Documentary Sub-Genres
Observational
This genre uses the observations of an unobtrusive camera to create direct engagement with the general life of subjects in the film. It therefore claims that by observing the realities of everyday life without the intervention of a film maker there is a stronger element of truth. General film techniques used in this sub-genre include long-takes and hand held camera to emphasise the natural, realistic nature of the scene. They also tend to show the exhaustive tediousness of everyday live, leaving in moments that don’t have any plot driven objective. The observational genre of documentary developed in the wake of innovation and evolution of cinematic technology in the 1960s. The move to lighter 16mm equipment and shoulder mounted cameras allowed documentarians to leave the anchored point of the tripod. Portable Nagra sync-sound systems and unidirectional microphones, too, freed the film maker from the old mounted style audio equipment. Both The Naked City (Jules Dassin, 1948) and On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954), for example, used actual locations in New York City to enhance their realism, and independent filmmakers such as Morris Engel (1918–2005) with Little Fugitive (1953) and Weddings and Babies (1958), and John Cassavetes, (1929–1989) with Shadows (1959) and Faces (1968), made feature films with portable 35 mm equipment.
Reflexive
The reflexive documentary genre calls attention to the conventions of documentary filmmaking and sometimes of methods used such as fieldwork or interview. This genre points out the methods involved in the film making process within the actual film. This genre calls attention to the assumptions and conventions that govern documentary filmmaking to increase our awareness of how films construct representations of reality. The reflexive sub-genre considers the quality of documentary itself, de-mystifying its processes and considering its implications. In Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) for example, he features footage of his brother and wife in the process of shooting footage and editing, respectively. The goal in including these images was, “to aid the audience in their understanding of the process of construction in film so that they could develop a sophisticated and critical attitude.” In the Vietnamese woman culture film, Daughter from Danang (2002), the film maker seeks to catch the perspective from the culture’s viewpoint. The audience feels very in touch and sympathetic to these people, even though we do not know them.
Poetic/Avant Garde
This abstract approach to documentary film making emphasizes visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, description, and form. These films often bear a close resemblance to experimental and avant-garde film. The poetic sub-genre of documentary film tends toward subjective interpretations of its subject/s. Documentaries in the poetic genre forsake traditional narrative content with individual characters and events remain undeveloped, in favor of creating a particular mood or tone. This is particularly noticeable in the editing of poetic documentaries, where a set time frame is of virtually no use at all. Joris Ivens’ Regen (1929) is prime example of the poetic sub-genre, consisting of unrelated shots linked together to illustrate a rain shower in Amsterdam. That the poetic sub-genre illustrates such subjective impressions with little or no story driven content, it is often perceived as avant-garde, and subsequent pieces in this genre, (Godfrey Reggio’s Koyannisqatsi (1982) for example), are likely to be found within the same vein.
Expository
The primary purpose of the Expository sub-genre is to make an argument. This is the model that is most often associated with documentary in general. The structure is grounded in a series of assertions backed up by evidence. The assertions are presented through verbal commentary from an invisible voice-over narrator, while images provide the evidence. The expositional genre diverges sharply from the poetic genre in terms of visual practice and story-telling devices, by its emphasis on rhetorical content, and its goals of getting information across or persuasion. These films are often rhetorical efforts to persuade the viewer into a particular reading of the subject matter. Shows and films like A&E Biography, America’s Most Wanted; many science and nature documentaries; Ken Burns’ The Civil War (1990) and Frank Capra’s wartime Why We Fight series are examples of expository works.
Performative
This sub-genre of documentary highlights the subjective or expressive aspect of the film maker’s own involvement with a subject to heighten the audience’s responsiveness to the subject and to this involvement. These films reject objectivity and favour emotion. The performative modes easily confused with the participatory mode. The main difference seems to lie in the fact that where the participatory mode engages the film maker to the story but attempts to construct truths that should be self-evident to anyone, the performative mode engages the film maker to the story but constructs subjective truths that are significant to the film maker him or herself. Deeply personal, the performative mode is particularly well-suited to telling the stories of film makers from social groups without means of expressing their stories generally, offering the chance to air unique perspectives without having to argue the validity of their experiences, as in Marlon Riggs’ 1990 documentary Tongues Untied about his experiences as a gay black dancer in New York City. The departure from a persuasion allows the performative film a great deal more room for creative freedom in terms of visual abstraction, narrative, etc. With the film maker visible to the viewer, and freed to openly discuss his or her perspective in regards to the film being made, persuasion and argumentation return to the documentary film as the film maker clearly asserts a message. Perhaps the most famous film maker currently working in this documentary genre is Michael Moore.
