1.Poetic documentaries,The poetic mode moved away from continuity editing and instead organized images of the material world by means of associations and patterns, both in terms of time and space.Documentaries in the poetic mode forsake traditional narrative content: individual characters and events remain undeveloped and appeared in these films as entities. The poetic mode of documentary film tends toward subjective interpretations of its subject. it also uses music to creat a mood. an example of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=692vC2YpRxg&feature=related
2. Expository documentaries, is speaking directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of view. These films are rhetorical, and try to persuade the viewer.
1.Arose from dissatisfaction with distracting entertainment qualities of the fiction film
2.Voice of god commentary, poetic perspectives sought to disclose information about historical world & see that world afresh, even if ideas seem romantic or didactic
3.Addresses viewer directly, w/titles or voices
4.Advances argument about historical world
All together there is over 6 different types of documentaries, all different in there own way im going to be talking about 6 of them.
1. Poetic documentaries, a poetic documentarie has subjective interpretations of its subject within a poetic documentarie it conntaines a narritaive but it has individual characters and events but they remain undeveloped. The poetic mode usually creates a mood by using music.
1. Does not use continuity editing, sacrifices sense of the very specific location and place that continuity creates
2. Explores associations and patterns that involve temporal rhythms and spatial juxtapositions
3. Social Actors rarely become fully-fledged characters
4. Opens up possibility of alternative forms of knowledge to
5. It takes shape around commentary directed toward the viewer; images illustrate the verbal commentary builds sense of dramatic involvement around need for solution to a problem.
6. Nonsynchronous sound prevails (historical circumstances)
7. Editing generally establishes/maintains rhetorical continuity more than spatial/temporal
an exampe of this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRlrGxUqluI
3. Observational documentaries, attempt to simply and spontaneously observe lived life with a minimum of intervention Often, this mode of film eschewed voice-over commentary, post-synchronized dialogue and music, or re-enactments. The films aimed for immediacy, intimacy, and revelation of individual human character in ordinary life situations.
1. Arose from available lightweight portable synchronous recordin equipment & dissatisfaction with moralizing quality of expository documentary.
2. It allowed filmmaker to record unobtrusively what folks did when not explicitly addressing the camera.
3. It stresses the nonintervention of filmmaker
4. Filmmaker cedes control of events more than any other mode.
5. Editing doesnÃt construct time frame or rhythm, but enhances impression of lived or real time.
6. This mode limited filmmaker to present moment and required disciplined detachment from events themselves.
7. It uses indirect address, speech overheard, synchronous sound, relatively long takes.
8. Its sense of observation comes from
a. Ability of filmmaker to include representative & revealing moments b. Sounds and images recorded at moment of observational filming in contrast to voice-over of expository mode c. Illustrations do not serve generalizations but a specific slide of reality. d. Presence of camera on scene
a negative of this is that it lacks historical context
an example of this is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kckoh4VGc9w
4. Participatory documentaries, believe that it is impossible for the act of filmmaking to not influence or alter the events being filmed. What these films do is emulate the approach of the anthropologist: participant-observation. Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we also get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by her presence. The encounter between filmmaker and subject becomes a critical element of the film.
an example of this is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcE3ZGreltQ
5. Reflexive documentaries, don’t see themselves as a transparent window on the world; instead they draw attention to their own constructedness, and the fact that they are representations. How does the world get represented by documentary films? It is the most self-conscious of all the modes.The reflexive mode considers the quality of documentary itself, de-mystifying its processes and considering its implications.
1. Arose form desire to make the conventions of representation themselves more apparent & to challenge the impression of reality which other three modes normally conveyed unproblematically.
2. It is the most self-aware mode - its reflexivity makes audience aware of how other modes claim to cosntruct "truth" through documentary practice.
3. It uses many of devices of other modes but sets them on edge so viewer attends to device as well as the effect.
4. It tears away veil of filmmakers illusory absence
5. Becomes technologically viable in 50s with emergence of portable synchronous sound equipment makes interaction more feasible
NEGATIVE: TOO ABSTRACT, LOSES SIGHT OF ACTUAL ISSUES
an example of this is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBsL2nBuJCk
6. Performative documentaries,stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world. They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental, and might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our own, Often, a battery of techniques, many borrowed from fiction or avant-garde films, are used. Performative docs often link up personal accounts or experiences with larger political or historical realities
. Like Reflexive Documentary, it raises questions about knowledge
2. Endorses definition of knowledge that emphasizes personal experience (in tradition of poetry, literature)
3. Tries to demonstrate how understanding such personal knowledge can help us understand more general processes of society
4. May "mix" elements of various documentary modes to achieve link between subjective knowledge/understanding of the world, and more general understandings, i.e. historical ones.
an example of this is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATYJx3x0nyo
http://girishshambu.blogspot.com/2006/12/six-types-of-documentary.html
