This document defines different types of documentaries and their key features. It explains that documentaries can either have a narrator or rely on participants to provide context and meaning. The main types are fully narrated, fly on the wall, mixed, self-reflexive, and docu-drama documentaries. Key features that documentaries use include observation footage, interviews, carefully composed shots, dramatization, and exposition to develop their argument.

1. Documentary Genre
• The purpose of a documentary is to document something
that has happened.
• It can be shown by using actuality footage or
reconstructions.
• It can use a narrator’s voice over to anchor the meaning or
rely on the participants themselves with the odd
interjection by the unseen narrator.

2. Types of Documentary
• Fully narrated: an off screen voiceover is used to
make sense of the visuals and dominates their
meaning
• Fly on the wall: has its roots in a cinema venite. The
camera is set up to be hidden, people are unaware
they’re being filmed. Shows the full truth as
participants don’t acknowledge the presence of the
camera.
• Mixed: using a combination of interview, observation
and narration to advance the argument or narrative.
• Self reflexive: when subjects of the documentary
acknowledge the presence of the camera and often
speak directly to the documentary maker.
• Docu-drama: a re-enactment of events as they are
supposed to have happened.
• Docu-soap: recent development. They follow the
daily lives of particular individuals within an
organisation. Combines a documentary and a soap
opera.

3. Features of Documentaries
• Observation:
– Contain sequences of observation
– The programme pretends that the camera is unseen
– Places the audience in the position of an observer or an eye witness to events
• Interview
– Documentaries rely on interviews
– Interviewer is either seen or unseen
• Mise-en-scene
– All shots are carefully composed so they only contain certain images they want
the audience to see
• Dramatisation
– Use a sense of drama in the observational element
– Sometimes dramatic reconstructions are used
• Exposition
– The line of argument in the documentary
– Exposition is made up of description combined with commentary