Class Review on the 6 Documentary Modes to be Used for the Final Exam

1.  Documentary Styles 6 different types of documentaries: poetic, expository, observational, participatory, reflexive, and hybrid.

1. 1.  Poetic Mode-‘Resembling fragments of the world’-Poetic Mode tends towards subjective interpretations of the subject.-It explores the complex editing within a documentary;juxtaposing and linking images, video clips and music etc.together to effectively attract the audience.-Poetic editing explores “associations and patterns that involve temporal rhythms and spatial juxtapositions.” (Nichols 2001)-Opens up possibility of alternative forms of knowledge to straight forward transfer of knowledge. 

Examples of Poetic Doc:

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio

Quick Notes on Poetic Documentary

1. Does not use continuity editing, sacrifices sense of the very specific location and place that continuity creates

2. Explores associations and patterns that involve temporal rhythms and spatial juxtapositions 

3. Social Actors rarely become fully-fledged characters

4. Opens up possibility of alternative forms of knowledge to straightforward transfer of knowledge

NEGATIVE: LACK OF SPECIFICITY

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2. 2.  Expository mode explores documentaries which include factual information and figures, having interviews to backup the topic also. The documentaries aim to inform the audience by passing on information.-Narration is also used in these documentaries to support and explain the documentaries content.-Films, news and television programmes uses this mode to effectively transfer information.

Quick Notes on Expository Documentary

1.Arose from dissatisfaction with distracting entertainment qualities of the fiction film 

2.Voice of god commentary, poetic perspectives sought to disclose information about historical world & see that world afresh, even if ideas seem romantic or didactic 

3.Addresses viewer directly, w/titles or voices

4.Advances argument about historical world 

5. It takes shape around commentary directed toward the viewer; images illustrate  the verbal commentary builds sense of dramatic involvement around need for solution to a problem. 

6. Nonsynchronous sound prevails (historical circumstances)

7. Editing generally establishes/maintains rhetorical continuity more than spatial/temporal  


  NEGATIVE: OVERLY DIDACTIC

1. 3.  Observational Mode-Observational mode introduces the mobility of the camera “new, light equipment made possible an intimacy of observation new to documentary, and this involved sound as well as image.” This means we are now able to capture a more intimate and personal filming.-Observational mode tends to just observe, all owing viewers to reach to their own conclusions of the documentary.-Pure observational documentarians proceeded under some by laws: no music, no interviews, no scene arrangement of any kind, and no narration.

DON'T LOOK BACK

Titicut Follies 

Quick Notes on Observational Doc.

 Paradigm: depiction of everyday life

1. Arose from available lightweight portable synchronous recording equipment & dissatisfaction with moralizing quality of expository documentary. 

2. It allowed filmmaker to record unobtrusively what folks did when not explicitly addressing the camera. 

3. It stresses the nonintervention of filmmaker

4. Filmmaker cedes control of events more than any other mode.

5. Editing doesnít construct time frame or rhythm, but enhances impression of lived or real time. 

6.This mode limited filmmaker to present moment and required disciplined detachment from events themselves. 

7. It uses indirect address, speech overheard, synchronous sound, relatively long takes. 

8. Its sense of observation comes from 

a. Ability of filmmaker to include representative & revealing moments

NEGATIVE: LACKS HISTORICAL CONTEXT

1. 4. Participatory Mode-Participatory mode emphasises the interaction between the filmmaker and the topic of the documentary.-The filmmaker tends to become the subject of the documentary.-Actively engaging with the situation they are documenting asking questions and sharing experiences.-Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we also get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by her/his presence.  

SHERMAN'S MARCH

Quick Notes on Participatory Doc.

 It arose from the availability of same mobile equipment & desire to make filmmakers perspective more evident. 

1. This mode  wants to engage w/individuals more directly while not reverting to classic exposition interview styles

2. It allows filmmaker to account for past events via witnesses and experts whom viewer can also see 

3. Archival footage becomes appended to these commentaries to avoid hazards of reenactment & monolithic claims of voice of god commentary 

  NEGATIVE:Sometimes INTRUSIVE

1. 5.  Reflexive Mode-Reflexive mode exposes the awareness and construct of the documentary.-Conveys to people what they are seeing are not exactly the truth, but a reconstruction of the truth.The audience are made aware of the editing, sound and recording etc.-The goal in including these images was, “to aid the audience in their understanding of the process of construction in film so that they could develop a sophisticated and critical attitude.

DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY

Quick Notes on Reflexive Documentary 

1. It is the most self-aware mode - its reflexivity makes audience aware of how other modes claim to construct "truth" through documentary practice.

2. It uses many of devices of other modes but sets them on edge so viewer attends to device as well as the effect. 

3. It tears away veil of filmmakers illusory absence 

4. Becomes technologically viable in 50s  with emergence of portable synchronous sound equipment makes interaction more feasible 

   NEGATIVE: TOO ABSTRACT, LOSES SIGHT OF ACTUAL ISSUES



6. HYBRID DOCUMENTARY

The most basic definition  for a hybrid documentary is a film that weaves together traditional nonfiction filmmaking with traditional fiction filmmaking. That’s it. It’s the offspring of two different elements. So that means a documentary that incorporates techniques such as animation, recreation, intentionally directed sequences, characters who speak from scripts, and so on.

EXAMPLES: 

THE IMPOSTER 

THE THIN BLUE LINE

NEGATIVE: It's possibly the most expensive out of all the documentary modes since you may have to cast and write a script to re-create sequences.

Also, Animation is very expensive to produce and incorporate----

When you plan on having animation, you have to plan months in advance and work with the animators before you even shoot your doc sequence.

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