2.) Genre's Of Documentary's

There are various types of documentaries, in this case I have looked into six different types.

Participatory Documentary: When film makers get involved in the film and change the dynamics of the film. This is because they know different ways to heat up the documentary.
One of the examples that we used for the presentation was films by Michael Moore, a lot of his films he likes to contribute as he tests the people involved.




Poetic Documentary: Poetic documentaries often move away from the objective of the film as it is more of an artistic film. The majority of the film is visual imagery you will find that music is used more than speech to add to the artistic feel of the film. As the film is poetic you will find it will all link together to show the story as that is what a poem is all about.




Expository Documentary: This is a documentary that you will find you will have mainly a film with a narrator over the top who will directly speak to the viewers in a defined voice that draws the viewers into the film. There is a strong use of rhetorical questions that also draws the viewers into the film. David Attenborough is a prime example of a distinctive voice who can draw people into his programs because of the tone of his voice, he sometimes makes an appearance into the film but not very often.




Observatory Documentary: The film maker will tend to follow people around with a hand held camera to observe a persons lifestyle, you don't have interviews involved in the program/film because its about a persons life and there daily tasks and how they manage things. The film maker will tend to use basic shots such as, Pan shots and Extended shots to get a sense of it being a natural part of there lives. A prime example for this would be Teen Mom as you get to see how there lives have changed since 16 and Pregnant.



Performative Documentary: This is mainly re-enacted scenes as you might not be able to go back to what happened and the person might be permanently damaged from what has happened so they would have to re-enact it so that the audience could get the sense of the situation and how the people who were involved narrate the situation. This would also dramatise the film so it would draw people in to the film. Touching the void is a prime example of a performative documentary as they had to re-enact to get the effect of the programme.



Reflexive Documentary: In this type of documentary you will find that the director will cast himself in the film, it shows a first hand narrative to the story because they have experienced it and they know what they want the film to be like as they have been there and want to show people what happened. An example for reflexive documentary can be All this Mayhem it is a skating film which shows how the documentary was made with the director being involved and narrating how the film was made throughout it.