Research into Documentarys

Types of Documentaries

Fully Narrated Documentaries
Fully narrated documentaries are commonly used in Natural History programmes or wife life shows. An off screen voice over is used to narrate the programme and make sense of the visuals anchoring the meaning, the voice over therefore links everything together to create the narrative.

Fly on the Wall Documentary
The most modern example of a fly on the wall documentary is probably ‘What Katie Did Next’ shown on ITV2. In this try of documentary the camera is unconstructive and films (in some ways observes) real life.

Mixed
In a mixed documentary the viewer will see a combination of interview, observation and narration in order to advance the narrative of the programme.

Self Reflexive
This is when the subject of the documentary acknowledges the presence of the camera and throughout the show speaks directly to the film maker whilst being recorded. Often in a self reflexive documentary we will actually hear audio from the person holding the camera so the view seems almost to be listening to a live conversation.

Docudrama
This is simply a re-enactment or reconstruction of events as they are supposed to happen.

Docu-soap
This is a common type of documentary, and example of which is ‘Air Line’. It follows a group of people and there daily lives, usually evolving around occupation. The people in the documentary can be come almost like minor soap characters, and the programme is often left on cliff hangers, persuading the views to tune in again at the next show.

Types of Narrative Structures
‘Construction of reality’ -
We concluded that construction of reality means that even though a document is filming the subject in ‘real-life’ the audience should remember that the programme is constructed for the watching audience. For example the fact that the documentary and filming is edited suggests certain parts of the footage being either taken out of the programme, or added in. Basically the producers and editors create an arterial picture of what they want t show. This then ties in with the term ‘gate-keeping’ which refers to the process involving the selection and rejection of information.

Structures -
Open
There are loose ends and questions unanswered at the end of the documentary. The audience is left to use there own mind and suggest there own opinion of the questions raised throughout the programme.
Closed – All loose ends are tied up at the end of the programme and there are no questions remaining in the minds of the audience.

Single Strand
This is when the documentary had just one ongoing narrative running throughout.
Multi-strand – in this type of documentary more than one narrative show be running throughout. The different narrative may sometimes cross each over or converge.

Linear
This is when the documentary follows chronological order. In simpler terms the events in the documentary follow the order of time.
Non Linear – Non linear documentaries are the opposite in that’s they simply do not follow the order of time. This is usually when we start to see flashbacks in programmes, or even flash forwards. This ties is with elliptical editing (meaning to cut out time).
The last narrative we looked at is possibly the most common in documentary making; Circular Narrative. This means that the programme’s start and ending points are the same. Circular narrative documentaries often begin with a question and throughout the programme the audience is provided with evidence which can be used to answer it. Generally in this type of documentary we get two sides to the narrative, but not always.