Documentary Essay (mini-task)

A documentary is a factual programe that educates people on an issue or topic

Expository documentary

An expository documentary is a type of documentary filmmaking where a commentator talks over the video to explain a specific story. They are based on information presented in an explanatory way and speak to the viewers directly, and, importantly, the viewer doesn't see the narrator throughout the documentary.

Example: The Blue Planet 

The blue planet is a good expository documentary because of the fact that David Attenborough's voice explains the evolution, environment and habits of various inhabitants of the ocean and expository documentaries are these days used to explain nature.

Observational documentary

Observational documentary is a type of documentary filmmaking that aims to record realistic, everyday life without intrusion. Also called cinéma vérité style, direct cinema, or fly-on-the-wall filmmaking, observational documentary mode exists on a spectrum between poetic documentary and expository documentary.

Example: Salesman (1969) 

Salesman is a good observational documentary because an observational documentary follows people or events in real-time, often detailing daily life and the Salesman does this very well in myopinion.

 

Interactive documentaries

An interactive documentary is a documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—video, audio, photographic—by applying a full complement of multimedia tools.

Example: My Life In Limbo 

http://www.mylifeinlimbo.ca/

My Life in Limbo is an interactive web-documentary that tells the story of a single mother of four from Damascus who operates a hair salon out of her cramped one-bedroom apartment in Beirut's Armenian quarter. With an interactive documentary, the audience or 'user' is able to modify their journey through the documentary based on how they choose to interact with a full complement of multimedia tools including video, photographic, audio and digital assets and My Life In Limbo does this by giving the viewer the option to click on a video to continue along the story.

 

Reflexive documentaries

The reflexive documentary method focuses on the filmmaker-audience relationship, encouraging viewers to reconsider their perceptions and rethink their understanding of truth. Unlike an explanatory documentary, the reflective method focuses on the documentary-making process rather than the outside subject matter.

Example: Chronicle of a Summer

The ending of the film turns into a reflexive evaluation of itself when there is footage of the subjects watching the film and talking about it with each other.

 

Performative documentaries

Performative mode documentaries present an exaggerated version of the world, society, or event they depict.

Example: Tongues Untied

Famed for its authentic representation of style, as well as its passionate argument against social and political oppression, Riggs pioneered a new cinematic language that blended documentary and performance to create a multi-layered film that protested the stigmas of contemporary life.

 

Conclusion

I believe that the facts should be presented the viewer, however if current evidence doesn’t show case how serious an issue is then information can be tweaked. For example, in Michael Moore Bowling for Columbine where he dresses in the same clothes to make it seem as if it’s one day, I think that is acceptable as gun crime in America is so extreme that it might as well be that easy to gain a weapon. So, I think you should stick to the facts but on occasion if the ends justify the means it can be altered.