What is Documentary?

Documentary -

1. Consisting of or based on official documents

2. Using pictures or interviews with people involved in real events to provide a factual report on a particular subject

Documentaries are films, television or radio programmes that document the world, depicting things as they are in there honest state, and capturing realism the constant evolving human race and its inhabitants. Documentaries successfully present facts in a way that we, as humans can relate to. they focus on subjects like human relationships, exploring the human mind, other animals and species who share our world,political, cultural and social issues, documenting factual reports on events as well as celebrating history and life in general.They are often used to raise awareness, expose truths and transform the way society views realities. In today’s society documentaries play a significant role because people rely on them to tell them the truth, documentaries are the most honest form of media as they are not necessarily trying to sell you something , apart from the documentary itself and of course because they are based on facts. Another reason why I would view documentaries as the most truthful form of media is because they present people in a true light, they even explore the misrepresentations within the media however some people could argue that specific documentaries could be used to manipulate people views on a certain situation or subject.

In present day we are witnessing a huge explosion in documentaries especially documentary film, the developing digital technology allows filmmakers to produce a documentary with a team as little as 3 people and complete the film in a much shorter time period than a fictional film would take. Over the years documentaries have evolved drastically, instead of a documentary being just solely interviews, photographs and video footage there has now been a development in the types of genres and hybrid genres within the documentary category. Older documentaries typically were shot in the style of a cinéma-vérité film or observational documentary, this style avoids artificial and artistic affects making it a very direct and a raw type of documentary. Another commonly used form of documentary may be participatory, this type of documentary explores the idea that the act of film making will always influence the events taking place, the filmmaker then becomes a part of the film.one other common style of documentary is expository, this type of documentary is one typically seen on television, where the documentary directly speaks to the viewer, usually in the form of a running commentary or voice over. however there are many other forms of documentary like poetic documentaries, reflexive documentaries and performative documentaries.

I feel like in recent years documentaries have become a lot more interactive and abstract in the way it’s filmed. Many documentaries like ‘The Imposter’ are abstractly filmed using non diegetic sound, special effects and rein acted scenes from the real events. I think that the more abstractly filmed documentaries can appeal to a wider range of audience, making documentaries more visually attractive and interesting, as well as still being informative.