Post on 20-Jul-2015
Modes of Documentary
a conceptual scheme developed by American theorist Bill Nichols…
Poetic
A transformation of historical
material into a more abstract,
lyrical form usually associated with
the 192s and modernist ideas.
There is no beginning, middle or
end.
‘Reassembling fragments of the
world’.
Expository
‘Direct address’
Social issues assembled into an
argumentative frame
Often mediated by a ‘voice of
god’ narration.
Observational
Technology advanced in the 1960s and cameras became much smaller. This meant that life could be documented in a less intrusive manner leaving people to be filmed without the camera impacting on their behaviour.
Sometimes described as ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentaries as people forget they are being watched as the camera is not obvious.
Participatory
Encounters between the film
maker and subject is recorded as
the film-maker actively engages
with the situation they are
documenting.
This involves the film-maker
asking questions and sharing their
own experiences.
Reflexive Demonstrates consciousness of the
process of reading documentary and
engages with issues of realism and
representation.
Acknowledges presence of viewer
and refers to the fact that they are
being filmed and that it is a
documentary.
It also acknowledges judgements that
viewers could have and corresponds
to critical theory of the 1980s.
Performative
Acknowledges emotional and
subjective aspects of documentary
and presents ideas as part of a
context having different meanings for
different people.
Often autobiographical in nature,
e.g. the narrator/director starts to
become the subject of the
documentary (‘Supersize Me’).
Mixed
A mixed documentary is a
combination of interviews,
observation, actual footage,
archival footage and narrative.
The narrator links the
documentary together and
advances the narrative structure.
Most newer documentaries tend
to be mixed.
Relevance and purpose
The purpose of this research is to help us decide what mode of documentary ours will be.
This proved to be relevant because it gives us insight into the different options we could use for our documentary mode.
We will most likely be using a mixed or expository mode of documentary. Although, we will conduct research to decide finally what the mode will be. Mixed would be appropriate for our target audience as 16-30 year olds (students, teachers and parents) are a similar target audience to other mixed documentaries (Panorama).