Documentary Genres and conventions

Documentary genres:

Fully narrated: An off screen voice over to make sense of the visuals and dominates their meaning in which it anchors the meaning.

Fly on the wall: also known as Cinema Verite, the fly on the wall documentary is a documentary that films from a certain angle, and the cameras film without interference .

Mixed: uses a wide variety and combination of other documentarys, like archive footage, interviews, observational footage and narration.

self reflected: the subject acknowledges the presence of the camera and often speaks directly to the documentary maker.

Docudrama: a documentary with reanactment of events that were suppose to have happened.

Docusoap: combines elements of soap operas and documentaries and it revolves around "some" characters.

Features:

Obseveration:  the unseen observation places the audience in the role of eye witnesses to the realities portrayed. The subjects do not acknowledge the camera.

Interview: TV documentaries rely on interviews the speaker does not acknowledge the camera. i.e they adress the interviewer, not the audience.

Dramatisation: all documentaries use a sense of drama throughout observation element.  they seem to occur naturally infront of the camera.

Mise en scene: Documentary makers carefully compose shots so they contain images they want the audience to see.

Exposition: the line of argument in a documentary.

Narrative structures:

Open ending: endings of documentaries which have loose endings. Their are questions in the documentary left unanswered and open for debate.

Closed ending: An ending in a documentary which covers all the topics and doesent leave any loose ends open for discussion. Every aspect is fully explored