The document discusses the concepts of style and documentary films. It begins by defining style as how film techniques interact to create the formal system of a film and how style interacts with narrative and non-narrative forms. It then discusses how to analyze film style by identifying techniques used, tracing patterns of techniques, and proposing the functions of techniques and patterns. Finally, it discusses documentaries, noting the difference between staged and authentic documentaries and how some blend the two. It provides examples to illustrate various points.

1. Style and Documentary
Presentation by:
Caroline Schwab, Thomas Anderson, Preston Boardman,
Grace Hyun

2. The concept of style
• Style: how film techniques interact to create
another formal system of the film. Style and
narrative/non-narrative form interact with each
other
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flq0t4jrqJQ
• Group style: the consistent use of techniques
across the work of several filmmakers. Ex.
German Expressionist, Soviet montage

3. Style and the Filmmaker
• Style used to parallel plot line
• Narrative contrasts reinforced with stylistic
differences
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFa8zfWfeA
• Overall style to reflect progression of story

4. Style and the Viewer
• Viewers have subconscious expectations about
style
• Conforming to expectations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRiiG_IeqlM
• Experimenting with style
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uLpRvERjLE

5. Analyzing Film Style
• 4 general steps
• Step 1: Determining the Organizational Structure
• Understanding how the film is put together as a
whole

6. Analyzing Film Style Step: 2
• Identify the salient techniques used
• Spotting color, lighting, framing, sound
• Salience: most important techniques in a film (may
depend on the intention of the analyst)

7. Step 3: Trace Out Patterns of
Techniques
• You can then notice how they are patterned
• Techniques will be repeated, varied, developed,
and paralleled, across the entire film or even with
in a single scene.
• You can find stylistic patterns in two ways
• 1. Reflect on your own responses
• 2. Look for ways in which style reinforces
patterns of formal organization.

8. 1. Reflect on your own responses
• If a scene begins with a track-in, do you
expect that it will end with a track-out
• If a character looks left, do you assume
that something is offscreen and will be
revealed in the next shot
• Is mounting excitement in a scene due to
quickening tempo or accelerating editing

9. 2. Look for ways in which style reinforces
patterns of formal organization.
• Filmmakers often design the film’s stylistic system to
underscore developments in the drama
• Even a single scene is affected greatly by style
• A scene usually has dramatic pattern of encounter,
conflict, and outcome.
• With the cutting becoming more marked and the
shots coming closer to the characters as the scene
continues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XljEXSUcyo

10. Against the overall structure
• Sometimes stylistic patterning will not respect the overall
structure of the film
• Style can claim our attention in its own right
• But even if the stylistic patterns do swerve off on their own,
we still need a sense of the film’s narrative organization in
order to show how and when that happens
Example: Ozu’s Ohayo (Good Morning)

11. Step 4: Propose Functions for the
Salient Techniques and the Patterns
they Form
Here the analyst looks for the role that style
plays in the film’s overall form
• Does the use of camera movement tend to
create suspense by delaying the revelation of
information?
• Does the composition of the shot tend to
make us focus on a particular detail?
• Does the use of sound or music create
surprise?

12. Step 4 Continued
• A direct route to noticing function is to notice the
effects of the film on the viewing experience
• Style may enhance emotional aspects of the film
• Rapid cutting throughout The Birds causes shock
and horror.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplpQt424Ls

13. The Documentary
• The viewer is usually able to tell the difference.
• Different reasons to watch documentaries.
What is a Documentary?
• A presentation of recorded facts
• Authenticity

14. 3 Ways a Documentary Can
Be Made
1. Filmmakers film the subject matter live.
Ex. March of the Penguins
2. Filmmakers present with visual aids.
Ex. An inconvenient Truth
3. The filmmaker stages certain events to be recorded.
Ex. Never Enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25r52dNKTgA
Staged Documentaries
•Manipulation of events.

15. Documentaries with Staged
Events
• Can increase effectiveness.
Fires Were Started by Humphrey Jennings
• Or reduce authenticity.
Roger and Me by Michael Moore
• Viewers know that it is staged, but trust the documentary that it is true
to real life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjHQnX8KMnc (1:03)
Documentaries with wrong information are still documentaries, just
unreliable.

16. Types of Documentary
• Compilation film. A collection of images.
• Interview or Talking-Heads. Straightforward
interviewing.
• Direct-Cinema. The event is being filmed live.
• Nature. Documentaries about nature.
• Portrait. Documentary following a single person.
• Synthetic. A mix of any types of documentaries.

17. The Line Between
Documentary and Fiction
• What separates a documentary and fiction.
Both can be ased on facts.
Difference can base on viewers. Production or style.
Acknowledgement of reality.
• Mockumentaries.
Mix of stage, dramatization and authentic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw

18. Categorical Form
“Categories are groupings that individuals or societies create to organize their
knowledge of the world”
ANALYTICAL &
EXPOSITORY
Risks boring the spectator with
too much repetition of same
examples
Must introduce variations to
interest audience
might be exciting,
unusual, visually
interesting

19. BUT...
... may have elements of both
categorical and rhetorical
form
The filmmaker may still take
a stance on the categorical
subject (IMPLICIT), thus
injecting a bit of rhetorical
form into the film

20. “My Strange Addiction”
http://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=NJIatF1XOdk
Category: Addictions
Subcategory : Cat-food
addiction
Stance (IMPLICIT):
addiction is strange,
grotesque, unhealthy, reflects
larger personal issues
“shows doesn’t tell”

21. Rhetorical Form
“Rhetoric is the language designed to have a
persuasive or impressive effect on its audience”
ARGUMENTATIVE & EXPLICIT
Tries to...
1) move audience to a new conviction or attitude
2) argues an opinion not fact (the issue can
never be absolutely proved)
3) appeal to emotions as last resort
4) persuade the viewer to make a choice that
will have an effect on his or her everyday life

22. Types of Rhetorical Argument
1) From Source: Arguments use reliable sources
of information as evidence (interviews,
testimonies, narrators)
2) Subject-Centered: Film appeals to common
beliefs about subject as argument
EXAMPLES to prove public’s thoughts on
subject
ENTHYMEMES (an incomplete argument)
3) Viewer-Centered: Appeals to emotions of the
viewer (can disguise weakness of argument)
***Often arguments are presented as facts -- as if they are simple observations or
factual (Don’t fall into their trap!)

23. “How Beer Saved the World”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdwYjF
nFoJU
ENTHYMEMES:
“... more beer + more barley = more
farms and the invention of MAN”
(re-establish that beer is good)
“...beer was essential to the people,
essential for their nutrition, and essential
to the origin of writing”
(repetition disguises statement)

24. “Waiting For Superman”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEO
OCTmR-k
VIEWER-Centered:
sympathetic emotional response
(hopelessness and innocence in
Anthony)