I’m going to talk about different types of documentaries.
Exposition / expository
A type documentary where the aim is to educate and inform the audience.
For ex. A documentary called “inconvenient Truth” by Al Gor who was the Vice President of America who started making documentaries to about environment issues and ted talks with lecturers. Another example is “A brief of History of the US” teaches all about the history and about how America changed and how the changes are affecting America now.
This type of mode is solely looked at as the truth its main aspect to display a firm sense of truth with all the concentration based upon it. This type often uses a narrative and shows the different conventions using voice overs, footage that was filmed using audience. In simple words these types of documentary only show factual stuff.These types of documentaries tend to have many facts and mainly information, therefore it is all profoundly serious.
Observational documentary
Documentary filmmaker strive to observe and not become the main subject of the documentary.
This mainly looks at being very truthful and objective and giving facts. The main aim is to try and capture everything as accurate as possible. An example is BBC earth where they talk about environment and teach us about different aspects of the environment.
As this is not a staged documentary the camera techniques tend to be shaky and not clear because the filmmaker doesn’t know what they are about to film. This is where realism comes in.
Participatory documentary
This is where the filmmaker is the subject of the documentary.
This type of documentary is also known as the interactive mode. As it shows different codes and conventions to the other two modes earlier explained. This mode contrast to the one we talked about above, in this mode the observational mode as it is more about the engagement between the filmmaker and the subject. So, filmmakers have a big role, as they influence what is going to be filmed next.
For example, a documentary which was based on homophobic people who are protested on the roads in America.in the documentary it seems as it the filmmaker is a character of the documentary, the one who is feeding the audience with the facts and knowledge.
Poetic / Artistic documentary
It is all about the visuals and not the story, they see the subject as a work of art.
In this mode the filmmaker’s role is to be able to make the documentary emotional and pleasing to look at. The visuals pay a big role in this type of mode.
An example is “Samsara” which is a documentary about life in different countries, which looks at different cultures, aesthetic and arts. He beings out emotions by emphasising the colours and shapes shown in different cultures and countries.
I quite like the idea of this style of documentary, as I really enjoy coming up with creative shots and angles to make different things look more cinematic and aesthetic.
Reflexive/ self-aware documentary
When the documentary references that it is a documentary, and therefore can never be truthful or real life.
This mode is based upon re-enactments of what happened, additionally this mode is not the truth but ‘a’ truth. This mode also consists of re – created things put together.
For ex grizzly man which is a documentary about bears. It talks about how they are friendly, and why we should look after them more. Furthermore, it also shows how a group of people like to live in a bear’s lifestyle. This documentary example is mostly towards the conventions of being ‘realism’ as it is trying to portray the truth and that is it. It is not trying have cliff hangers or trying to build a story.
Performance/ preformative documentary
When the documentary filmmaker has put in effort to support their footage to the agenda.
In this mode the filmmaker has a big role as they must make it preformative, this type of documentary only shows one side of the subject person or topic. Therefore, its nor a very balanced documentary. In addition, this type of mode is mainly used to generate emotions from the audience.
For ex Michael Moor, shows that in America you can get a gun from a bank instead of just saying that he shows it by getting g a gun himself to make it look more dramatic. This is known as dramatisation; we see this as the documentary uses cliff-hangers to keep the viewers engaged even after the documentary ends. This automatically make the documentary more interesting. Its almost like telling a story.
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