DOCUMENTARY GENRES: Docufiction:a collaboration of documentary and fiction and introduces fictional situations within the narrative to represent an artistic expression or form of documentary. This refers to filming fictional elements of the documentary and where the action takes place and in which a character plays their own role in life. Examples: Mermaids: The Body Found science fiction drama formed into a Documentary. This drama uses fictional characters and tells the story of a scientific team who investigate the mysterious underwater findings and recordings of a dead body of a marine. Docudrama: documentary and drama merges together and is fact-based a representation of real events. Mockumentary: Mando film: |  Ethnofiction: is a blend of fiction and documentary which refers to the culture of people. The documentary uses elements of film and photography through a visual reception of the mass media. The style of an ethnofiction documentary follows a fictional and imaginative narrative where the characters are often actors (some times improvisation is used) playing within a social or ethnic group. The production team, mainly the camera man gets involved in the characters by interfering in an event and the camera mans influence and presence will affect the characters. A filmaker and anthropologist named Jean Rouch created a film named Les Maitres Fous in 1955 is the first film made in ethnofiction genre. Examples: Breathless 1960's Paris |
Vittorio de Sica's Umberto D |
MODES IN DOCUMENTARY.
Poetic Mode: is a more abstract and lyrical form, mostly associated with the 1920's style of documentary and modernist ideas.
Example: The Grizzly Man
Expository Mode: form of "direct address" or "voice of God syndrome", also associated with the 1920's and 1930's, social issues congregate into an argumentative frame.
Examples from Photojournalists: David Linch, Burner Hursler,
Participatory Mode: actively involved in the situation, asking people questions about their subjects and sharing their experiences with the viewer, an honesty of witness.
Observational Mode: holds the decisive moment, capturing everything as it happens in reality, known as fly on the wall documentaries.
Examples: The Family, One Born Every Minute
Reflective Mode: engages the audience with issues concerning realism and representation, it acknowledges the presence of the viewer and the judgements the viewer has on certain issue raised within the Documentary.
Examples: Funny games
Performative Mode: presents ideas of context with different meanings for different individuals, it is emotional and subjective in how it portrays the message.
