Advance Portfolio - Media Studies

1. Types of
documentaries
Advance Portfolio

2. • Origin the styles of documentary or documentary modes were
developed by American theorist Bill Nichols. The concept was
created as he wanted to distinguish the particular traits and different
conventions used in documentaries. The 6 types are

3. Poetic Documentary(subjective, artistic expression)
• A documentary that has a topic which is personal to the people
involved, usually the presenter and interviewees. It emphasizes
someaspects of the person’s life and presents these via music,
camera shots and angles and the editing. It can also be quite artistic
in the way it is presented.

4. • A documentary where the filmmaker is a neutral observer. (from the
outside looking in) Life is lived and observed. It can then be seen
how people/animals react in different situations. The filmmaker is
normally out of shot so they cannot influence what is happening.
Nothing is rehearsed or staged, this means the camera crew have to
rush around, resulting in poor shaky looking footage.
Observational Documentary(Fly on the wall)

5. Reflexive Documentary
(awareness of the process)
• A documentary where the audience engages with the content of the
documentary as it happens, they acknowledge the issues of realism
and representation and modality judge them when they arrive. It
shows the constructive nature of the documentary showing not
necessarily the truth, but a reconstruction.

6. Expository Documentary
(voice of god)
• Documentaries in this style are usually
non-fiction films. There is direct access to
the audience.

7. Participatory Documentary
• A participatory documentary is where the
events and situations presented are
influenced and altered by the presence of
the filmmaker.

8. Performative Documentary
• A performative documentary
acknowledges the emotional and
subjective aspects of documentary and
presents ideas as a part of a context
having different meanings for different
people and are often autobiographical in
nature.