Genre AnalysisAshley Smith

Introduction to documentaries

Documentaries serve the purpose to inform and educate the viewer, they document a subject and display a lot that the everyday person usually wouldn’t know, including facts, figures and exclusive interviews. They also have a side purpose to investigate subjects and reveal the truth, especially controversial subjects. They finally will also aim to entertain the audience, because if it wasn’t people wouldn’t watch the documentary.

Auguste and Louis Lumière-Pioneers of some of the first early documentaries, which were just a short slide show of still images.

Features of a documentary

Interviews- An interview is usually a face to face discussion that reveals the reactions and truths from the people involved themselves. Interviews involve a series of questions and discussion points

Observations- These features just purely observe something to do with the subject, its usually in the style of a fly on the wall, so everyone is acting like the cameras aren’t there and they just go about their daily activates.

Different styles of documentary-Fully Narrated Fully narrated documentary's usually have a voice over or narrator

throughout the feature, they are there to comment on the goings on and also guide the viewer/reader to help them have a better understanding. They sometimes also act like they are discovering the information as the viewer/reader does, meaning that everything they say is based around the visuals. An example of this is Planet Earth, narrated by David Attenborough.

Different styles of documentary-Fly on the wallA fly on the wall documentary is a piece that usually is just purely observing what is going on around them, for example Educating Essex. They observe the daily routine and make the subject they are filming seem as realistic as possible, they have a low amount of interviews and a high amount of observation, to show the true picture of the subject and make it feel like you are there with the people being filmed.

Different styles of documentary-Mixed A mixed documentary is a mixture of narrated and fly on the wall, it includes an even mixture of narration, observation and interviews. They use all these features to further support the subject and argument and portray their argument in the most diverse way possible.

Different styles od documentary-Self ReflectiveA self reflective documentary is the narrator usually doing a lot of the talking and portraying his views on the subject directly, hence it being called self reflective. In this form you will usually see the narrator and gain a more personal view of them as they will be speaking their views and you will be hearing true opinions. An example of this would be SuperSize Me.

Different styles of documentary-Docu-Drama A docu drama is a documentary of a historical event or topic and it is re-enacted in the form of a drama, but because its still a documentary it has to be shown in a way that follows the truth as much as possible, they are made more for the information purposes then entertainment. An example of his is the last king of Scotland.

Different styles of documentary-Docu-SoapA docu-soap is a form of documentary that focuses on a small group of people, like a docu-drama but in a series of continues episodes that tell the story of people included. An example of this is Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.