Eloise Hatton : A2 Media

Different Types of Documentaries

Fully Narrated – use a voice over to make sense of visuals included in the documentary, this voice over is known as ‘The Voice of God’. The voice over conveys the exposition. (Exposition means line of argument).

Fly on the wall – relies entierly on observations and also includes the audience watching something as it happenes and features a distorted version of the truth. Viewers come to their own conclusions.

Mixed – uses a mix of interviews, observation and narration. The narritve section in these types of documentarys is comparable to a news reporting. They are more objective as they use a range of techniques within the documantary rather than focusing on one technique such as the narritve section.

Self – Reflexive – is when the subject achknologes the camera, and they usually become about the person in front of the camera rather than the actual issue/subject. Critics say that self-reflective documentaries fall into empty narcissim. They speak directly to the film maker.

Docu – drama – are a re-enactment of events that have occured and are fictional narrative based on facts. Critics say that docudramas claim to represent the truth but can only ever hope to film fiction. Docudramas can be misleading and risky in some ways.

Docu – Soap – have become increasinly popular throughout the past 10 years, these types of documateries follow peoples lives. Docudramas originated in Britain and have low production costs and people of ten become ‘famous’ from these documentaries.

Current afairs – different from documentaries and are journalist based programmes addressing the news in more detail.

Differences between Current affairs and Documentaries

Current affairs are based on daily events and only have 5 -10 minutes where a documentary can take months to make.

Features of Documentarys

According to John Carner from the Uni of Liverpool there are 5 central elements of the documentary.

1. Observation –puts the audience in a role of eye witness where the camera appears to be on scene. In direct address to the audience (i.e. speach over heard is a common factor).

2. Interview – TV documentarys use interviews to make a contrast between observation sequences and are structured in two ways, either intercut fragments of observation or a completely uninterupted sequences.

3. Dramatisation – even though all documentarys use a sense of drama it is specifically used to portray people and events the film maker can not gain access to in real life. These sequences are said to be based on fact.

4. Mise-en-scene – literally what the director and producers put in the frame (e.g. props/lighting/etc).

Eloise Hatton : A2 Media

5. Exposition – the line of argument running through a documentary. (Does not always have to be verbal, it can be oral or visual).