Participatory
This genre emphasizes the interaction between film maker and subjects. These documentaries usually take the form of a series of interviews or other forms of even more direct involvement from conversations. The participatory sub-genre is where the film maker interacts with his or her actors and participates in shaping what happens before the camera. This type of documentary became popular around the 1960s when new technology allowed for better sound recording. An example of this type of documentary found most prevalent is the use of interviews and asking the subjects questions where the person filming is talking directly with the subject. The film maker interacts with, rather than observes, the subjects. Key Examples of the Participatory Mode include Nick Broomfield's work, such as Kurt and Courtney (1998) and Living with Michael Jackson (2004)
Interactive
The interactive documentary sub-genre presents an authentic documentation of reality as the thoughts expressed and the commentary delivered are true to that of the film maker. This contrasts against the open-ended, ambiguous interpretation of reality that the observational genre presents to the audience through the detachment of the camera man. The interactive mode allows for a more personal connection with the subjects of the documentary.
The encounter between film maker and subject is recorded, as the film maker actively engages with the situation they are documenting, asking questions of their subjects, sharing experiences with them. Heavily reliant on the honesty of witnesses the interactive genre welcomes direct engagement between the film maker and subjects. The film maker becomes part of the events being recorded. The film maker’s impact on the events being recorded is acknowledged and often celebrated.
Mockumentary
Mockumentary (also known as mock documentary) is a genre of film and television in which productions are often used to analyse or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself. They may be either comedic or dramatic in form, although comedic mockumentaries are more common. A dramatic mockumentary should not be confused with docudrama, a genre in which documentary and dramatic techniques are combined to depict real events.
The term "mockumentary" is thought to have been popularized in the mid-1980s when This Is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film. It is not known with certainty when the term "mock-documentary" was first used, but the Oxford English Dictionary notes appearances of "mockumentary" from 1965.
Mockumentaries are often partly or wholly improvised, as an unscripted style of acting helps to maintain the pretence of reality. Comedic mockumentaries rarely have laugh tracks, also to sustain the atmosphere, although there are exceptions - for example, Operation Good Guys had a laugh track from its second series onwards.
Observational
This genre uses the observations of an unobtrusive camera to create direct engagement with the general life of subjects in the film. It therefore claims that by observing the realities of everyday life without the intervention of a film maker there is a stronger element of truth. General film techniques used in this sub-genre include long-takes and hand held camera to emphasise the natural, realistic nature of the scene. They also tend to show the exhaustive tediousness of everyday live, leaving in moments that don’t have any plot driven objective. The observational genre of documentary developed in the wake of innovation and evolution of cinematic technology in the 1960s. The move to lighter 16mm equipment and shoulder mounted cameras allowed documentarians to leave the anchored point of the tripod. Portable Nagra sync-sound systems and unidirectional microphones, too, freed the film maker from the old mounted style audio equipment. Both The Naked City (Jules Dassin, 1948) and On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954), for example, used actual locations in New York City to enhance their realism, and independent filmmakers such as Morris Engel (1918–2005) with Little Fugitive (1953) and Weddings and Babies (1958), and John Cassavetes, (1929–1989) with Shadows (1959) and Faces (1968), made feature films with portable 35 mm equipment.
Reflexive
The reflexive documentary genre calls attention to the conventions of documentary filmmaking and sometimes of methods used such as fieldwork or interview. This genre points out the methods involved in the film making process within the actual film. This genre calls attention to the assumptions and conventions that govern documentary filmmaking to increase our awareness of how films construct representations of reality. The reflexive sub-genre considers the quality of documentary itself, de-mystifying its processes and considering its implications. In Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) for example, he features footage of his brother and wife in the process of shooting footage and editing, respectively. The goal in including these images was, “to aid the audience in their understanding of the process of construction in film so that they could develop a sophisticated and critical attitude.” In the Vietnamese woman culture film, Daughter from Danang (2002), the film maker seeks to catch the perspective from the culture’s viewpoint. The audience feels very in touch and sympathetic to these people, even though we do not know them.
