This document discusses different types and features of documentaries. It begins by explaining that documentaries can aim to document events or bring awareness to causes, or can entertain as human interest films. Observational documentaries feature no narration or interviews and allow viewers to make their own judgments. Interviews in documentaries follow conventions like rule of thirds positioning and use graphics to identify subjects. Expository documentaries use narration to construct and explain topics to inform viewers. Documentaries employ techniques like dramatization, mise-en-scene, and different documentary styles like poetic, participatory, and reflective.

1. Genre Analysis.

2. Documentaries.
§ The propose of a documentary is to document certain events, many documentary
filmmakers attempt to change or improve society in some way with their
documentaries.Their goal is to bring to light a certain cause or injustice with the
hope that their film will help galvanize the masses to demand change.
§ Other documentaries have the purpose to entertain their audiences these are
known as human interest films and are often observational for the audience to
watch and make their own judgments.
§
Observational Documentary
Senna.

3. Features of a documentary;
Observational.
§ No voiceover.
§ No presenter.
§ No interviews.
§ Not a lot of music.
§ Little use of non-diegetic sounds.
§ No re-enactments.
§ The viewer decides the significant of what there’re seeing, make their own minds
up.

4. Features of a documentary;
interview.
§ Interviews in documentaries are interesting a they often follow the rules of thirds
which is the way in which a screen is split up I to three with the subject often
situated on the far right of the screen, as it is seen as the most interesting point of
the screen. Rule of thirds in
a interview
§ Interviews also often include elements of
Mise en scene by how the setting is important
In order to keep it relevant to the documentary
and as we can also see by the picture includes
elements of graphics to explain who the subject
is.
Graphics, giving information
about who is being interviewed.

5. Features of a documentary;
Expository documentary.
§ Expository documentary is a documentary that attempts to expose a person or
topic.
§ Expository documentaries are known for having a voice over or narrator to talk
over the pictures an videos in order to construct and explain the documentary so
that the audience can follow and be informed.
§ Conventions; Commentator, facts, opinions, persuasive techniques. Etc..
§ Expository documentaries are often biographical or historical concentrating on
specific events and topics.
§ The line of argument in a documentary. It is essentially what the documentary is
saying some expositions are direct and some are indirect.

6. Features of a documentary;
Mise en Scene.
§ Costumes are used in documentary videos to perhaps set a more professional tone to
the documentary and may also be used during interviews.
§ Lighting is perhaps more used during the interview in documentaries lighting on the
individuals face is important as low and high key lighting can be used to portray
individuals in a certain way and can help for the audience to make opinions.
§ Actors is less important as they are not nessisarily used in documentaries unless they
are needed dud=ring a reconstruction of events.
§ Make up and hair is again more focused upon the interview it may be used during
some interviews to give the subject a more professional look in order to fit in with the
documentary.
§ Props have limited use in documentaries and may appear in the background of
interview to establish the setting or in general videos during the documentary.
§ Setting is again more focused upon the interview, interviews are often carried out in
settings that are more relevant to the individual and the topic so that the documentary
can remain consistant.

7. Features of a documentary;
Dramatisation.
§ This is done through the observational element. It is used in order to create a
certain sense of conflict and build up the argument.
§ The audience is placed as an eye witness and they portray people in the even
based upon fact so that the audience can form their own opinions.
§ Dramatistaion can also be seen as the over exaggerating of events in order to
portray the events and story in a more entertaining way and is why the feature
may be more commonly used during observational documentaries.
§ Drama is used in the observational footage by adding an element of dramatic
events. Some dramatic events. Some documentaries use dramatization to portray
people and events that the producer can’t access.
§

8. Type of documentary;
Poetic documentaries.
§ Poetic documentaries, which first appeared in the 1920’s, were a sort of reaction
against both the content and the rapidly crystallizing grammar of the early fiction
film.The poetic mode moved away from continuity editing and instead organized
images of the material world by means of associations and patterns.
§ Their disruption of the coherence of time and space a coherence favoured by the
fiction films of the day can also be seen as an element of the modernist counter-
model of cinematic narrative.
§ Example;
Joris
Ivens’
Rain
(1928)

9. Type of documentary;
Expository documentaries.
§ Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an
authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a strong
argument and point of view.These films are rhetorical, and try to persuade the
viewer.
§ The voice-of-God commentary often sounds ‘objective’ and omniscient. Images are
often not paramount; they exist to advance the argument.
§

10. Type of documentary;
observational documentaries.
§ Observational documentaries attempt to simply and spontaneously observe lived
life with a minimum of intervention.
§ Observational documentaries usually have the purpose of being more entertaining
for the audience and place less emphasis on trying to persuade the audience
meaning that they are able to form their own opinion based on what they
watching without any major attempts to try and persuade the audience towards
one side of the argument.
Observational documentary Armadillo; story of some young Danish soldiers and
their platoon deployed on a tour of Afghanistan.

11. Type of documentary;
Participatory documentaries.
§ In participatory documentaries the film maker is physically part of the
documentary and will appear on screen in order o give commentary and
direction in order to guide he documentary, meaning that the audience can get a
sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by their presence.
§ Participatory documentaries believe that it is impossible for the act of filmmaking
to not influence or alter the events being filmed.What these films do is emulate
the approach of the anthropologist

12. Type of documentary;
Reflective documentaries.
§ In reflective documentaries the film maker acknowledges their presence in front of
the camera and provides a narrative to the documentary.
§ The reflective style is usually associated with experimental documentaries where
he viewer is just as interested about how the film is constructed as they are in the
actual context.
§ Relationship is between the film maker/narrator and the viewer so that they can
inform then on the prduction.