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).