WHAT IS A DOCUMENTARY?Hannah Kenyon

What is a documentary?

 John Grierson came up with the term documentary in 1926. The purpose of documentaries is to document something that actually happened. It can be shown using literal footage or a reconstruction. It can use a narrators voice over to anchor the meaning, or rely on the participant themselves with perhaps a occasional interjection by the narrator. Documentaries are not just about facts but instead facts can be used to create socially critical arguments inviting the audience to draw their own conclusions. Central to documentary is that it focuses on and questions actual people and events, often is social context, placing the audience in a position to form a opinion about who or what we are seeing. 

FEATURES OF DOCUMENTARIES

There are five central elements of a documentary according to john Carner from the University of Liverpool. These are: 

Observation (fly on the wall) - putting the audience in the rule of eye witness where the camera appears to be unseen. Indirect address to the audiences i.e. speech overheard is a common factor of this unseen observation. 

Interview – television documentaries use interview to make a contrast between observation sequences and are structured in two ways: either intercut fragments of observation or a completely uninterrupted sequence. 

 Dramatisation – even though all documentaries use a sense of drama, it is specifically used to portray people and events the film maker cannot gain access to in real life. These sequences are said to be based on fact. 

  Mise – en – scene – literally what the directors and producers but into the frame. So for example lighting and props in interviews.

Exposition- simply means the line of argument in a documentary which is what the documentary is saying. Sequences can also be used to allow the audience to make their own conclusions.