What are the different types of documentaries?

The six main categories of the documentary films are:

Poetic Documentary.
Expository Documentary.
Observational Documentary.
Participatory Documentary.
Reflexive Documentary.
Performative Documentary.
Narrative Modes and Documentary Structures.
De-Bromhead's Documentary Modes.

What are the 3 types of documentaries?

6 Types of documentaries

Poetic mode. Poetic documentaries focus more on mood, tone, or juxtaposition of imagery than linear continuity. ...
Expository mode. Expository documentaries are probably the closest to what people think of documentaries. ...
Participatory mode. ...
Observational mode. ...
Reflexive mode. ...
Performative mode.

What are types of documentaries?

In 1991, American film critic and theoretician Bill Nichols proposed that there were six different modes of documentary—poetic, expository, reflexive, observational, performative, and participatory—each containing its own specific characteristics.

What type of genre is documentary?

A documentary is a broad term to describe a non-fiction movie that in some way "documents" or captures reality. Documentaries are often used to reveal an unusual, interesting or unknown angle.

What is the most common type of documentary?

Expository Documentary Films

One of the most familiar and popular types of documentary is Expository Documentaries. These are designed to help convince, inform or persuade viewers. It uses a narrator throughout the film and often presents an argument for what is right or wrong.

22 related questions found

What are participatory documentaries?

Participatory documentaries include the filmmaker within the narrative. This inclusion can be as minor as a filmmaker using their voice to prod their subjects with questions or cues from behind the camera — or as major as a filmmaker directly influencing the actions of the narrative.

What are the 5 elements of a documentary?

Subjects. The subject is what your documentary is about.
Purpose. The purpose is what the filmmaker is trying to say about the subjects of their film.
Form. The form is the formative process of the film.
Production method and technique.
Audience experience.

What is a short documentary?

An introduction to mini documentaries

Mini documentaries are essentially short documentaries. Whereas a feature-length documentary can run as long as a full-length motion picture, mini documentaries can be as short as a few minutes long, though they typically run between 10 - 30 minutes in length.

What is the difference between a documentary and a film?

The difference between documentary and feature film lies in their purpose and subject matter. Documentary aims to educate, inform and inspire the viewers whereas feature films aim to entertain the audience. Documentary deals with facts and reality whereas feature films deal with fiction.

What is reflective documentary?

What Is Reflexive Documentary? The reflexive documentary mode focuses on the relationship between the filmmaker and the audience, pushing viewers to reflect on their perceptions and re-analyze their notions of truth.

What is a observational documentary?

Observational** Observational documentaries eschew interviews, voice-over narration and a soundtrack, and instead present footage of real life as it unfolds. The effect is a documentary that tends to show, not tell, and invites each viewer to draw his or her own conclusions from the film.

What are expository documentaries?

Expository documentaries are heavily researched and constructed to inform and persuade. Unlike poetic documentary or observational documentary modes, the goal of the expository mode is to present a strong argument to the audience, convincing them to believe in or agree with a certain point of view.

What is a mixed documentary?

Mixed. Documentaries that use a combination of modes or genres fall into a mixed genre. Disco and Atomic War combines. dramatizations to portray the narrator's memory and imagination of events from his childhood to great effect, along with essayistic, expository and interview modes.

What is the difference between participatory and performative documentaries?

The crux of the difference seems to lie in the fact that where the participatory mode engages the filmmaker to the story but attempts to construct truths that should be self-evident to anyone, the performative mode engages the filmmaker to the story but constructs subjective truths that are significant to the filmmaker ...

What is a narrative documentary?

In documentary films, reality is being shot as it unfolds. In narratives, preconceived images are shot to tell a specific story, often fictional and not based in reality. These shots are typically established by shot listing, a technique commonly used in narrative movies and not documentary films.

Do documentaries use actors?

Actors -- In general, documentaries use real people in real life situations to tell a story, whereas a feature film uses actors. Of course documentaries sometime include "reenactments" using actors to recreate a scene and feature films can use "clips of real events".

What makes a documentary different?

A documentary film purports to present factual information about the world outside the film. A nonfiction film about real events and people, often avoiding traditional narrative structures. Documentary [is] the creative treatment of actuality.

What is difference between documentary and fiction?

The clearest distinction between the two is their relationship with the reality; “a fiction film presents a story that is not based on reality, or at least not in the form it is represented; a documentary, however, tells something about the reality of our world – shows us the real world” (Bakker, 2002).

What is documentary example?

A documentary is defined as a film or television program that is educational and tells a true story. An example of a documentary is the An Inconvenient Truth, a movie about global warming.

How do you choose a topic for a documentary?

Here are some tips for choosing the subject of your documentary:

Make it a topic you are passionate about.
Don't film something that everyone already agrees on. ...
Decide whether your topic will be grandiose or small-scale. ...
Whether you like it or not, make sure your idea is marketable.

What film techniques are used in documentaries?

What is the structure of a documentary?

Short documentary films tend to have the simple three-act structure of an introduction, middle, and resolution. The introduction captures the attention of the audience and sets up the main questions that the rest of the documentary will try to answer. In a way, the introductions of documentaries resemble trailers.

What are the qualities of a good documentary?

A good doc, in my opinion, must have the following: a subject anchored in a local story that is universal; a story arc comprising a seductive opening, a taut rising action, an unexpected but mind altering climax, a hopeful but not maudlin denouement; unforgettable characters who reveal everything and are “real”; a ...

What is a personal documentary?

What is a personal documentary? A personal documentary tells a life story about ourselves, family members, or close friends on film or video. It is similar to a memoir, including meaningful photos, letters, and memorabilia, but goes further to add the excitement of sound and movement.