A reflective documentary is an experimental style that does not hide its construction, sometimes showing crew members. The audience is as interested in how the film is made as in its content. It aims to be truthful by focusing on realism and using minimal editing and effects. A reflective filmmaker like Louis Theroux narrates over real footage and directly addresses the audience, aiming to influence their opinions similar to his own through sharing the problems he faced making the documentary.

2. A reflective documentary is a style which is usually associated with
experimental documentaries.
From the most minimal and simplistic levels, the film may make no
attempt at masking aspects of its construction, eg displaying
workers and camera men in the background.
In these experimental documentaries, the viewer is often just as
interested in how the film is constructed as they are in the
internal content of the film.

3. HOW THEY ENGAGE AN AUDIENCE
The audience are able to become more aware of the problems they
face from seeing the problems that the film maker faced
throughout production.
These documentaries are usually the most truthful as they focus on
realism and try to shoe real life footage of how things looked and
happened.
There is very minimal editing in these documentaries and rarely any
special effects added before showing to a viewing audience
However, the film maker narrates over the documentary an
addresses the audience specifically, making the viewers opinions
very similar to that of the film maker.

4. EXAMPLE OF FILM MAKER
Louis Theroux is a well known film maker that creates reflective
documentaries.
He is known for his controversial methods as he presents in front of
the camera and is an extremely casual interviewer.
He sometimes takes part in activities he is documenting on to display
an inside look and example to the audience.
He tackles more taboo forms and topics, such as porn stars, prisons
and prostitutes.
Examples of his most controversial work include “Louis and the
Nazis” and “When Louis met Jimmy Saville”.