A documentary is a non-fictional form of filmmaking. It can only be non-fictional otherwise it becomes a Mockumentary. They normally take a topic from a real life source (i.e. Nature, Politics, History, Entertainment, Geography, etc.) For example, the documentary Everything or Nothing (2012) is about the popular series, James Bond and its history.
So what is the difference between a Documentary and a Feature Film? Well both can be non-fictional, though this is very uncommon in film due to changes in information to make it seem more appealing to its target audience.
Modes of a documentary?
There are 6 different types of modes for a documentary. There are: the Expository mode, the Poetic mode, the Observational mode, the Participatory mode, the Reflexive mode and the Performative mode. I will explain what each one means individually.
First of all, the Expository mode is a formal format of a documentary that is verbally driven. Examples would be that of formal news programmes, i.e. Sky News, BBC News, ITV News, etc. The reason this appeals strongly to news shows is because Expository documentaries have a clear narrative and the audience is spoon feed information. These can also be bias, news shows such as Fox News, with their infamous reputation for bias do exactly this. They bring up a topic, they speak their opinionated view (making it sound factual) and then show you footage that supports their statement. BBC news, isn't bias but still uses the same techniques. They give the news story, and just tell you whats happened factually and shows you some b-roll footage to support it.
So you are watching a Documentary about the life of a soldier in World War 2, you are given an entire hour length of b-roll. This is the Poetic mode, a very visual and dramatic piece of documentary filmmaking. Continuity bare exists, its almost random but each shot has a similar tone that conveys the story being told. So, relating back to the life of a soldier in WW2, all you'd see is a various amount of clips, all of a Soldier, with the same tone (which is usually based upon the overall narrative) in a certain way that will help tell the story. A common example of this is Rain (1929) by Joris Ivens.
Ever watched a David Attenborough documentary? Like, Planet Earth (2006) or Survival Island (1996), well these are great examples of the participartory mode. Participartory mode is when a narrator is giving information, but the difference between expository and Observational, is that participatory has images that help aid the information being given. Keep in mind, there is a relationship between the animals and Attenborough. For example, if David Attenborough was talking about a specific plant, or a smaller animal, he would have it in his hand, or in frame with him.
Observational documentaries are exactly how they sound. They are pure observation. This means the only thing aiding the narrative is video. No narration, no music, no real continuity, no interviews, not anything except pure observation. For example, if you are making a observational documentary about the food chain it would be presented differently to Planet Earth. This is because the Observational documentaries conventionally have less cuts and longer takes. In other words, its a very laid back, easy to watch type of documentary that utilises video as its main story telling element.
Performative documentaries often get confused with participatory documentaries because they are basically the same except for one very small difference. Participatory documentaries are factual pieces of filmmaking, like Planet Earth, everything would of been research and scientifically proven as a fact. Where as a Performative documentary is a lot more opinionated and tends to be more personal to the filmmaker as they also tend to have a large input with the narrative in terms of their opinion. Documentaries about history tend to be a hard way to tell which is follows. This is because with history, half of it is propaganda to make the winning country sound better and losing country sound worse. This is driven by the foundations of peoples opinion other then fact, as usually in war there is not a better or a worse, they both make their fair mistakes.
Conventions of a documentary
In a documentary, we have established there is a theory that states that there are different modes. In terms of conventions, these modes have a lot of cross overs. For example, most modes had some sort of narration or voice over to give information. But when we watch a documentary, there is certain things that differ it from a cinematic feature film. One of them is, interviews. When you see an interview, its an obvious indication that its a documentary. Multi-camera is another convention, this is so they have more chance of capturing wild life.
List of other conventions:
- Graphics
- Voice overs
- Presenters/Narrators
- Match on action (For example, when someone looks/refers at/to something off frame, the video will cut to what they are looking/referring too)
- B-Roll - lots of it
- Continuity (some modes go against this - i.e. Poetic)
- Narrative (not all modes use the same technique, some visual (observational), tonal (poetic), narrative (Expository), etc
- Factual or Opinionated
- Lots more
Graphics are a huge part of Documentaries. They help convey information, such as people's names in interviews and facts & statistics. But, also presenters/narrators. The difference between a Presenter and a Narrator is a Narrator just provides a voice over, where as a Presenter appears on the video as well as a voice over.
Define the following; Realism, Dramatisation and Narration
Realism - a documentary that is based around and insights the viewers about a real life topic. For example, a professional gamer nicknamed "Olafmeister" recently had a player biography about his life experience and how he got to where he is today. This is a great example of realism because its all factual, from the narrative to the people in it. No characters, no script, just a real story about a person's experience.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mvpFEzXHg0
Dramatisation - this is a type of documentary that unlike realism, has actors playing characters and the narrative, though based on real life is only based upon it and can sometimes be altered to make it more entertaining. An example of this would be The Imitation game (2014).
Narration - a documentary that takes an event/story (such as World War 2) and go through the entire event with a narrator there to help explain and dissect so that the audience knows what, why, how, when things happened and their effect on the event. An example of this would be When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) a documentary about Hurricane Katrina.
References:
http://www.godnose.co.uk/downloads/alevel/documentary/Doc%20Modes%20nichols.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mvpFEzXHg0
www.google.com
No comments:
Post a Comment