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Documenting Documentaries Modes

Modes of Documentaries

There are main types of modes from Nicholls:

1) The Expository Mode (Voice of God)

2) The observational Mode(Window on the World)
3) The Interactive Mode
4) The Performative Mode
5) The Reflexive Mode

Normally a documentary would contain one of these three conventions:

Realism: When a documentary shows real footage. To do this they tend to use hand held camera shots to make the audience feel as if they are in the scene themselves.

• Actual footage
• Eye Witnesses
• Fast paces editing
• Lower Production quality

Dramatization: When a documentary show dramatization it is when it professional type of languages to make the documentary seem more dramatized.

• Uses a lot of suspense
• A lot of professional actors

Narrativisation: Narrativisation documentaries are when it tends to show footage which conveys the story behind the documentaries.

• Normally has voice-overs to explain the story
• Has presentation of facts in order to create a story 

The Expository Mode:

The expository mode is the type of documentary which emphasises verbal commentary, this means that this type of documentary would normally have a narrator which narrates over the whole documentary, this is where it gets the name as the 'Voice of God'. As it has a narration it tends to narrate everything which is going on in the shots such as it would give information about where the shots are set and what is exactly happening at the current time. It normally offers a preferred meaning so that the producers could intend for the audience to see the content in a certain way. Normally this mode is used in nature documentaries

The example I have chosen is a documentary named Arctic Tale

             

The documentary is called Arctic Tale, it based on two narratives, one which is 'the life cycle of a mother walrus and her calf' and the other narrative being 'the life of a polar bear and her cubs'. The documentary was made to 'illustrate the harsh realities' which the animals in the arctic go through to live everyday. The documentary was also made by the same people who made 'March of the Penguins'. The reason which I have chosen this documentary is because it fits into the mode of expository. The reason for this is because it emphasises a lot on verbal commentary, this shown as it uses a voice over throughout the whole documentary. The rule that it used was also objectivity, this is because many facts were stated throughout the documentary about the different types of animals in the arctic. Another rule which it used was Accuracy, this is because all of the footage was real footage meaning it was archive footage, nothing was staged as it is a nature documentary.

Voiceover
What makes this documentary an expository mode documentary is the fact that it contains a voiceover. The narration in this documentary was done by Queen Latifah who is a very famous actress and this may be one of the reasons why the makers decided to include Latifah as the voiceover as many people would recognise her voice and be interested by the documentary. The voiceover is used to narrate the story to the audience viewing from home. It is another way to provide facts and statistics than just conveying them on the screen in writing.

Actuality Footage
This is another convention which the documentary uses as the basis of the whole documentary, this means that the whole documentary contains real actuality footage.

The main convention which this documentary uses is narrativisation and this is because the whole documentary contains a voiceover throughout explaining what is occuring. It also shows realism as the footage that is used is actuality footage which means that none of the footage is fake and scripted, all of the shots and scenes are done in reality and done as it happens.



The Observational Mode:

The observational mode is the mode that the audience are meant to observe in their own view. They are also known as Fly on the Wall documentaries. They are normally known as being very objective and by this it means that they like to provide a lot of facts which are true. The mode started to get very popular in the 60's as this was when the 16mm video cameras started to be made. This mode of documentary has a very important aim which they take very seriously and that aim is to provide whatever they are trying to show us in the most correct and accurate way possible. The filmmaker will normally stay hidden behind the camera as they shoot the film and this is because they do not interfere or influence with the filmmaking process.


The example which I have chosen is 'Warnock'

                      

I have used this example because I have seen it before and have now acknowledged that it is a good example for the Observational Mode. The documentary is about a football manager who is named Neil Warnock, this manager is someone who in his career has been very well known to be on of footballs most 'passionate, outspoken but controversial figures'. The documentary goes behind the scenes of his managerial career and contains meny interviews and footage of the job that he does.

Screenshot from Documentary

Above I have placed a screen shot from the documentary at 20:24. Here it is showing after the football match in the locker room where it shows that Neil is very angry at his players after a poor performance from his players. As he is having his rant at the players the viewer can see that the camera is following Neil at every move that he makes, even when his back is towards the camer it will still show him and his movements, this is to make it seem as realistic as possible. As we see at 21:29 it also shows close ups of the players looking very sad and depressed from the rant which they have just recieved. As it is a close up and on a hand held camera it would make the viewer seem as if they are there with the players in the locker room recieving the rant.

Set Ups

As the documentary is in real life places there is no fake sets used in this documentary, everything that is shot in this documentary is done in the actual places where the events took place such as the football matches in the football stadiums, the cameras were behind Warnock as they were watching his reactions and voices throughout the match.

Actuality Footage

Everything which was shot in this documentary was shot in real footage, in observational documentaries you wouldn't really find any reconstructed scenes as these types of documentaries are made to seem as real as possible to the viewer.




The Interactive Mode

The participatory mode, also known as the Interactive mode is the mode where this time the filmmaker actually does have involvement with the documentary. When this happens it kind of makes it feel as if the filmmaker is another character in the documentary. They will normally influence the documentary meaning they will also take maybe with the people who are in the shots such as if they are having an interview the filmmaker may be talking behind the camera or actually having a face to face interview with the interviewee.

