Documentaries

Basics

• The purpose of a documentary is to document, i.e. to report with evidence, something that has actually happened.

• It can show this by using Actuality Footage or a reconstruction. Even when filming consists of Actuality Footage, people are directed and sets organised so there is still a high level of construction taking place.

• A good documentary should be about the topic and not the style of presentation. However, the content alone without any intervention from the producers would seldom be enough to make the documentary coherent, yet alone interesting.

• To give the product a sense of pace and structure they draw on many of the characteristics of fiction in their use of e.g. Camera Angles, Framing, Lighting and editing.

John Grierson

• In 1926 Grierson first used the term “documentary” to describe a film he had made about life on a south sea island.

• He then went on to define the new documentary genre as the “creative treatment of actuality”.

• Grierson argued that the principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article.

John Corner

• John Corner is a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Liverpool.

• He believes that there are 5 central elements of a documentary:

1. Observation – usually programme makers pretend that the camera is unseen or ignored by people in the event. This places audience as eyewitnesses to reality that are portrayed.

2. Interview – He believes that documentaries rely on interviews. The Interviewee is questioned and addresses the Interviewer not the audience.

3. Dramatization – All documentaries use sense of drama through the observation element. The audience is then therefore an eyewitness to dramatic events.

4. Mise-en-scene – Documentary makers carefully compose shots to contain the image or perspective that they want the audience to see.

5. Exposition (Line of Argument) – What the documentary is “saying”. Corner believes that the exposition of a documentary may be plain and direct or indirect and hidden. It always exists.

Types of Genre

- Fully Narrated

An off screen voiceover conveys exposition. The voice over is used to make sense of the visuals and dominates their meaning. They are often referred to as the ‘Voice of God’ style of documentary.

An example of this is Planet Earth, voiced by Sir David Attenborough.

Cameras are left to record the subject without interference giving the effect of a Fly sitting on a wall, observing its surroundings.

It draws on the French cinema movement – Cinéma vérité, which means literally ‘Cinema Truth’. This therefore shows a link to a key concept in documentary making which is to show actuality.

Examples of this are; 24 Hours in A&E and Educating Yorkshire.

Types of Genre

- Fly on the Wall

A mixed documentary uses a combination of interviews, observation, actuality footage, archive footage and narration in the exposition.

Due to its wide range, it is one of the most common types of modern documentary.

An example of this is Festivals Britannia, a BBC 4 documentary on Festivals in the UK which uses interviews, actuality footage and also observation.

Types of Genre

- Mixed

A Self-Reflexive documentary is where the subjects of the documentary acknowledge the presence of the cameras recording them. They also often speak directly to the film maker.

An example of this is Louis Theroux’s LA Stories, a documentary on life in Los Angeles in which Louis Theroux is often pictured in front of the camera.

Types of Genre

- Self–Reflexive

A DocuDrama features re-enactments of events as they are supposed to have happened.

They are often made on Historical or Crime topics due to the dramatization adding an element of excitement for the audience and also due to a lack of archive footage.

An example of a DocuDrama is Crimes That Shook Britain or Vietnam in HD, both Crime or Historical respectively.

Types of Genre

- DocuDrama

A DocuSoap often follows the daily lives of particular individuals within a certain demographic or occupation

This then allows an inside look at their life and often uses a lot of actuality footage and observation.

An example of this type is Airline, a documentary which focuses on the Airline company EasyJet and its staff.

Types of Genre

- DocuSoap