Documentary Mini-Task

The definition of documentary is as follows; a film or television or radio programme that provides a factual report on a particular subject.

I believe this to be true however in addition I believe Documentaries while normally neutral can sway a person viewpoint into an opinion for example if a radical believer of blank watches a documentary of his/her blank their viewpoint would only change if the documentary was more negative than positive so in essence I view documentaries are provocative pieces of media.

 Expository Documentary

An Expository Documentary's purpose is to speak directly to an audience through the form of authoritarian commentary which uses very imposing or aggressive titles in addition to voiceovers which pushes a strong point of view on the subject attempting to persuade the audience through rhetorical questions and a very straight forward "This is bad" mentality. An example of such would be Supersize me where Morgan Spurlock experiments on McDonalds menu items in addition to commentating is opinion on the matter.

Observation Documentary

An Observation Documentary is a documentary in which the subject in question usually a person is followed throughout their everyday routine this type will often use informative language and have no interviews on top of having extremely long runtime an example of this would be Louis Theroux's format during each of his documentaries in addition unique to Louis Theroux he can be quite naturally provocative which causes less one sided information than the regular Observation documentary.

Interactive Documentary

While difficult to define, I believe it is a form of non-fiction story telling/ experience that puts the audience or viewer in a active role where they make choices that effect the order between the media that they are observing. An interactive documentary can really be anything that speaks to the audience or viewer with an outlining message that the viewer has an experience with which generates a view point of the viewer/audience choice.

Reflexive Documentary

Though this type of documentary the viewer is shown a side of other documentaries in a why as a reflexive documentary shows all parts of it's production such as editing, filming and even which parts could potentially be false. An example of this would be either Nick Broomfield or once again Louis Theroux's work as they often include views from camera crew and even what happens off camera should the information be relevant.

Performative Documentary

This is seen as the opposite of Observation Documentaries as it includes the own filmmakers involvement within the subject matter, the aim being to show the subject through a real life experience that the filmmaker went through themselves and provide a personal viewpoint on the subject with real emotion. An example of a performative documentary would be Tongues Untied which become known quickly on it's subject matter of being a black homosexual in the 80s, it shows this through Marlon Riggs and other examples.

Often in performative documentaries there are dramatisations and re-enactments which enhance the message being shown to the audience because being shown what happened improves the reaction and opinion of the audience thus generating a stronger message shown, although these events can be twisted or misinterpreted by memory they are a more reliable showing of past events than word of mouth. In conclusion showing of dramatisations might not be one hundred percent accurate but provide a look into what really happened at the time which reinforces the message for the documentary.

As a filmmaker it would be nice to have every documentary been entirely true but sometimes information is hidden or missed which leads to people either gaining fault information or not being told all together, there is no solid way for past events to be told one hundred percent and the same could be said for even present events as each human being has different viewpoints and goals. I believe if it was a perfect world information would all be true and be presented as such so that we could move forward as better and more informed people.