Friday 17 June 2011

Studying Documentary Types

In class we watched four documentaries by four different documentary makers- Robert Flaherty, Louis Theroux, Michael Moore and Nick Broomfield. This task really helped as we had to decide which documentary mode each documentary fitted in to.

The first documentary we watched was by Robert Flaherty, his documentary fitted in to the poetic form. It had an artistic flare to it with no narration, Robert Flaherty himself wasn't involved in the actual scene and because of these reasons it fitted in with this type of documentary.

The second documentary we watched was by Louis Theroux, I put this documentary in the form of participatory and reflexive. I thought it was participatory as he becomes directly involved with the issue being addressed. It was reflexive as he is in front of the camera and he gives some narrative guidance.

The third documentary was by Michael Moore, I thought his documentary was mainly observational, as he aids the audience of their understanding of the process of construction. Also the use of new equipment, making it easier to move around. To some extent his documentary had a poetic form in it, the way in which the black and white photos flow as a slideshow with subtitles and slow music.

The last one we watched was by Nick Broomfield, I put this under expository as he was exposing issues and it was also reflexive as he was analyzing Kurt Kebains life.

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