Documentary has a lot of different interpretations:
- Broad category of nonfictional motion pictures
- Document some sort of primary reality data
- Maintains a historical record
- "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception"
- Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form
- Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic"
Codes and Conventions of a Documentary:
- Voice over - The voiceover will inform the audience and help them understand a bit more, instead of constantly reading titles on the screen
- Real footage of events - This is a convention as all events shown is seen as real to the audience.
- Includes 'natural' lighting and sound - this makes the documentary seem more real
- Achive footage - Information/videos that the film maker was unable to get themselves (secondary)
- Interviews with 'experts' on the type of documentary the film maker has made - this gives more information to the audience that they might not be able to find themselves.
- Text - A quick and cheap way to give out information
- Sound - it can either be non-diegetic or diegetic
- Set-ups - In a documentary sometimes it could be acted. They could show a stereotypical aspect of a particular type of genre to show that its 'natural'
- Mise en Scene - Whats on the screen is essential
Documentary Mode/Styles
- Poetic Mode - The formal structural organization of a film that emphasizes visual associations eg: Films about painters & dancers
- Expository Mode - (voice of God) This mode is what we most identify with the documentary often using a narrator.
- Observational Mode - (window of the world) it attempted to capture (as accurately as
possibly) objective reality with filmmaker as neutral observer. the camera rushes about to keep up with the action resulting in rough, shaky, often amateur-looking footage. - Reflexive Mode - (awareness of process) constructed nature of documentary. Shows people that this is not necessarily "truth" but a reconstruction of it - "a" truth, not
"the" truth - Performative Mode - This mode emphasizes the emotional and social impact on the audience
Documentary formats
- Mockumentary
- Docudrama
- Docufiction
- Nature documentary
- Rockumentary
- Web documentary
- Mondo film
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