Poetic/Avant Garde
This abstract approach to documentary film making emphasizes visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, description, and form. These films often bear a close resemblance to experimental and avant-garde film. The poetic sub-genre of documentary film tends toward subjective interpretations of its subject/s. Documentaries in the poetic genre forsake traditional narrative content with individual characters and events remain undeveloped, in favor of creating a particular mood or tone. This is particularly noticeable in the editing of poetic documentaries, where a set time frame is of virtually no use at all. Joris Ivens’ Regen (1929) is prime example of the poetic sub-genre, consisting of unrelated shots linked together to illustrate a rain shower in Amsterdam. That the poetic sub-genre illustrates such subjective impressions with little or no story driven content, it is often perceived as avant-garde, and subsequent pieces in this genre, (Godfrey Reggio’s Koyannisqatsi (1982) for example), are likely to be found within the same vein.
Expository
The primary purpose of the Expository sub-genre is to make an argument. This is the model that is most often associated with documentary in general. The structure is grounded in a series of assertions backed up by evidence. The assertions are presented through verbal commentary from an invisible voice-over narrator, while images provide the evidence. The expositional genre diverges sharply from the poetic genre in terms of visual practice and story-telling devices, by its emphasis on rhetorical content, and its goals of getting information across or persuasion. These films are often rhetorical efforts to persuade the viewer into a particular reading of the subject matter. Shows and films like A&E Biography, America’s Most Wanted; many science and nature documentaries; Ken Burns’ The Civil War (1990) and Frank Capra’s wartime Why We Fight series are examples of expository works.
Performative
This sub-genre of documentary highlights the subjective or expressive aspect of the film maker’s own involvement with a subject to heighten the audience’s responsiveness to the subject and to this involvement. These films reject objectivity and favour emotion. The performative modes easily confused with the participatory mode. The main difference seems to lie in the fact that where the participatory mode engages the film maker to the story but attempts to construct truths that should be self-evident to anyone, the performative mode engages the film maker to the story but constructs subjective truths that are significant to the film maker him or herself. Deeply personal, the performative mode is particularly well-suited to telling the stories of film makers from social groups without means of expressing their stories generally, offering the chance to air unique perspectives without having to argue the validity of their experiences, as in Marlon Riggs’ 1990 documentary Tongues Untied about his experiences as a gay black dancer in New York City. The departure from a persuasion allows the performative film a great deal more room for creative freedom in terms of visual abstraction, narrative, etc. With the film maker visible to the viewer, and freed to openly discuss his or her perspective in regards to the film being made, persuasion and argumentation return to the documentary film as the film maker clearly asserts a message. Perhaps the most famous film maker currently working in this documentary genre is Michael Moore.
Participatory
This genre emphasizes the interaction between film maker and subjects. These documentaries usually take the form of a series of interviews or other forms of even more direct involvement from conversations. The participatory sub-genre is where the film maker interacts with his or her actors and participates in shaping what happens before the camera. This type of documentary became popular around the 1960s when new technology allowed for better sound recording. An example of this type of documentary found most prevalent is the use of interviews and asking the subjects questions where the person filming is talking directly with the subject. The film maker interacts with, rather than observes, the subjects. Key Examples of the Participatory Mode include Nick Broomfield's work, such as Kurt and Courtney (1998) and Living with Michael Jackson (2004)
Interactive
The interactive documentary sub-genre presents an authentic documentation of reality as the thoughts expressed and the commentary delivered are true to that of the film maker. This contrasts against the open-ended, ambiguous interpretation of reality that the observational genre presents to the audience through the detachment of the camera man. The interactive mode allows for a more personal connection with the subjects of the documentary.
The encounter between film maker and subject is recorded, as the film maker actively engages with the situation they are documenting, asking questions of their subjects, sharing experiences with them. Heavily reliant on the honesty of witnesses the interactive genre welcomes direct engagement between the film maker and subjects. The film maker becomes part of the events being recorded. The film maker’s impact on the events being recorded is acknowledged and often celebrated.
Mockumentary
Mockumentary (also known as mock documentary) is a genre of film and television in which productions are often used to analyse or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself. They may be either comedic or dramatic in form, although comedic mockumentaries are more common. A dramatic mockumentary should not be confused with docudrama, a genre in which documentary and dramatic techniques are combined to depict real events.
The term "mockumentary" is thought to have been popularized in the mid-1980s when This Is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film. It is not known with certainty when the term "mock-documentary" was first used, but the Oxford English Dictionary notes appearances of "mockumentary" from 1965.
Mockumentaries are often partly or wholly improvised, as an unscripted style of acting helps to maintain the pretence of reality. Comedic mockumentaries rarely have laugh tracks, also to sustain the atmosphere, although there are exceptions - for example, Operation Good Guys had a laugh track from its second series onwards.