Contextual Studies- Documentary

Documentary        Dramatic Film 


-Unscripted (Often relies on classic narrative structure)


A documentary is in its purest sense a filmed observation. The film is being made to inform and educate. The term first coined by Scottish filmmaker John Grierson (the father of British Documentary) in 1996.
He described it as "the creative treatment of actuality" 
It can be used in stylistic ways in its creative treatment through the way its filmed and edited. 

Formal Documentary 
-Observational (excluded)
-Current affairs/factual (Making a Murderer) 
-Pole Mic (Adam Curtis) 
Uses documentary form, techniques and conventions to educate, debate and inform content.

Hybrid documentary
-Reality (Benefits Street)
-Scripted reality to play on characters (TOWIE)
-Drama documentary (Man on Wire)
Doesn't have educational, journalistic factors as such, usually just for entertainment. 

Expository -Emphasises rhetoric and information. The classic 'voice of God' BBC documentary
Observational- Classic 'fly on the wall' typically demonstrated through voiceover 
Participatory- Onscreen relationship between filmmaker and subject, usually via interview
Reflexive- makes viewer aware of filmmaking process. Seeks to challenge our assumptions (Nick Broomfield). 
Poetic-Sues the poetry of filming in its editing style, very fluid and rely on extensive editing
Performative- Filmaker/subject conveys personal experience 

Making a Murderer
Use of reconstruction with the beach POV sequence. 
Re-enhancement though graphic montage
Use of music advocates as emotional manipulation
Since watching this in class I was automatically hooked by no just the story of Steven Avery, but the way the documentary is filmed. In later episodes they are actually able to film inside the courts, something I believe to be prohibited in the UK, but thanks to this we as the audience can gain a full understanding of what the trial was like. 

Critical approaches to documentary
Realism
The presentation of art as simulation of world as exists; In documentary though unintrusive filming (handheld, natural lighting, no music etc) used to convey notions of authenticity, truth and representation. Observational Cinema; there are two ways to conceive of the cinema of the real. Present it as it is to be seen so the process of filming becomes a part of the documentary itself

Mediation and Representation
What we see is not objective reality or truth, but firstly the filmmaker's version; what they have mediated. 
The process of mediation- editorial decision making. In editing a bias can develop, even in Making a Murder. E.g. class was represented when the averts were outsiders to the rest of the outsider community; essentially they were farmers/scrap merchants and they stuck to their own circle. 
There were scale sin the background which had a distinct contextual meaning. 

Reception Theory
Argues cultural text has no inherent meaning in and of itself. 
We all have our own subjective interpretation 
The meaning is created as the viewer watches and process the film
In a sense this is why we have fandoms. People respond to stuff in different way depending on their own personal experiences and personality. 
If you go to the cinema to watch a comedy then you are more likely to laugh than what you are to at home. Its this infectious laughter.
Before you watch a documentary, you already have an idea of what a documentary is about. 
Therefore anything different will make you question it and its reliability.

Ideology
A set of opinions, values, beliefs and assumptions that one uses to think about and relate to the world.

Documentary and Propaganda
Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera (1929) was a modernist Marxist ideology, but playfully reflective
Linie Riefenstahl's Olympia (1938) Nazi ideology of Aryan supremacy how they are athletic and of the purest and most perfect people

Making a Murderer- Context 
Formal realist approach to location filming (Real people in real place) but mediates story through stylised montage sequence and music.
Trying to keep it as factually objective as possible.


Dramatisation- Can make the documentary more subjective but will exaggerate the story.



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