The example which I have chosen is Michael Moore's Capitalism A Love Story



I have chosen a documentary named Capitalism A Love Story which is directed by and starring Michael Moore who is a very famous director and well known for making participatory mode documentaries. It is a film from September 6th 2009 and it is based on the impact that corporate dominance has on everyday lives of Americans.

I have used this example because throughout the whole documentary, Michael has an influence and input. He also does the voiceover in this documentary as he provides facts and statistics to the audience.

The images I have placed above are from 13:35 in the documentary. At this point Michael is getting ready to have an interview with a playwriter, he first introduces the man on the voiceover by saying he specialises in 'playwriting and sometimes acting, but Wally also studied history and politics' and this is why Michael is going to have an interview with him as he would like to see Wallys thought on the whole situation. The second picture shows both Wally and Michael together crossing a road, this immediately shows Michaels involvement as he is walking with Wally and covering him with an unbrella over his head and it is all shown in the shot showing that Michael has involvement. The first picture which I used was during the interview, it is showing a reaction shot of Michael whilst Wally was explaining himself to him. It didn't just show his reaction once but multiple times to show the audience how he is reacting to all of the information he is gaining.

Narrativisation

This is used in this documentary as Michael has a big role of using the voiceover to explain pretty much everything which is occuring in the film. He also provides information such as at 25:50 he says 'for 35 years GMB made more money than any other corporation' whilst he is saying this in the voiceover, the camera shot is showing the GMB building so it is sort of builiding a story.

Archive Footage

As the documentary mostly focuses on real life events it does however also show archive footage meaning it shows old videos from the past, for example at 25:56 it shows a very old video of workers with cars when he is talking about the car industries.


The Reflexive Mode

Reflexive mode documentaries are quite different to the other ones which I have explained above, Reflexive documentaries do still focus on the full truth however they focus on showing the truth in a more of a constructed manner. This means that the documentary will most likely show scenes of reconstructions or the whole documentary will be a full reconstruction of the events that occured in whatever situation. The film will normally have a narrative behind it as it is explaining a story to the viewer.

The example which I will use is Driving Me Crazy by Nick Broomfield


                      

The example which I chose was called Driving me Crazy by Nick Broomfield who is a famous filmmaker. The film was based on a lot of behind the scenes in making a musical as it shows many thinks such as the egos of the performers, the budgets that musicals have and general processes that take place in musicals. Nick is an award winning director

Actuality Footage

Pretty much the whole documentary is real footage which the filmmaker has shot and it also shows real footage shooting real shows and interviews.

Interviews:

In terms of interviews the documentary contains a lot of vox pops which are short little shots where someone is saying something infront of the camera, for example at 1:25 it shows a woman infront of the camera saying 'you've got 35 people waiting for 2 hours and it's not just about the film, you have to be considerate of these people'. Here she is talking to the filmmaker and angry at him as she thinks they are messing with the performers dreams.

Above we can see a screenshot from the documentary, in this shot at 0:42 it shows the filmmaker Nick Broomfield and a crew member filming themselves infront of the mirror at the dance rehearsals and at this point he is saying in the voiceover that the crew has 'reduced to two' which means the crew has become shorter since a while. This shows the realism as he is saying a real fact which is quite personal to the film crew that the audience shouldn't really know about.





The Performative Mode

Performative mode documentaries are films which emphasize the nature which is subjective by the documentarian meaning the filmmaker. By providing facts, they are made to give the audience facts and statistics of whatever the documentary is based on, sometimes the filmmaker will take part in the documentary to let the audience get a clearer view and receive the documentarians views and opinions too.

The example which I have chosen is Supersize Me by Morgan Spurlock

                         

This documentary is by Morgan Spurlock and it is based on experimenting and examining the influence that the fast food industry has on people in America. It looks how fast food has made a lot of Americans overweight. It also provides a lot of facts and statistics such as how obesity has come to the same level of dangerous health issues as smoking and drinking. 400 000 deaths per year are associated with obesity liked ilnesses in America and are mostly caused by fast food which is shown at 2:06. The documentary shows a lot of Actuality Footage as it is trying to convey realism to the audience. It shows a lot of shots of people casually walking down the streets in America to show the viewer differences between the overweight and normal weight people such as at 2:11.

Graphs

The documentary also used a lot of graphs to convey the facts and statistics such as at 2:26 the voiceover is saying that a lot of americans complained to fast food restaurants on behalf of two teenage girls and the pictures above show their ages and the sizes which they are at the current stage being very overweight for that age. He then went on to say that because of the two girls shapes people started to sue the fast food merchandises

Interviews

Morgan also had a few interviews in the documentary such as at 41:00 he talks to a man in a fast food restaurant who is similar to himself as he also tried experimenting the way Morgan is as he said he came in one day and ordered '9 Big Macs' and he then had 'Two hundred and sixty five' in just one month and 'seven hundred and forty one' in a whole year.

The filmmaker Morgan was heavily involved in the documentary as he took part in a 30 day experiment by eating McDonald's everyday to see what effects it would have on his body, by just a few days he started experiences problems such as 'a really weird feeling right in my mid section' which is not something you would normally recieve after eating.

Factual TV Rules