Documentary A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to show the real world. Originally, they were particularly useful to educate, instruct and to record historical events. Bill Nichols explained that a documentary is "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries". This is from Bill Nichols book. Original documentaries, also known as “actuality films” only lasted for a couple of minutes. Over time, documentaries have become longer and are used in many genres. Examples of genres include: observational, docufiction and educational. Documentaries are often highly informative and useful. They are frequently used in schools as a resource to teach many subjects including: history, science and geography. It is important to remember that documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be honest and truthful, they must ensure that what they are recording is factually correct. Social-media platforms, including YouTube have provided excellent platforms for documentaries, this has led to a massive growth of this genre, encouraging lots of people to have a go at making their own documentary. Expository documentary An expository documentary uses a voiceover, (these tend to be of an authoritative nature). They present a point of about a topic, usually of a specifically persuasive nature. The voiceover often explains the story and the relationship between the images shown, it usually includes footage that supports and strengthens the ideas of the documentary. The blue planet with David Attenborough is a great example of this because we see examples of what the narrator is talking about, seeing the animals in there natural habits learning there ways.
Observational documentary Observational documentary is a type of documentary that will show real life circumstances, these can be personal and very emotive. These documentaries are also known as: cinéma vérité style, direct cinema, or fly-on-the-wall filmmaking. observational documentaries sit between poetic documentaries and expository documentaries. Bill Nichols first used the term “observational documentary” in his 2001 book, Introduction to Documentary. Where poetic documentaries are avant-garde, experimental and artistic, expository documentaries are persuasive and authoritative,`21 the observational documentary falls between, telling concrete stories about real people. Brothers keeper is a great version of this style of documentary because it is almost presented as a movie style and shows us the story and it would have felt. Interactive documentary With an interactive documentary, the audience or ‘user’ can change their journey through the documentary depending how they communicate and interact with it. The audience has access to a wide variety of multimedia tools including video, photographic, audio and digital assets. Chronicle of summer is a great example because it show many different interviews shown at random, talking to a variation of people.
Reflexive documentary Performative documentary Performative documentaries emphasize the filmmaker’s involvement with a specific subject. It is the complete contrast to the observational documentary. Performative documentaries are emotionally driven, often having a larger political or historical motivation. In performative documentaries, the filmmaker tends to take part in the documentary as the main subject usually trying something out experimentally. The selling of a serial killer shows how invented the filmmaker is in this documentary with such detail and work put into this, to work on this piece you need to be invested so your passion shows you can see how the filmmaker feels about the project. The reflexive documentary focuses heavily on the relationship between the filmmaker and the audience. They push the viewer to reflect on their perceptions and re-analyse their beliefs. Unlike the expository documentary, the reflexive documentary does not examine outside subject matter, it is more of an expose. The thin blue line is a perfect example of this form of documentary because it examines it in a way to expose us to the truth, showing us all angles.
My favourite kind of documentary style is expository. I like the way they show us, drawing us into the documentary, seeing and examining the truth. With these documentaries, we learn from watching and having the narrator explain what is happening, I find it fascinating especially how they see things and explain them, it makes things so clear. In particular, I love David Attenborough and his documentaries, they are so informative and unbiased, he has the art for showing us things that are not always comfortable to watch but are true life and things that we should not avoid and pretend don’t happen. They also cement the facts in our heads and make us think about the impact our lives have on the natural world.