The documentary

genre

DefinitionIt is a factual genre. The purpose of a documentary is to

document, i.e. to report with evidence something that
actually happened.
It can show this by using actuality footage or
reconstruction. It can use narrators voice over to anchor
the meaning or rely on participant themselves with
occasional interjections from the narrator.

John Corner
What distinguishes documentaries is the portrayal of the recorded sounds and
images of actuality.
A good documentary should be about the topic and not the presentation
however the content alone without any intervention from the producers would
seldom be enough to make a coherent let alone interesting. To give a product a
sense of pace ad structure they draw on many of the characteristics of fiction in
their use of, for example camera angles, lighting, framing and editing.

John Grieson
He coined the phrase documentary in 1926. He defined it as the creative
treatment of actuality.

Features of a
documentary

observation
The programme makers pretend that the camera is
unseen and just observes what is going on. This places
the audience in the position of an eyewitness to events.
An example of this is 24 hours in A&E.

Interviews
Documentaries rely on interviews, the interviewer is
commonly not see or heard. Cut aways are used to
illustrate what the interviewers is talking about.

Dramatization
Documentaries use a sense of drama through
observation elements so the audience is an eyewitness
to dramatic events.

Mise-en-sen
Documentary makes carefully compose shots so that
they contain the images they want the audience to see.

Exposition
The line of argument in a documentary is called
exposition. In other words the exposition is what the
documentary is saying.

Different types of
documentary

Fully narrated
Where an off screen voice over conveys the exposition.
The voice over is used to make sense of the visuals and
sounds. The narration style is referred to as the voice of
god.
For example, most natural history documentaries are
fully narrated.

Fly on the wall

These documentaries rely almost totally on observation.
The cameras are left to record the subjects with
interference. The camera is unknown and not
acknowledged.

Self reflective
When the subjects of the programme acknowledge the
presence of the camera and often speak directly to the
programme maker.

Docudrama
A enactment of events as they were supposed to have
actually happened. The elements of the argument and
exposition are combine with those of a fictional
narrative.

Docusoap
This follows the daily lives of particular individuals,
usually within a designated occupation over a number
of programmes.