Types of documentaries

poeticA poetic documentary usually has a subject or topic which is in someway sentimental to the people involved, usually the presenter or interviewees. It highlights some aspects of the persons life and presents these through camera shots, music, angles and editing. It can also be very expressive in the way it is presented. Music in these documentaries is key as it develops the mood and tone of the story, including the hidden values within.

observationalThis is the mode associated with ‘fly-on-the-wall’ type documentaries.They appear to have been filmed in ‘real time’, as if the camera hashappened upon events while those involved are seemingly unaware of the filming going on. The filmmakers correspondingly attempt not tointerfere in what is underway. We do not hear their questions and we donot see them. There is no voiceover telling us what to think or whatconclusions we should draw, leaving the audience to make their ownconclusions

Expository documentaries talk directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary voiceover or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of view. An an example of this is David Attenborough. These documentaries are rhetorical, and try to persuade the viewer. (They may use a rich male voice.) The commentary often sounds ‘objective’ and omniscient. The rhetoric insistently presses upon the viewer to read the images in a certain fashion. Nature documentaries often produce films in this style.

expository

Participatory documentaries imitate the approach of the host participant-observation. Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we also get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by their presence. Nichols: “The filmmaker steps out from behind the cloak of voice-over commentary, steps away from poetic meditation, steps down from a fly-on-the-wall perch, and becomes a social actor like any other.” The encounter between filmmaker and subject becomes a critical element of the film.

Participatory documentary

In a reflexive documentary, the film maker acknowledges their presence in front of the camera and provides a narrative to the documentary. The reflexive style of documentary is usually associated with experimental documentaries, where the viewer is just as interested about how the film is constructed as they are the actual content. Examples of Reflexive Documentary Makers are Nick Broomfield. He is best known for his reflexive style of documentary making. He films with minimal camera crew, often just himself and a camera man, which makes his documentaries seem more personal. Sometimes he shows the filming team (camera men etc) in the documentary which is very typical of the reflexive style. Louis Theroux Louis Theroux is a good example of a film maker who makes reflexive documentaries. It makes the audience more aware of the problems the documentary maker faces while they make the film . Reflexive documentaries tend to be the must truthful, as they always focus on realism, and try to show things exactly as they happen, without editing or special effects. However, as the film maker narrates and addresses the audience specifically, viewers opinions are swayed by those of the documentary maker.

reflexive documentary

A performative documentary acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of documentary and presents ideas as a part of a context having different meanings for different people and are often autobiographical in nature. The performative mode of documentary is the direct opposite of the observational where unobtrusive observation of the subject is the director’s aim.Performative documentaries emphasise the filmmaker’s own involvement with the subject. The filmmaker shows a larger political or historical reality through the window of their own experience. Rather than rely on the expository approach, the rhetoric of persuasion, the performative filmmaker becomes a personal guide who shows it and tells it like it is with raw emotion.

performative documentary