Documentary Mini Task

Documentary Mini-Task

A documentary involves pictures and interviews from people involved in real life events to show a factual report on a topic.

An 'expository' documentary is a form of documentary which speaks directly to the audience/viewer through either a voiceover or titles. This style of documentarys aim is to expose a person or topic. An example of this type of documentary is 'Backstairs Billy: The Queen's Mum's Butler' (2009). The documentary follows the story of William Tallon who was the Queen's devoted servant.

An 'observational' documentary is a different form of documentary which consists of the film-maker following the person around to observe the life-changing places in their lives. The equipment can be informal like hand held cameras as it is easier to capture more of the action. Some examples are 'Big Brother' (2000) and 'MTV Cribs' (2000).

Another documentary style is 'interactive' documetaries and this one uses interviewees aswell as interacting with the audience. This is created by having a presenter on screen. An example of this type of documentary is 'Plane Resurrection' (2016) directed by Nik Colman. This documentary was made with a few crew members including a director, cinematographer and cameraman. This documentary focuses on Maurice Hammond talking to the viewer about the restoring of a WWII aircraft.

Another documentary style is 'reflexive'. A 'reflexive' documentary focuses on the film-maker knowing their presence in front of the camera which helps to give a narrative to the story. Louis Theroux is a big contributor for this type of documentary style, he has been involved with many different documentaries in this style inculding 'Louis and the Nazis' (2003) and 'Extereme Love: Autism' (2012), both of these documentaries focus on big themes and Louis is infront of the camera talking to the people. 

The last documentary style is 'performative' and this adresses the emotional aspect of a documentary, this is created normally by using re-enactments and over the top camera shots. This style is the opposite to 'observational' documentaries. An example of 'performative' documentaries are 'Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer' (2003) by Nick Broomfield and 'Capturing the Friedmans' (2003) by Andrew Jarecki. Both of these documentaries have strong themes and they both have re-enactments to emphasize the story.