Documentary

A documentary is a recording of an event, generally based on people’s perspectives and/ or genuine facts. Using pictures or interviews with people involved in real events to provide a factual report on a particular subject.

‘Creative treatment for actuality’- John Grierson

Compilation film- where the film is made up of an archive of images such as newsreel and footage. Interview or 'talking head'- where testimonies are recorded about people, events or social movements.

Direct cinema- where an event is recorded 'as it happens' with minimal interference from the filmmaker.

Documentaries use narrative form- they tell a story. They need good characters, tension and a point of view. They can be planned or improvised, use a voice-over use interviews or 'observe', use found footage or music. Modern documentaries are less scripted and appear observational for example Big Brother, resulting in the audience being placed in the position of a voyeur.

Use parallelism this connects people through editing. Asking the  audience to draw parallels between characters, settings and situations. 

Conventions of a documentary include a voiceover, actuality of the footage, it includes realism, archive footage, interviews, use of texts, sound, visual coding and set- ups.

Actuality of the footage,this may be a recording of an actual event which is documented with the real people involved and not actors. For example London riots
 

• Sound- Voiceover of an unseen commentator who explains or tells a story during the documentary, as an audience we are encouraged to believe what they say and claim it as the truth.  In most films there is diegetic sound (when the sound has a source in the film) and Non-diegetic sound (when the sound comes from outside the film, eg a soundtrack, narrator, sound effect.) Documentaries heavily rely on non-diegetic sound to prompt the audience to respond in a certain way.

• Narrator – In documentaries a narrator may be used to communicate the events or experiences, so that the audience can understand the documentary.

• Interview- This allows people being filmed to speak directly about events prompted by specific questions. Interviews in a documentary give viewers a sense of realism. Interviewees generally answer questions looking at the interviewer, this is done to gain emotion, it is proven that a person will give far more emotion looking into the eye of someone rather than a camera.

• Realism- Documentaries can achieve this through archive footage, interviews, location shooting and following the action.

• Text- During the documentary, information on dates and times may be inserted on the page. This can further the information which may not have been previously presented during the documentary.

• Camera- Significant camera shots can connote it being real or if it’s happening live. For example uneven and not stable hand held camera work. The camera being hand held adds intimacy between the audience and the film. For example japan tsunami

• Lighting- The lighting in documentaries usually come from the natural environment that it’s being filmed. Unlike a feature film, lighting may be manipulated to make the lighting how they want it to look.

Editing- Editing in documentary films rely on

-       Fade-out - when an image gradually darkens into blackness.

-        Fade-in - the opposite of the above and so the image lightens from blackness.

-        Dissolve - when the end of the shot is briefly superimposed with the beginning of the next.

Wipe - when a shot is replaced by another using a line which moves across the screen.

Documentary soaps – a documentary following people in a particular occupation or location over a period of time. It’s a long running documentary series that, like fictional soap operas follows a group of characters, they can be based in institutions for example  Airport or  driving school.

Drama Documentary- a fictional story that uses techniques of documentary to reinforce realism. It’s a reconstruction of a documentary of actual events using techniques taken from fictional cinema.

The reason why I conducted this research was to gain more information about documentaries as our film may be a cross genre. This really helped us to plan our film, knowing all the conventions of a documentary.

Tracy Kimani 8108