The forms of Documentary

Introduction

A documentary is supposedly something that exposes the truth or facts or arguments about certain people or topics in life. I would define a documentary as something which entertains people or makes them consider things they haven't before.

Expository Documentary

The key features of a expository documentary are images, facts and arguments and voiceover's. The voice over is mostly known for expository documentary because it is informing a specific target audience of what is happening within the images. When these documentaries first started out the voice over would be by someone who was in the middle class explaining what the working class are doing. Expository documentaries aren't as real as they seem because in the documentary called the night mail the people who you saw working on the train were real workers but they were given a script to perform instead of acting naturally so you could say they were performing for the target audience which was the middle class as the voiceover was middle class. This could show that we are not seeing the lower class workers in true light because the documentary is in the man who does the voiceover’s view/perspective.

Observational Documentary

In an observational documentary there is no voice over only the scenes and the things that occur in those scenes. As there is no voice over there is no one judging what is being shown so you are able to see things in your own perspective. Like when we watched High School we had no idea why we were being shown these images and there was no conclusion but to me its the most truest forms of documentary as you see things how they are being shown. Verite meaning the truth whether you like it or hate it. I recently watched a documentary called Etre et Avior by Lopez in 2002 which is about a primary school and what they learn. I really liked it because there was no fakery about it they were real students, real locations and took up the whole year of school through winter to summer.
I personally didn't like high school because I don't think we learnt anything from it and we didn't get to know anyone on a personnel level we just switched from class to class. It didn't for me make a connection and felt excluded from the documentary. But when I watched Etre et Avoir you got to know the people who were shown of the documentary and felt like you knew them and you learnt that some people struggle in life but people will always help you.

Interactive Documentary

The key features of an interactive documentary are that the interview is shown on camera directly talking to the interviewee. They things they filmed are manipulated by the editor as they sometimes like in Louis and the Nazis film scenes but separate it into clips to make the documentary. In interactive there is normally an argument that they question and are usually one sided in the interview’s perspective. These documentaries are macro in size because they tend to travel quite far to back their points. In Bowling for Columbine as soon as we were introduced to Michael Moore we were shocked at how direct he was whereas in Luis and the Nazis, Luis is discreet with what he initially went round to ask.

In both of these documentaries they don't actually have a clear ending even though we have recognised some issues there is no conclusion. Both Luis and Michael are like marmite, you will either love there approach or hate it. At first when I watched Luis and the Nazis I didn't like Luis because he made me feel awkward when he and the person he was talking were silent. I also didn't like the way he approached people I feel like he should have been open and came straight out with what he wanted to say instead of leading them on and making them feel anxious.

In Interactive documentaries you have to get a lot of sources to get the facts also normally they travel to many places so they would need to get permission to get to film in these places. In Louis and the Nazis he had to make sure he had permission of all the people he filmed to be on camera so he probably got them to sign some release forms. Because Michael wouldn't want random people to pop up on screen while he is filming so he probably cordoned off the part where he was filming so he had privacy.

Reflexive

In a reflexive documentary it is all about presentation and the through the presentation you will get an understanding of what the documentary is about. The only sound that is in a reflexive documentary is ambient sound or a soundtrack. In Territories we could hear two woman speaking when two woman are shown watching a carnival on TV but we have no idea if these voices belonged to woman shown on screen or whether it was really their views or someone else’s. These sort of documentaries were specifically designed not to show real life and how it changes.
Another documentary that I have watched in this form is Man with a Movie Camera which shows all the editing techniques that they had in the past. I did not like it even though I found it visually effective I did not feel like I learnt anything from it. I don't think this form should be part of documentary as is see it as more of a story showing how others see life.

Performative Documentary

Out of all the forms a performative documentary is my favourite because in a way you get to see with your eyes what occurred and try to guess what will happen next. In The Thin Blue Line the director makes it biased by making us think at moments that Randall could have been the murderer but then realised who the real one was. It makes us have an assumption of who we think did it and questions whether we were right or not. The Documentary lets you see there assumption or facts by showing actors acting out what happened.

I also recently watched a documentary about the flight 19 and the Bermuda triangle which shows a performance of what the director thinks happened to them. But this documentary was different then The Thin Blue Line because it tells us about other things like what causes things in the Bermuda triangle to sink and hold their own experiment which succeeds in the end.

The performative elements in each documentary are different because The thin Blue Line is showing you the facts and what they know and the Bermuda triangle; what happened to flight 19 is trying to figure out in performance what happened, so you don't know whether it was real as the aim of the documentary was to try and find where the planes are. The performative elements in both makes you feel for the characters but In the Thin Blue Line it makes you question who the murderer is. Performance is used in documentaries to show the directors point of view so if someone blamed David Harris from the beginning you would see him in each performance being shown as guilty. But instead Errel Morris wanted to deceive people and one point he turns his attention to maybe the police officer committing the crime by questioning her actions therefore in the performance she was seen as a suspect.

Here is a clip from the documentary about the Bermuda Triangle. It shows the part where it includes performative documentary.

Conclusion

I think seeing all these documentaries and learning the different forms of them has given me an understanding of which ones I like. I used to think that Documentary was about showing the truth but watching each one made me realise that there isn't one which is 100% true. If I was ever to make a documentary it would have to be either expository, interactive and observational. The reason why I would choose these is because they each give a person the freedom to speak their views which I think everyone has a right to do with in reason. This way you question what you really initially believed in.

At the end of some documentaries they don't have a final summary of their point but they do give you other things to question like in Bowling for Columbine Michael brings up a load of points of what people think is to blame for the Columbine massacre but he still doesn't know the real reason why they did what they did. In the end you can't rely on documentaries for the truth as none of them did but they do inform you of maybe things we should think more about and even though they may not be verte but they do inform which is what documentaries is all about, to give you something that you didn't know before.