Documentary Mini-Task
A documentary is a genre of movie/TV making that shows the
viewer a particular story, viewpoint, message or experience, documentary’s
typically use video & film scenes, photographs and/or sound of real people
and real events. I would define a documentary as a film that shows you
precisely a part of life that you wouldn’t particularly think about or a story
that dates back in the 1800, you can make a documentary from any topic you can
think of, I also think that you will always learn something new from a
documentary whatever the topic is. Documents can come in five different types
which are expository, observational, interactive, reflexive and performative which we will talk more about later in this document.
Expository documentaries expose a topic which is given by the
name expository, they typically use a commentator to talk over the images and
videos specifically to the audience, questions, facts and opinions, this gives
you the insight of the topic you are watching. I watched an expository
documentary with the class called ‘we are the Lambeth Boys’ which follows a
group of members from the Alford House Youth club in London where you follow
them about during their time at the youth club and after when they go to work. It
was interesting to watch and see what the youths did in London in the 1950’s.
Observational documentaries observe events that happen around
us typically using hand held cameras with no interviews or voice over during
the documentary also a lot of long takes are used to capture the scene. High
School which is an observation documentary that looks into the lives of the
60’s teens in an American high school, in this documentary you look at the
different aspects of the high school when you get to be inside the office where
they deal with bad behavior in and outside of the class room or you are in
side some of the class room where you get to see the students being taught
English, people using typewrites and at the sports hall where you see the girls
doing their sports lesson. In this documentary you see a lot of the long takes
in this documentary which gets a bit boring especially with no voice over but
It was nice to see what it was like in a 1960’s school and how it is different
to the British high schools we have now.
Interactive documentaries typically have the filmmakers
participate in the documentary, watching the presenter interview people about
the topic, questions and all this together to back up the opinions of the presenter
which can be biased sometimes as the documentary can be edited in the favor of
the presenter. I watched an interactive documentary with my class called Louis
and the Nazis which the presenter of the documentary called Lousi Theroux
travels to America to talk to one of the most racist people in America called
Tom Metzger and going to skinhead rallies where he interviews the people about
why they are racist and why do they do it. I really like this interactive
documentary as Louis in never scared to ask questions that people may not like
which you get to see tensions rise between the presenter and the interviewees.
Reflexive documentaries attempts to show off the conventions
of documentary to the audience typically using shots that capture life using
different shot types. I found this the hardest to watch as it is such a dull
and boring documentary. We watched a reflexive documentary called powaqquatsi
in lesson which looked at the everyday life of the public in a third world
county, it looks more of the detail of the film where the mise en-scene is very
important.
Performative documentaries usually
use re-enactments to give a better idea of the story, uses exaggeration in
camera positions and soundtracks to bring the audience into the story a bit
more, it is a more professional documentary with a lot of murder case’s
becoming a more famous topic for the performative documentaries. One that I
watched on Netflix called ‘Making a murder’ really shows the typical
conventions of a performative documentary using re-enactments and a lot of
interviews with people on the case. Using re-enactment is very well know and it
very good in performative as you get to see what everyone that witnessed the
murder and sometimes you feel like you were there at the murder scene which
really immerses you into the documentary.
If you are doing an interactive documentary where you are trying
to go against a topic like racism or any type of discrimination you would want
to use accurate and factual information as you want the viewer to be on your
side but sometimes if you use facts some people still will decide what they
want at the end of the documentary. I think documentaries should just put a
message out and at the end of the documentary the view will just make his mind at
the end, but the unfair editing in interactive documentaries can be biased on
the presenter’s side changing the view of the viewer.
