Documentary Formats:
What is a documentary?A documentary is non-fictional motion picture which document aspects of reality with facts and information about a certain subject or person.
Expository Documentaries:Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer through either a voice over or titles accompanied by images and videos on the subject matter which advance he argument, proposing a strong argument and point of view. these type of documentaries are rhetorical and try to persuade the viewer. (They may use a rich male voice).
The Rhetoric presses upon us to read the images in a certain way. Historical Documentaries deliver an objective account and interpretation of past events
Americans Most Wanted is an Expository Documentary because it shows images and real life videos of prisoners and people who are breaking the law. These are accompanied by a voice over about whats happening on the video and why they are dong what they are doing.
Observational Documentaries:
Observational Documentaries attempt to observe lived life with a minimum of intervention. also known as a 'fly on the wall' documentary, where the film-maker observes but tries to not influence or alter the events being filmed. Often, this type of documentary eschewed voice-over commentary, post-synchronized dialogue and music, or re-enactments. The Films aimed for immediacy, intimacy, and revelation of individual human character in ordinary life situations.
Les Raquetteurs is an Observational Documentary because it observes the the celebration and ritual surrounding a snowshoe competition in Sherbrooke in the late 1950s. The film maker isn't in the film at all.
Interactive Documentaries:
Interactive Documentaries, also known as Participatory Documentaries, believe that it is impossible for the act of film-making to not influence or alter the events taking place. What these films do is emulate the approach of the anthropologist: the participant-observation. Not only is the film-maker part of the film, we also get a taste of how the events that are taking place affect or altered by their presence
Access, while doing these types of documentary may disturb the making of the film as certain places are 'off limits' to others. Privacy is also hard because some people don't want to be filmed or don't want their properties to be filmed as they don't want their lives broadcasted across the world in a film.
Louis Theroux: By Reason of Insanity is an Interactive Documentary as all of Louis' films are ineractive. His films are about people that may look bad to society and he interviews them face to face, this type of documentary also shows Louis views and feelings of their behavior and the things they do.
Access, while doing these types of documentary may disturb the making of the film as certain places are 'off limits' to others. Privacy is also hard because some people don't want to be filmed or don't want their properties to be filmed as they don't want their lives broadcasted across the world in a film.
Louis Theroux: By Reason of Insanity is an Interactive Documentary as all of Louis' films are ineractive. His films are about people that may look bad to society and he interviews them face to face, this type of documentary also shows Louis views and feelings of their behavior and the things they do.
Reflexive Documentaries:
Reflexive Documentaries don’t see themselves as a transparent window on the world; instead they draw attention to their own constructiveness, and the fact that they are representations. They alert us to question the accuracy of documentary. It is the most self-conscious of all the modes, and is highly mistrustful of ‘realism’. It may use Brechtian alienation strategies to disturb us, in order to ‘defamiliarize’ what we are seeing and how we are seeing it.
Documentarian Trinh T. Minh-ha uses stock footage and anecdotal evidence to examine the status of Vietnamese women since the Vietnam War. Using a combination of dance, poetry and text, she shows the lives of several women, focusing on how their gender determines their decreased status, despite their amount of wisdom, talent and intelligence. Assuming a strong political stance, this film gives voice to an entire segment of Vietnamese society forced to otherwise remain silent.
Documentarian Trinh T. Minh-ha uses stock footage and anecdotal evidence to examine the status of Vietnamese women since the Vietnam War. Using a combination of dance, poetry and text, she shows the lives of several women, focusing on how their gender determines their decreased status, despite their amount of wisdom, talent and intelligence. Assuming a strong political stance, this film gives voice to an entire segment of Vietnamese society forced to otherwise remain silent.
Performative Documentaries:
Performative Documentaries stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world. They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental, and might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our own. This sub-genre might also lend itself to certain groups (e.g. women, ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, etc) to ‘speak about themselves.’ Often, a battery of techniques, many borrowed from fiction or avant-garde films, are used. Performative docs often link up personal accounts or experiences with larger political or historical realities.
Some Performative Documentaries use re-enactments because some were about things in the past were people have pasted away or places have been taken away or destroyed.
The imposer is a performative documentary because the film maker isn't to be seen in the footage and he just records the events and people that are involved. The imposer is about a documentary about a young spanish man who comes to a grieving texus family and clams he is their 16 year old son who has been missing for 3 years
Example: The Imposter
The imposer is a performative documentary because the film maker isn't to be seen in the footage and he just records the events and people that are involved. The imposer is about a documentary about a young spanish man who comes to a grieving texus family and clams he is their 16 year old son who has been missing for 3 years
Example: The Imposter
I think that Documentary film-makers should be able to document peoples points of views in the way they want and be able to change some bits of their film to make their point of view stronger as that is what their documentary is about. Documentaries that are just based on every bit of the truth and nothing is changed sometimes it can get boring as bits aren't cut out to keep the continuity flowing.
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