Documentary types


Poetic

A poetic documentary is when it is up to the viewer to find meaning in it. This type relies heavily on imagery and viewer opinion. This is a much more creative approach to take when creating a documentary. A lot of research still has been done when planning on making this type of documentary. There are no interviews in this type of documentary, the actors have to pretend that the camera isn't there which means it is likely to take longer to film.


Expository

Expository documentaries is the most common type. The point of these is to be factual and to portray events such as historical or wildlife events. For example, David Attenborough documentaries fall under this categories. An important thing to note in this type of documentary is that they have a voice of God type narration. The subject always have to be clear, logical and factual.


Participatory

In this type of documentary the documentary maker is very hands on with the topic they are talking about. For example, if they are making a documentary about factories and factory workers they would talk to factory workers and possibly try out what the workers do. There are documentaries like this on the BBC relatively often.


Observational

The purpose of observational documentaries is, much like the title suggests, observing things. A lot of times in these documentaries there is no music, or narration. The camera is like a fly on the wall simply watching events making the viewer free to come up with their opinion on the events they witness. The editing on these types of documentaries is very minimal and very natural.

With this type of documentary it is important to find a topic which is naturally interesting and doesn't need extreme edits and narration.


Reflexive 

Reflexive documentaries tend to focus on the relationship between the documentary maker and the audience who view the documentary. They focus on someone's life whether it's the documentary maker or people around them. One example is 'Man with a Movie Camera' which portrays a man who travels around and documents urban life.


Performative

This type of documentary usually has a big theme. The entire documentary is supposed to be entertaining and seen as a performance of sorts. This type of documentary usually has the documentary maker as the main focus. For example in 'Super Size Me', the maker eats only McDonalds for 30 days, making it performative since the maker is the main focus.


After researching all six documentary types I feel as though participatory is the one that I will use. My reason for this is that I feel it is the most entertaining form of documentary and is also a very realistic option since I can both film and do the interviews and activities myself.

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