Research into TV documentaries style and influences

Emily Jones

Techniques Direct Cinema • Style of documentary produced in the 1960s • Came about as a result of the availability of cheap portable lightweight equipment

making it easier to carry around • Aimed at objectivity: no narrator, simple fly on the wall techinque by watching people’s

lives and events that are happening. Leaving it up to the audience to draw a conclusion. • Approach is in direct contrast to the traditional documentaries.

Rules of direct cinema: • No interviews included • No rehearsals prior to filming • No staging events or commentary • No film lights • No edits used

• Examples: D A Pennebaker ‘Don’t Look Back’ (1968) • Has had a massive influence on reality TV, docu-soaps, video diaries

Cinema Verite • Styles of European film making in the early 1960s

using documentary techniques such as hand held camera to convey life as realistically as possible.

• Similar to Direct Cinema but CV believe that the film makers opinions should be expressed- art as propaganda. CV uses interviews also whereas DC don’t.

• Linked to ‘Social Realist’ tradition fiction film.

Techniques

Techniques

Institutional Documentary • Use direct cinema techniques to give a fly on

the wall insight to the day to day working life. • Popular genre which is often informative,

humorous and sometimes critical in the way in which these places of work are represented.

Docusoaps

Take ordinary, common experience and look at it through the eyes of the public. Are called Docu-soaps because they are similar to the soap operas in terms of: • Fast editing• Multi-strand narrative • Part of a series often left on a cliff hanger

Public Affairs Documentary

• Probably the most traditional of documentary formats- ‘Paranorma’, ‘Dispatches’.

• Usually shown by public service broadcasting channels such as BBC, Channel 4 normally discussing or investigating current affairs/issues.

Video Diary

• Descended from DC, seen by the audiences as reliable and truthful as to the subject that is being filmed themselves.

• An off shoot of this are documentaries which use technology as entertainment such as ‘Police, camera, action.’

Drama Documentaries

These documentaries will be exploring social issues and may be demonstrated in a drama like style to show the issue that is or has happened.

Theatrical Documentaries

• Film documentaries that are shown in cinemas• This could be about pop stars, famous people,

sports etc. • This could be for example like Supersize me,

whereby looking at the impacts of fast foods and the day to day life and been created into a movie.

Mockumentaries

• This is a form of documentary that is created in a comic form, this can be used for children also.