Documentary Formats

A documentary is a film, television or radio program that provides a factual report on a particular subject although these may be seen as biased, showing only information that the creator of the documentary believes to be true using a combination of editing, sources, therefore consciously or unconsciously putting bias into a documentary.

An expository documentary is a documentary that uses a series of informative images alongside a disembodied voice over that addresses the audience on what is happening directly the effect of this is objective with direct and transparent representation. An example of this is BBC One's Spy in the Wild, a documentary series in which animatronic spy creatures infiltrate the animal world to explore their complex emotions.

An observational documentary presents a non judgmental record of an event as there is no intervention by the filmmaker, they are hidden from the audience, the audience decide what to think. Because of this it depicted in a clear and unbiased way. Armadillo is a 2010 Danish documentary film about Danish soldiers in the War in Afghanistan directed by Janus Metz this is a purist observational masterpiece that has no voiceover, no narration, not even any interviews.

An Interactive documentary has the filmmaker as a participant they would have interaction with both the audience, interviewees and anyone else involved in the documentary. Because of the filmmakers presence it is argued that these types of documentaries manipulate what is being presented, rather than being factual it is more of a documented opinion. An example of an interactive documentary is  A Journal of Insomnia, an NFB interactive documentary exploring mental health in the 21st century. 

Due to the increased access to a production the audience can and will use social media to engage with content however they wish audiences are not just receivers of media anymore and instead can be anywhere from co-creators to learners to just fans and have more of a role to play in the creation of a production which may influence the people who are involved making it more biased. 

A Reflexive documentary is a documentary that has interaction with the filmmaker who provides a narrative to expose what is essentially 'between the lines' of shots and documentation of everyday life these are experimented with in a way to present them as evidence that something else is going on.an example of this would be A Man with a Movie Camera (1929) where it shows scenes of city life in Moscow, Odessa and Kiev, and the credits describe it as an “experiment in cinematic communication of visible events”, which doesn’t do justice to its dedication to transforming and upending reality.

A Performative documentary has an obstructive nature and uses camera positions, soundtracks and re-enactments to show things in a more exaggerated manor and emphasizes truth as relative, favoring a personal take over the objective lens. The use of dramatisations and/ or reenactments are used to show what was happening in a way that is not just a re-telling of the story but it's very often over the top. A good example of a performative documentary would be Tongues Untied which blends documentary footage with personal account and fiction in an attempt to depict the specificity of black gay identity. The "silence" referred to throughout the film is that of black gay men, who are unable to express themselves because of the prejudices of white and black heterosexual society, as well as the white gay society.

Whilst I do believe that a documentarist should have a contract with the viewer to present them with authentic information showing only the truth, it is incredibly difficult not to have an influence over what you are showing as ultimately they decide what information is relevant for their documentary and either include it or discard it, they also decide how it is edited, what actions to shoot, where they place the camera and where their sources come from. so even if they believe they are presenting their documentary with no biases these factors all effect the authenticity of the piece and ultimately represent the filmmaker’s version of the truth.