<p>INTRODUCING DOCUMENTARY</p><p>List of Films </p><p>The group of films which make up this resource offer a varied approach to the genre. Before we look at any individual film, however, we ought to clarify exactly what we mean by the term 'documentary'.</p><p>First of all, can you say what you think a documentary is? What does it attempt to do? Give some examples of documentaries that you have seen on television recently. How are they similar to each other and how are they different from each other?</p><p>Below are a number of comments made by documentary film makers. Read through them and try to highlight the similarities and differences of their definitions and approaches to documentary film making.</p><p>"You even have to edit your film as the event is actually happening. Have to decide it is this and this and this I want to look at; and not this, this and this. And you can't sit there wondering, what does the director want me to do? You have to make the decisions yourself, you can't alter anything; nothing can be reshot. You're doing an entirely different thing; you're a social observer. Your own ingenuity becomes less important than the fact of how interesting is the subject; and is your own approach to it interesting enough. You don't show the whole of the subject; you select; and your selection matters." Richard Leacock</p><p>"It is possible to go to a situation and simply film what you see there, what happens there, what goes on, and let everybody decide whether it tells them about any of these things. But you don't have to label them, you don't have to have the narration to instruct you so you can be sure and understand that it's good for you to learn." D A Pennebaker </p><p>"My definition of a documentary film is a film that decides you don't know enough about something, whatever it is, psychology or the tip of South America. Some guy goes there and says 'Holy Cow, I know about this and nobody else does, so I'm going to make a film about it.' Gives him something to do. And he usually persuades someone to put up the money who thinks this is the thing to do. Then you have a situation where this thing is shouting on the wall about how you don't know something." D A Pennebaker</p><p>Do these comments want to make you change your own definition of documentary film making? THE DOCUMENTARY TODAY Today the word 'documentary' is used to describe any film or programme which includes some factual element, from investigative programmes on child abuse or illegal immigration to 'fly on the wall' documentaries such as 'Airport'. In fact, for viewers and broadcasters alike, documentary is now used to define any programme that is not a drama. </p><p>Although there has always been much discussion about the definition of this genre of film making, in the past, particularly from the 1920s until the early 1950s, the word documentary implied certain film making conventions. In Britain, under the influence of the theoretician John Grierson, a generation of film makers produced films which, to a greater of lesser extent, adhered to the tenets of documentary. In essence such films were supposed to be a record of 'real people' and their activities in which there was an attempt to capture the truth of their lives and experiences. The documentary style dictated certain conventions - the use of real people and locations rather than actors and artificial sets and as little scripted speech as possible. Most of these film makers also believed that their films should serve society by revealing to the general public the plight of the poor, the dispossessed or the badly housed. </p><p>As soon as one begins to think carefully about this theory, particularly when applying the ideal to the highly technical and artificial process of film making, one realises that the ideal of truth in documentary is an extremely controversial one.</p><p>Documentaries have been produced since film making first began at the end of the nineteenth century. The first documentaries recorded many aspects of ordinary life: people leaving a factory, a train passing through a station, a man chopping wood, a cityscape from a balloon. These kind of films reflected the early period of cinema when people were enchanted by the ability of moving film to recreate scenes from life. Inevitably filmmakers soon began to film short stories, comedies and dramas and this form of film making soon dominated. However, documentary film making continued to develop alongside the mainstream of 'story' films.</p><p>Nowadays we mainly see documentary films and news footage on television. However, it is important to remember that before television, documentaries appeared in the cinema, as a support for the feature film. Now imagine the task facing the documentary film maker. They were in direct competition for the audience's attention against a feature film which had had large amounts of money spent on it, contained stars, had a big music soundtrack and told a story. In addition to documentaries, cinemas would also show newsreels. These, one could say, were the equivalent to our news broadcasts on television giving information on recent events that had happened in the world.</p><p>Click here to use chart A and explain the differences between three types of film. DIFFERENT STYLES OF DOCUMENTARY So far we have talked about documentaries as if they were all the same. However, there are a variety of different styles of documentary. Most of these are types that we would currently see on television such as:</p><p> fly on the wall  docu soaps  docu drama  investigative Drama  documentary  personal </p><p>List examples of each of these types of TV documentary</p><p>Can you think of any other styles of documentary that you have seen? </p><p>For each of the different types, describe their style and the approach they take to their subject. </p><p>Click here to use Chart B to collect your thoughts on the documentaries that you have chosen.</p><p>What would you say are the pros and cons of each type of documentary for revealing any 'truths' about their chosen subject?</p><p>DOES DOCUMENTARY SHOW 'REALITY' ?</p><p>The French film maker, Jean Luc Godard, has said that 'film is not the representation of reality, it is the reality of the representation'. As you will have seen from your work so far, the 'reality' of the film is highly constructed We need to ask questions not only about what is being shown but also about what is not being shown.</p><p>Choose a short section from a documentary that you have seen which has voice-over narration. </p><p>Can you rewrite the voice over in order to give a different meaning to the images? You could also play around with music. Add different types of musical background to the section and see how that changes the 'meaning' of the images. Documentary films then are CONSTRUCTED - they don't just happen. Certain decisions will have been made as to what we see and how we see it. As viewers, we don't usually know about the decisions that are made during the creation of a film or a sequence in it , but we can usually decipher why a picture looks as it does. Without being conscious of what we are doing, we automatically 'read' films and images, making sense of them and their messages. We do this by picking up clues, by DE-CONSTRUCTING the images and sounds as we look at them. As a guideline for de-constructing, the following list of points will provide you with a framework:</p><p>Lighting can have great impact on our understanding of a film. It plays an LIGHTING important part in creating the atmosphere of any one scene. Lighting can emphasise / accentuate / disguise / reveal / conceal or imply. What are the predominant colours? Grey / blue / white for example are quite COLOURS harsh tones, while amber / pink / orange are used to suggest warmth. How is colour used to evoke a reaction from the viewer? Editing allows sequences to be built up. The joining of shots (known as EDITING montage) allows film makers to manipulate time and space to create a particular mood through the different techniques that are used. When we watch a film, everything that we see is enclosed in a frame. What we see may seem perfectly natural, but it will have been carefully selected and arranged within the frame by the director. S/he chooses where to place people and objects, and where to place the camera so that we understand, or 'read' each shot in a particular way. What is being framed provides an FRAMING important clue as to what is being emphasised. Points to consider in the use of framing are: - what is being included or excluded from a picture. - Is our attention being directed or diverted for a particular reason? - Does the framing suggest that we are seeing something from one person’s viewpoint, or from a neutral standpoint? CAMERA is the camera held steady or does it move around? What effect does this have MOVEMENT on the ways in which we understand what is happening? FOCUS Is the focus hard or soft, and to what effect? is a voice over used to tell us about what is happening? How does the voice NARRATION sound? What is it saying? When does the voice appear and why does it appear at that point? what sort of music is played in the documentary? What moods are created by MUSIC the music?</p><p>For another aspect of this varied genre visit:</p><p>The North West Film Archive http://www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/ </p>