Documentary mini-task

What is a documentary? Well, a documentary is a form of recording facts into a visual media like films or TV shows. The contents of these can range from documentaries of various locations and events, to specific people as well, essentially being a kind of bibliography for the person.

Expository documentaries are essentially “voice of God” documentaries, which show the life of people in a specific place or of a specific group of people, essentially giving the viewer’s more of an opinion of said object or location, while having a commentator talk over the video, often giving opinions and facts to the viewers.  A common example of this kind of film is the David Attenborough documentaries, such as “Trials of Life” which looks at animal behavior through different stages of life.

Observational Documentaries is similar, in the fact it shows information about certain people or locations, however, while expository has some voice giving us information, observation removes any external observation from anyone, including the recording crew, with even the recorded location and/or group of people not interacting with the camera. An example of this is “Big Brother” to a degree, this is because they barely react to the fact they are being recorded, and it could be said there is a “voice of God” In the confessional room.

Interactive documentaries are documentaries in which we know there is someone involved, usually a kind of presenter, due to the fact he is in the cameras field of view most of the time, actually asking questions to the people in the documentary. It often presents multiple arguments, and editing is seen a lot more. An example of a series of documentaries is the “Louis” films (Louis Theroux), such as “Louis and the Nazis”. There are issues though, if the people being documented don’t want most of his/her life being delved into in detail, essentially locking out some parts of what could possibly have been recorded. An example of this is, again in “Louis and the Nazis”, was when he was conversing with a “Skinhead”, the “Skinhead” was not willing to disclose anything about his Life to Louis because Louis himself was unwilling to state his religious orientation. Code 8.1 from the Ofcom code states that “Any infringement of privacy in programmes, or in connection with obtaining material included in programmes, must be warranted.” (http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code-2008/privacy/)

Reflexive documentaries are more “artistic” documentaries, due to the fact they often end up making something that may seem strange, but it still conveys its message. But, it’s strange design makes it a bit confusing. This is due to the fact that unlike most other documentaries, it feels more like a mish mash of things that are meant to represent other things, people or areas. This ends up making some people unable to understand the message relayed. An example of this is “man with a movie camera”. The reason for this is due to the fact it is seen from the perspective of someone watching the main “Character”, it seems like we are watching a chain that is also happened while the documentary was being made.

Finally, there are performative documentaries.  Unlike what the title displays, this is more informative than the other documentaries, due to the fact that it ends up using dramatizations, for example, recreations of past events. This in-turn is the reason the name “preformative” is given. This makes it subjective, since we also see it from one point of view at a time. The reason for this is due to the fact that sometimes, only one side has the whole story, even then, it’s arguable. These end up adding a good twist on the whole documentary genre, due to the fact that most of the documentary types mentioned don’t end up explaining in this great amount of detail. This can however cause issues since it can be a bit gory, dependant on what is shown. It also involves multiple interviews with people. An example of this is actually the “Crime watch” this is due to the fact that this show ends up following the main parts of the “Sub-genre”

My own documentary filmmaking philosophy is to keep it as close to the truth as possible, essentially making a documentary of the performative or interactive sub-genres to allow me to show more facts, and I will keep it as close to the facts as plausible, even if there ends up being some kind of random action had occurred during the recording.  It does, however, bring questions if this is the case due to the fact that no one can tell if what they are saying is the truth.