WHAT IS A DOCUMENTARY?
For John Grierson documentary is the "creative treatment of actuality"
1. Documentaries are about reality and something that actually
happened
2. Documentaries are about real people
3. Documentaries tell stories about what happens in the real world
Definition
Documentary film speaks about situations and events involving real
people who present themselves within a framework.
This frame conveys a plausible perspective on their lives, situations
and events portrayed.
The distinct point of view of the filmmaker shapes the film into a way
of understanding the historical world directly rather than through a
fictional allegory.
Documentary Conventions
Interviews, shaky camera work, voiceovers, found footage
- Use of a voice-of-God commentary
- Interviews
- Location sound recording
- Cutaways form a given scene to provide images that illustrate or
complicate stated points
- Reliance on social actors in their everyday roles and activities
- Prevelance of an informing logic that organises the film e.g.
problem/solution narrative structure
- Evidentary rather than continuity editing: cuts arfe orgasnised to
present the impression of a single convincing proposal supported by
logic (rather than unified space and time of continuity editing)
- Heavy reliance on the spoken word: commentary, interviews
, Modes in documentary film
Introduction to Documentary the classic text from Bill Nichols outlines the 6
modes (sub genres) of documentaries
THE POETIC MODE
Emphasises visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, descriptive
passages, and formal organizations. Close to experimental, personal and
avant garde filmmaking. This mode stresses mood, tone, and affect
much more than displays of factual knowledge.
Koyaanisqatsi
Work, home, leisure, capitalism, life on planet earth
THE EXPOSITORY MODE
They rely heavy on informing logic carried by the spoken word. Images
serve as supporting role, as illustration of what is being said by the
omniscient voice. Addresses the viewer directly, with a voice of God
(speaker is head but not seen) or voice of authority narration. The voice
appears objective, neutral and gives a well supported perspective.
March of the Penguins
Wouldn't be able to follow egg dying scene without the voiceover
THE PARTICIPATORY MODE
Emphasisers the interaction between filmmaker and subject. FIlming
takes place by ways of interviews or other forms of even more direct
involvement, such as conversations or provocations. We exprect to
witness the historical world as represented by someone who actively
engages with others, rather than unobtrusively observing them. Often,
interviews take the form of what Vertov and Rouch called cinéma vérité:
"film truth" or "the truth of the filmed encounter"
The Fog Of War
Voiceover continues whilst it almost freees on interview
"thought he was acting like a war criminal"
, THE REFLEXIVE MODE
Reflexive documentaries call attention to the asumptions and conventions
that govern documentary filmmaking. They ask us to see documrentyary
for what it is: a construct. They deconstruct the impression of
unimpeded access to reality and invite us, the spectator to reflect on the
process through which reality is being represented.
Man with a movie camera
Russian film 1920. 3 or four cities together, how the city awakes,
How it goes on through the day
Moscow and other Russian cities, combining all four of them.Shots of
places. Quite empty, lonely, isolated. People doing things. Lots of different
camera angles and shots.
Ladys blinds are opening and closing and showing her. Moving shots, still
shots, reverse shots.
THE WAR GAME
Access to reality through reenactment, conventions of interviews which
We know are fake. "Newsreel footage" making it look real. Playing with the
Conventions of documentaries and flipping them to their purpose. Media
Conventions, making something different using them.
OBSERVATIONAL MODE
Lived experience is observed by an unobtrusive camera. The basic
premise of observational films is what we see is what would have
occurred were the camera not there to observe it- the filmmaker
becomes a "fly on the wall"
Divorce iranian style
People behaving naturally in a court case,
In this instance we want to see people how they would act
THE PERFORMATIVE MODE
