves with the odd interjection by the unseen narrator.

Types of Documentary • Fully narrated: an off screen voiceover is used to

make sense of the visuals and dominates their meaning

• Fly on the wall: has its roots in a cinema venite. The camera is set up to be hidden, people are unaware they’re being filmed. Shows the full truth as participants don’t acknowledge the presence of the camera.

• Mixed: using a combination of interview, observation and narration to advance the argument or narrative.

• Self reflexive: when subjects of the documentary acknowledge the presence of the camera and often speak directly to the documentary maker.

• Docu-drama: a re-enactment of events as they are supposed to have happened.

• Docu-soap: recent development. They follow the daily lives of particular individuals within an organisation. Combines a documentary and a soap opera.

Features of Documentaries• Observation:

– Contain sequences of observation– The programme pretends that the camera is unseen– Places the audience in the position of an observer or an eye witness to events

• Interview– Documentaries rely on interviews– Interviewer is either seen or unseen

• Mise-en-scene– All shots are carefully composed so they only contain certain images they want

the audience to see• Dramatisation

– Use a sense of drama in the observational element– Sometimes dramatic reconstructions are used

• Exposition– The line of argument in the documentary– Exposition is made up of description combined with commentary