We are now beginning work on our second filming task which will be a documentary. We began with a bit of theory work then watched a documentary by Kevin Macdonald called 'One Day in September' which is about the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.
The Scot John Grierson (1898-1972) is regarded as the founder of the documentary movement in Britain and Canada. Grierson defined documentaries as "the creative treatment of actuality"
Q:What is meant by actuality?
Q: Think of the phrase 'creative treatment'. List ways in which documentary makers can treat real events in a creative manner
Q:Is it possible to capture the real world on film?
Q:Do you think it is ethical to stage real events in a documentary?
Four Distinct (sometimes overlapping) Purposes of Documentary film (As suggested by Michael Renov)1-to record, reveal or preserve
2-to persuade or promote
3-to analyze or interrogate
4-to express
Can you think of documentary films or television that fit into these categories? How might these different motives intersect? Are there any other purposes that documentary film might seek to fulfill?
One way of categorising documentaries is by the degree of creative treatment of recorded material. Three sub-genres are:
1-Realist documentary: imposing minimal treatment on recorded material e.g. "Fly on the wall"
2-Formalist documentary: imposing on a particular narrative structure on recorded material e.g. "Fly in the soup"
3-Subjective documentary: which express the filmmakers vision.
Any one documentary can mix these techniques.
Common Conventions of Documentary
1-Interview techniques
2-Film techniques
3-Title sequence
4-Titles/effects (subtitles, names, information)
5-Images
6-Sound
7-Transition
Interview Techniques
-Show the interviewer on a screen to give authority to him/her
-Enable the interviewee to stare straight at the audience to engage the audience with them
-Film the interviewee from behind or above to underscore the validity or otherwise of their statements.
Film Techniques
- Use of 'cutaways' to disguise times in the interviews where interviews had to be re-shot. In conventional interviews there is often a cut away to the interviewee that disguises such manipulation of the recorded material
-Establish recognisable settings for each of the people we see interviewed
-Filming subjects in clear-cut environments is one way of making them memorable however fleeting their appearances.
Title Sequences
- A good introductory sequence will set the pattern for the whole piece
- It should be immediately apparent to the viewer what the documentary is about
- Clarity of purpose is all important
Titles/Effects
- Use of captions and highlighted words
- This can be an effective way of producing information that is not immediately apparent (names and positions of interviewees, place names facts and figures)
- These often fulfill a role at the end of a production and allow the audience to recap what they have seen.
Thinking about Images
- Still images often play a very important role in the unravelling of a narrative or theme. Images in newspapers and magazines often features in the documentary alongside other archive material
- When planning you need to establish the connotations that the images might contain
Sound
- The choice of music track needs to be very carefully considered
- A voice used in voiceover must have the correct 'weight' for the subject maker
- Interviews need to be recorded in the best available conditions for clarity of sound.
Transitions
- You can add audience interest by using transition cuts from scene to scene.
Documentary Modes
- The Poetic Mode ' reassembling fragments of the world' a transformation of historical information/material into a more abstract lyrical form usually associated with 1920's and modernist ideas
- The Expository Mode 'direct address' social issue assembled into an argumentative frame, mediated by a voice-of-God narration associated with 1920's - 1930's, and some of the rhetoric and polemic surrounding WWII
- The Reflective Mode demonstrates consciousness of the process of reading documentary, and engages actively with the issues of realism and representation, acknowledging the presence of the viewer and the modality judgements they arrive at. Corresponds to critical theory of the 1980's
- The Performative Mode acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of documentary and presents ideas as part of a context having different meaning for different people, often autobiographical in nature.
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