Art of documentaries

-
Bill Nichols
Bill Nichols tried to set out types of documentaries in reality - Issues and concepts of documentary ('Introduction to Documentaries)

Documentary modes:

  1. Expository: VO narrator, nature documentaries, we never see the narrator, godly figure take everything they say as fact 
  2. Observational: fly-on-the-wall documentaries, documentary where you have no talking head shots, let action unfold 
  3. Interactive: guy who did it is featured in it, transparency in selection process, clear construction/mediation, if you have a message, story to tell 
  4. Reflexive: meta-fictional, story about the story, documentary about making a documentary 
In Nichols 1994 edition of his book he also added:

  1. Performative: documentarist as star, documentarist becomes the star (Bruzzi feels that performative makes the selection process all the more obvious)
Stella Bruzzi

Other Research 

Ethical issues with documentaries: 
  • might not want to give personal details 
  • Might not know that you're being filmed 
  • Tactics might not always be the best 
Problems with documentaries: 
  • technology makes things easier 
  • shaping the meaning: interviews, recording events, sound materials, documents, evidence, archive footage, use of experts
  • even the question of what to film is quite problematic
Gibney:
 Argues that there's a new kind of documentary hybrid: Prankster cinema

Mathew Gibney 
e.g. Michael Moore, Jackass, The yes man, Candid camera/Game for laugh, Sacha Baron Cohen 

Other types of documentaries: 
  1. Docudrama: show or film that follows some of conventions of documentary but the subject or theme makes it impossible to get footage. Dramatises certain situations. Some scenes are re-enacted by actors, fuses the idea that it is real with some fiction 
  2. Mockumentary: clearly scripted but following conventions of documentary (Modern Family, Office). Mocks documentary conventions, breaking forth wall, shaky hand movements
  3. Docufiction: mocks documentary convections, he is not acting it out (its realistic), not filmed in one but its meant to be a documentary about 1 day, a lot fuses imagination with reality (e.g. 20,000 days on Earth)

Comments

  1. HCURSTON20 April 2016 at 15:12

    Great research here - it is an ever evolving genre with many updates and hybrids, but one thing will always come to the fore and that is the truth - whose truth and how it is represented being very important.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Now or Never (2011) - A short film about family relationships

-
Image
Vivandy Productions  Director: Vivandy and F.C Rabbath  Written and Produced: F.C. Rabbath Synopsis: Its about 3 generations of women; the grandmother, mother and daughter. The same story is being repeated between grandmother and mother as well as mother and daughter. Each mother is trying to reconnect with her daughter; both being unsuccessful. What intrigued me:  Showing the mother getting prepared (I'm planning on doing something like that for my video)  portrayal of family drifting (arguing about being too busy for each other)  when she opens the bathroom cupboard when she's young and closes it when she's old (i like the technique it uses to show time passing)  having the same conversation with her daughter as she did with her mother  the way we are shown that there is an issue (phone call from doctor)  VO flashback to the same line she said her mother 'You're being selfish' = realisation ...
Read more

Documentary - Storyville Episode: Blackfish

-
Image
StoryVille Episode Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite Producer: Gabriela Cowperthwaite Writers: Gabriela Cowperthwaite, Eli B. Despres and Tim Zimmerman Synopsis: It concerns Tilikum, an orca held by Sea World and the controversy over captive killer whales Even though I analysed this documentary for my script I wanted to analyse it for my research as well.  When watching it, it starts off with Voice over and archive footage of what happened (v.o is the telephone call to emergency).  It then goes on (which I though was smart) and shows and advertisement for Sea World = shows glory, happiness, once in a life time opportunity.  Another thing which I enjoyed was the fact that all the people that were interviewed for the documentary were ex-trainers for Sea World. The technique it then uses is a montage of the trainers saying where they come from (all over the US) A lot of archive footage was used especially when showing the incident or the shows from t...
Read more

Evaluation

-
Writing the final versions of the script was fun, exciting but also a long process. Having a clear idea of what directions my episodes where going I wrote skeleton drafts to begin with and worked like that. With each new draft,  added new jokes, stories lines. With guidance from Simon and his suggestions for certain characters I did make a few changes to some story lines and slightly changed my characters personality. In the first few drafts of each episode Hara was becoming somewhat annoying and lacked a lot of humour. Therefore I decided to make her into a bit of a spiritual person who gives herself a pep talk in each episode but also one of those people who believes in positive thinking and constantly carries a positive thinking book with her, sage and incense.  Kotchy, didn't have much of a story, if you got rid of him you wouldn't even notice. Therefore I made him so that each time his family does something humiliating he captures it on camera or Sebastian does and he...
Read more