Saturday, 3 August 2013

The Essential Features Of Documentaries

By Cathy Mercer


The industry of filming has been transformed more and more. Rather than the usual films and movies being shown on our screens which are full of fiction and acting, there has been an emergence of documentaries. These are real life films concerning live of people, animals in the bush and the way they live, science and developments being made in the world of technology. They are quite different from the usual films people watch.

In this perspective, there is no censoring of any images and videos being aired. In case they are unfit to some people, parental guidance comes into effect. In reality, all that is recorded is shown regardless of how awful it may appear. That is why they have the name documentaries. In case they are about warfare, viewers can expect real things as they happened on the ground, air and water.

Various types of these films exist. The first and oldest one is the poetry documentary. Its airing was first done in the early nineties. They base their foundation on the aspect of grammar and rhythmic flow of words as per their pronunciations. With people tending to appear in this category, it is merely a show of belonging to the entire world.

Another type is expository documentary. This one uses authoritative format to communicate directly to the viewer on a certain point of view or argument. In this form, the use of rhetoric questions is high and its aim is to try and persuade the viewers. Another feature of this type is centered on use of deep, male voice where the usage of images is paramount; just an advancement of existing argument.

Observation aspect bears observational documentary. In this type, it is all about watching a particular event or something and coming up with a story line after concluding this view. During this process, no interference is made concerning that particular item. This brings out a disclosure as per the human character when it comes to life in normality.

Imitation can be essential in this industry since it leads to production of participatory documentary. The imitation under this guide is associated with that of an anthropologist. There is appearance of the filmmakers on regular basis at certain points within the story line both in image and commentary. As their appearance keeps coming through varied positions, so does the subject line of the entire film. It creates twists and turns.

As for the reflexive documentary, it tends to draw attention to its own construction and those particular elements it is representing. It has high sense of skeptic and bears a lot of self consciousness with regards to the other types thus drawing attention to its own.

The final type as far as documentaries are concerned is the per-formative documentary. In this type, emotions usually run high as far as the perception of the world is considered. Viewers are given a platform to weight this aspect from a position within the entire script. It is full of experiments and hypothesis formulation at the end of it all.




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