A documentary is a specific film genre that centers on the attempt in one fashion or another to document reality. Documentaries can be very personal stories but close attention also has to replace on the distinct requirements that come with the production of the genres. When it comes to creating documentaries, there are many different ways to tell your story to the audience. The real and the most popular are the Observational Documentary and Expository Documentary, and the Participatory Documentary.
A general rule of thumb is that the content will dictate the form of the documentary it will take. However, it is up to the director who makes the ultimate decisions as to the style and look of the piece. They will determine what the audience sees, hears, and understand about the subject. Because of this, all documentaries have a point of view. However in Observational Documentary tends distrain from this concept as much as it can.
Observational just like the title suggest means, letting the action play out naturally and having the camera there to cover it. A good modern example of this will be wing migration where we see all different types of birds migrating over the season change. The cameras replace upon hang riders and mount on the actual birds himself to document their travels.
There is no participation from the narrator, the camera man, or the crew. We simply show what we shoot and later edited. And that was the basis of the movie. Shooting this way is known as the Fly on the Wall Technique. Which means that if a camera was placed in a room where there was some action taking place, whatever the camera capture is what will be use for the documentary. It is the least intrusive type of documentary film making.
Another example would be the extreme foreign known as Cinema Verite which strives for no interpretation, just capturing the truth. To this hand, Andy Warhol produced a video entitle Empire which comprise one seven hour shoot of the Empires State Building. He strives to capture the truth and its appearance form and uses known Oration. He wants the video to speak for itself.
A modern example of the fly on the all technique would be using a security camera to capture video for our production. There would be no bural as the action playing out is the focus of the piece. There should be no interruption and no participation from any outside non-relevant source that includes the production crew.
An Expository Documentary is generally a biographical or historical piece that generally includes a narrator and tells the story. A good example of this would be A&E’s biography series. The episodes have voice overs, they have a host, and they feature characters who have a story to tell. The story is a system and it’s pacing by the narrator and or the host. Bural is very necessary to tell the story. It is also called Safely Footage or Backup Footage. Bural’s video taken to service of visual in a production. The narration may serve to move the story and the shots generally fill in the visuals but can be set up and don’t necessarily have to play on in front of the camera like an observational documentary film would.
The basic shooting style involves more of a descriptive element such as on a news crew. Grabbing only what you need based on what will be edited later. Essentially asking the question, what do I need to describe this scenario? This is known as the shoot to edit method. For example, if we’re going to shot a piece about laying at a magazine cover, we will first grab a few quick shots of the cover being shot and then shoot to the design being put together. And lastly, we’d shoot the finished product. These three steps would describe our scenario and explain our story. There is no need for long boring shots. This way, we can tell the story of our layout with our shots and create an over all descriptive setting for the audience.
A participatory documentary is a documentary where the film maker’s experiences are included within the finish production.
A good example of this would be Michael Moore’s Roger and Me or Bowling for Columbine. They are extremely one sided and shot from the director’s point of view. Another good example of a participatory documentary to the extreme in would be a Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me or Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden. Both of the extender on the creator has the main focal point of the film, moving from just being involved in the story to becoming the actual story. These types of documentaries are generally driven by the characters and strive to attain some certain goal by the end of the production such as Super Size Me were the goal was to see what would happen to someone’s health if they were to only eat McDonalds value meals.
No, matter how we choose to our stories, documentaries are based in reality. Now it’s up to us to define that reality in our own unique vision.
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