The history of documentaries can be broken into several eras: - Pre-1900s featured "actuality films" that captured single moments on film like trains arriving or workers leaving factories. - 1900-1920 saw the rise in popularity of travelogue films and the first feature-length documentary, South, was released in 1919. - The 1920s brought several traditions to documentaries including romanticism films, city symphonies focusing on urban environments, and newsreels which sometimes included staged reenactments. Techniques like fluid camera work and montage were also used.

1. History of Documentaries
Jessica Mills

2. Pre 1900
The term ‘documentary’ was not coiled until 1926, so the short films of
this era were named ‘actuality films’. Many of the first films were a
minute or less in length, due to technological limitations. The early films
were single-shot moments captured on film, such as a train entering a
station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work.
1900–1920
Travelogue films were very popular during the early part of the
twentieth century and were often referred to by distributors as
‘scenics’, which were amongst the most popular type of films of the
time.
Early colour motion picture processes such as Kinemacolour used
Travelogues to promote the new colour processes.
Also during this period, Frank Hurley's feature documentary film, South
(1919), about the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was released. The
film documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest
Shackleton in 1914.

3. 1920s
The term ‘documentary’ was not coiled until 1926, so the short films of
this era were named ‘actuality films’. Many of the first films were a
minute or less in length, due to technological limitations. The early films
were single-shot moments captured on film, such as a train entering a
station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work.
Popular traditions and types of documentaries at this time included:
Romanticism; The city symphony (the continental, or realist, tradition
focused on humans within human-made environments); Kino-Pravda
(‘cinematic truth’; Dziga Vertov believed the camera could portray
reality more accurately than the human eye); and the Newsreel
tradition (important in documentary film; sometimes staged but usually
re-enactments of events that had already happened).
Various European filmmakers began to work in styles that incorporated
avant-garde cinema tic filming and editing techniques (e.g. fluid camera
work
and
montage)
and
abstract
narratives
to
create
impressionistic, highly poetic quasi-documentary works.

4. 1920s–1940s
This era brought about the propagandist tradition, consisting of films
made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. In
Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John
Grierson, who created the Film Board in Canada for propaganda. They
became known as the Documentary Film Movement and succeeded in
blending propaganda, information and education with a more poetic
aesthetic approach to documentary.
1950s–1970s
A new generation of young filmmakers in the US and Europe attempted
to redefine the nature of the documentary film in this era, by using
newly developed, lightweight, hand-held cameras with synchronised
sound. These filmed strived for immediacy, spontaneity and authenticity
with attempt to bring the filmmaker and audience closer to the subject.
They were termed variously as Direct Cinema, Cinema Verite, and Free
Cinema.
Also during this era, CBS Television inaugurates the first regular new
magazine series, the National Educational Television was founded, the
Armstrong Circle Theatre was first broadcasted on TV and Sony
introduced the first consumer ½ inch video tape recorder.

5. 1970s–1990s
The late 60s and 70s and later decades see shifts in the narrative
approach of many documentaries. Although other earlier documentary
forms, like Cinema Verite and third-person narrative, continue, firstperson storytelling begins to emerge.
In this era, the New Day Films cooperative is formed by feminist
filmmakers Liane Brandon and Amalie Rothschild to distribute social
issue films by independent filmmakers. This was the first distributor to
be run entirely by and for filmmakers.
During the late 70s and 80s, Sony introduces the Betamax consumer
videocassette recorder (VCR) at $2295, JVC introduces the VHS format
VCR costing $885 and Sony introduces the first consumer video
camcorder.

6. Modern Documentaries
Film genre has become increasingly successful in the theatrical release.
Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically hve far
lower budgets, making them attractive to film companies. An enormous
rash of television programmes utilising some of the techniques of
Cinema Verite hit the network and cable airwaves – so-called ‘reality
TV’. However, the nature of documentary films has changed in the past
20 years from the Cinema Verite tradition. The commercial success of
some documentaries like The Thin Blue Line and Roger and Me may
contribute to the narrative shift.
Documentaries have become financially viable even without cinema
release due the their recent success and the advent of DVDs.
Broadcasters have become their largest funding source, causing
opportunities to emerge within the broadcast market.
Modern documentaries have the overlap with some television forms with
the development of reality TV. This occasionally verges on
documentary, but more often veers to the fictional or staged.
Modern lightweight digital video cameras have greatly aided
documentary makers, as has the dramatic drop in equipment prices.