Documentaries aim to document real events using actual footage or reconstructions. There are several types of documentaries including fully-narrated, fly-on-the-wall, mixed, self-reflexive, docudrama, and docusoap. Key features of documentaries are observation, interviews, dramatization, mise-en-scene, and developing an exposition or line of argument.

1. DOCUMENTARIES
Genre Notes

2. Definition of a documentary
• The purpose of a documentary is to document
something, to report with evidence something
that has actually happened.
• It shows this by using Actuality Footage or
reconstructions.
• Documentaries are always factual.

3. Types of documentary
• Fully-Narrated – An off-screen voiceover is
used to make sense of the visuals and
dominates their meaning. It Anchors the
meaning of the visuals.
• Fly-on-the-wall – The cameras record subjects
without interference, and viewers come to
their own conclusions. The cameras are
always unobtrusive.

4. Types of documentary
• Mixed – Uses a combination of
interview, observation and narration. Uses
archive material and literary.
• Self-reflexive – When the subjects of the
documentary acknowledge the presence of
the camera and often speak directly to the
documentary makers.

5. Types of documentary
• Drama documentary/Docudrama – A re-
enactment of events as they are supposed to
have happened.
• Docusoap - Combines elements of
documentaries and soap opera genres.
Revolves around the same “characters” each
episode.

6. Features of a documentary
• Observation – The ‘unseen’ observation places
the audience in the role of eyewitnesses to
the reality portrayed. The participants do not
acknowledge the camera.
• Interview – TV documentaries rely on
interviews. The speaker/intervieweee does
not acknowledge the camera.

7. Features of a documentary
• Dramatisation – All documentaries use a sense of
drama throughout the observation element.
These events seem to occur naturally in front of
the camera.
• Mise-en-scene – Everything that you see in the
frame. Shots carefully composed so they contain
images they want the audience to see.
• Exposition – The line of argument in a
documentary. The exposition is what the
documentary is saying.