Week 2 , Monday - Lesson 2:

Types of Documentaries

There are six types of documentaries which include; poetic, expository, observational, participatory, reflexive and performative. While all of these have distinctive characteristics there are some documentaries and films that are a mixture of two or more of these. Documentaries and films are not restricted to one type to follow.

Poetic Documentary - A reaction against the content and rapidly crystallising grammar of the early fiction. The topic is usually close or related to the person creating it. They tend to be quite artistic in the way they are presented.

Expository Documentary - These speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an omniscient or 'god like' voice. These films are rhetorical and aim to persuade the viewer. Images aren't particularly used unless it is to support the argument.

Observational Documentary - These documentaries attempt to observe the life lived with a minimum of intervention. The filmmaker is usually out of the shot so they cannot influence what is happening. Majority is not rehearsed or scripted. This type of documentary is most common in wildlife documentaries.

Participatory Documentary - These documentaries believe that it is impossible for the act of a filmmaking to not influence or alter the events being filmed. All of these types of documentaries are influenced by the filmmaker. We began watching another documentary at the end of lesson, Supersize Me which is an example of this type.

Reflexive Documentary- These draw attention to their own construction, and the fact that they are representations. These prompt to audience to question the authenticity of documentary. The documentary as well as the audience recognise and acknowledge the issues of realism and representation.

Performative Documentary- These stress subjective and experience emotional response to the world. They are extremely personal, unconventional, sometimes poetic and/or experimental. They are designed to give the audience a specific perspective not of our own on an issue or the world. The sub-genre also might lend itself to minorities or specific groups.

During our unit last year on the representation of women in media, we watched Miss-Representation which is a document about women in the public eye and how they are, essentially misrepresented. I believe these was a mixture of an expository and observational documentary due to the images being important and not secondary which in the case in a expository documentary. The use of an omniscient voice also contributes to this.

In our last lesson we watched Forgotten Silver which was a participatory documentary with reflexive elements. This is due to the director, Peter Jackson playing a large role in the film.

At the end of the lesson we started watching Supersize Me which is a participatory documentary about a man who eats only McDonalds for three meals a day for 30 days. This is to see the impact fast food companies are having on the populations health and if it is a large contributing factor to the increase in weight gain and obesity. We only watched up until day three so I am excited what the remainder of the documentary entails and his results from the experiment. We will continue to watch this in our next lesson.