Documentary

Documentary

A documentary is work of non-fiction. It involves events of a true story and it can be in various forms such as video or audio (movie or radio programme).

History

·         In pre 1900s documentaries were classified as “actuality films”. The duration of these films were a minute of less because of less progression of technologies back in 1900s.

·         1900-1920: “Travelogue” films (tourism or travel documentary, providing information and entertainment about parts of the world since the late 19th century) were extremely popular at the time.

Documentaries established:

·          Romanticism

·         The city symphony- focused on the realistic and tradition
·         Kino-Pravda (cinematic truth): camera could provide more accurate information than the human eye.

·         Newsreel tradition: newsreels were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened.

·         The propagandist tradition: films were made with the intention of persuading an audience of a point

·         Cinéma vérité: used light, quiet and reliable cameras, and sound

·         Modern documentaries

·         Historical documentaries

·         Modern documentaries have merged with television such as the “reality television” that is now classified as documentaries

Six different types of documentaries

1)      Poetic Documentaries: The films were fragmentary, impressionistic, lyrical

Examples: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Play of Light: Black, White, Grey (1930),Oskar Fischinger’s abstract animated films
2)      Expository documentaries: communicates directly to the audiences in the form of voiceover usually presenting a strong argument or a point of view. These are films are rhetorical and persuasive.

Examples: TV shows and films like A&E Biography; America’s Most Wanted; many science and nature documentaries; Ken Burns’ The Civil War (1990)

3)      Observational documentaries: these films observe lived life and are re-enactments related to human character in ordinary life situations.

Examples: Frederick Wiseman’s films, e.g. High School (1968); Gilles Groulx and Michel Brault’s Les Racquetteurs (1958)

4)      Participatory documentaries: How the situations in the film are affected by the presence of the filmmaker (the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject).

Examples: Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March (1985)

5)      Reflexive documentaries: these films portray how the world gets represented by documentary films.

6)      Performative documentaries:  these films show experience and emotional response to the world. They are personal or unconventional. They also link up personal experiences with larger political or historical realities.

Codes and Conventions

Ø  Voiceover

Ø  Real footage of events/incidents

Ø  Realism

Ø  Interviews

Ø  Sound: non-diegetic sound (relevant music)

Ø  Real setting

Ø  Mise-en-scene

Ø  Editing: mostly cut

Ø  Camera work: medium close up in interviews