Expository documentaries present a strong point of view through voiceovers and titles in an authoritative manner meant to persuade viewers. Examples include nature documentaries and profiles that deliver an unproblematic interpretation. Observational documentaries aim to simply observe with minimal intervention using portable cameras and equipment, often applying a "fly-on-the-wall" technique. Interactive documentaries show how the filmmaker's presence affects the situations being filmed, with the relationship between filmmaker and subject becoming central. Reflexive documentaries draw attention to their own construction and representation of reality in order to question notions of documentary truth.

1. CODES AND CONVENTIONS
OF DOCUMENTARIES
Ashley Winter - Sim

2. EXPOSITORY
These documentaries are present in a way that it speaks directly to the viewer,
often in an authoritative way which uses voiceovers or titles, showing a strong
argument and point of view. These films try to persuade the viewer. (They may
use a rich and sonorous male voice.) Images are often not paramount; they
exist to advance the argument. The use of images presses upon us to read the
images in a certain style. Historical documentaries in this mode deliver an
unproblematic account and interpretation of the past.
Examples of this documentary are things such as: ‘America’s Most Wanted’ or
‘A&E Biography’; Scientific/Nature documentaries such as ‘John Berger’s Way
of Seeing (1974)’ Michael Moore is a prime example of an expository
documentarian.

3. OBSERVATIONAL
Observational documentaries try to simply observe life minimum intervention.
Filmmakers who worked in this sub-genre often saw the expository mode as
too didactic. The first of this kind of docs dates back to the 1960’s when
technological developments made them possible include mobile lightweight
cameras and portable sound equipment for sound. Often, this mode of film
was developed in to voice-over commentary, post-synchronized dialogue
and music, or re-enactments of certain events. This implies the ‘Fly-on-the-wall’
technique which basically means to observe but to not intervene.
This is applied to documentaries such ‘Planet Earth’ and ‘High School’ by
Frederick Wiseman.

4. INTERACTIVE
Interactive documentaries are where the act of filmmaking is to not influence
or alter the events being filmed. What these films do is show the approach of
the participant-observation. Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we also
get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by his/her
presence. The meeting between filmmaker and the given subject becomes a
primary section to the film.
Michael Moore’s documentaries could come under this sub –section although
he is more of an expository documentarian.

5. REFLEXIVE
Reflexive documentaries draw attention to their own construction, and the
fact that they are representations. How does the world get represented by
documentary films? This question is a key factor to this sub-genre of
documentaries. They push us to question the reality of a documentary in
general. It is the most self-conscious of all the sub-genres, and is highly
sceptical of realism. It may de-familiarize what we are seeing and how we are
seeing it.

6. PERFORMATIVE
Performative documentaries express experience and emotion to the world.
They tend to be personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or
experimental, and might include hypothetical re-enactments of events
created to make us fell what it might be like for us to have a certain
perspective on a world that is not our own. Performative docs usually link up
personal accounts or experiences to larger political or historical realities.

7. REALISM
Realism means interest in actual or real world, which is different from the
abstract side. Realism documentaries are based on real life people and their
lives, and show what their lives or the people themselves are like. Some
documentaries go into detail of the said persons experiences using
re-enactments of events to show this.

8. DRAMATISATION
These documentaries are also know as ‘Docudramas’ which is a genre of
radio and television programming, feature film, and staged theatre, which
features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. On stage, it is sometimes
known as documentary theatre.

9. NARRATIVISATION
These documentaries try to communication events/experiences in a narrative
form to gain a greater understanding, e.g. documentaries that try to
narrativize the holocaust.