Documentaries
Documentaries are produced to inform, educate and entertain the
audience the director aspires to seek. The plot is constructed of
factual information to generate a creative treatment of actuality
(Grierson) that presents reality versus realism. The development of
the film is depicted by the shots the director wishes to use to
create a story to the film; therefore the truth can be broken for
the spectators benefit. Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010) was constructed
purely of archive footage, yet the plot revealed the Brazilian
racing star to be a protagonist to antagonist, Prost. The footage
used suggested from small feuds and certain use of body
language/eye contact, it leads the spectators to believe a false
nature because in reality the two we not enemies.
Documentary-makers tend to film about ten times into the amount of
material which is finally used... They convert the material into a
story... They only show the part of the 'whole' picture
(Points).
The production styles are forever changing. Its becoming easier
to shoot your own footage and create films from the comfort of your
own home, which is probably the biggest factor to the rise in
documentaries. Different modes of documentaries are explained in
depth within my blog, but what links them all is the correlation
between the codes and conventions. Archive footage is pure footage
to use so the spectator can get a sense of reality. Interviews and
voice-overs are very common within documentaries. Using Michael
Moore as my prime example, he usually follows an expository mode to
discover the truth about some thing. Bowling For Columbine (Michael
Moore, 2002) presents these conventions by targeting stores in
America to find out why it was so easily accessible for the
teenagers of Columbine to gain weapon ammunition and murder their
school friends in a fury. By using handheld cameras, Moore was able
to document his journey with every step and try to make a
difference.
Reflexive documentaries, such as Man On Wire (James Marsh,
2008), use fiction film techniques to gain an emotional response
from their audience by using voice overs, rostrum camera shots of
detailed plans and recorded phone conversations. The lighting used
within interviews is a clever technique to adjust the mood for the
viewer. Observational documentaries are the most traditional
because the camera is placed somewhere and records whatever is
happening in reality, but even though this is seen to be most
traditional, the actuality of the real can still be manipulated. In
1953, Lindsay Anderson (director) constructed ODreamland, a
documentary about a funfair in Margate filming the visitors and
attractions. What I like about the short film is that it presents a
happy atmosphere at the funfair, yet the taunting noises, children
crying and unappealing food tell a different story.
Documentaries are constantly evolving and adapting to create
different sub genres. Docu-soap is a popular sub genre usually
shown within television. These are programmes such as: Big
BrotherIm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of HereBear Grylls: The
IslandProgrammes of this nature use certain shots to create
dramatic effect for the audience. The audience are the main focus
for any documentary because theyre the people you need captivated
to watch more. Big Brother has had 34 series run on Channel 4. From
a male teenagers point of view, I honestly have no idea how it has
lasted so long. Personally, I dislike docu-soaps, but Im not the
targeted audience.
The technological convergence, which is happening worldwide, is
the reason documentaries are evolving within the home. We can now
shoot/document whatever we wish from our own smartphones, then
create an edit of our journalistic outcome. Catfish (Henry Joost
& Ariel Schulman, 2010) exposes people attempting to be someone
theyre not online using mainly handheld cameras to document their
journey to the truth. This low budget film is the perfect example
to show how anyone can make a film in modern day society.
