Documentary and New Media Flashcards
What is a subgenre?
A genre within a genre, e.g. a fly on the wall documentary.
What is factual media?
It’s about real life people and real events. It is a representation of reality.
What is a documentary defined as?
A text that presents a social, political, historical or scientific subject in a factual or informative manner.
What is the issue with documentaries?
Although they are concerned with actuality (what actually happens), it is not real life. It is a re-presentation fo reality.
What are a documentary’s three main functions?
Educate
Inform
Entertain
What are a documentary’s four minor functions?
Give insight
Provoke thought and action
Campaign
Highlight an injustice
Conventions of a documentary.
Actuality footage Archive footage Talking heads Interviews Use of experts Witness testimony Reconstruction Voiceover narration Graphical information
What are the different types of documentary?
Fly on the wall Docu-Drama Docu-Soap Investigative Documentary Personal
What was the first documentary to ever be filmed?
John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It was aired live on TV.
What is the expository mode of documentary?
The ‘voice of god’ documentary. This is the most frequent mode of documentary used. It uses and narrator and assumes a logical argument, using direct address and offering a preferred meaning.
What is the poetic mode of documentary?
This is the subjective and artistic expression documentary. This documentary allows its audience to grasp an ‘inner truth’.
What is the observational mode of documentary?
The ‘window on the world’ documentary. It gives its audience an unbiased view of its subject matter.
What is the participatory mode of documentary?
This type of documentary allows direct engagement between the filmmaker and the participants. The filmmaker becomes a part of the events being recorded.
What is the reflexive mode of documentary?
This documentary emphasises that the version of events being displayed is ‘a’ truth, but not ‘the’ truth. It acknowledges that it is just a re-presentation of reality.
What is the performative mode of documentary?
This documentary allows the filmmaker to be a participant and a performer. It acknowledges the emotional and social impact on the audience.
What did Eisenstein say about his use of montage editing?
He used it as an attempt to provoke an emotional response from his audience.
Who is the director of the 4 of the highest grossing documentaries of all time and what are they?
Michael Moore Roger and Me Bowling for Columbine Fahrenheit 9/11 Capitalism: A Love Story
Why is reality TV popular among media companies?
It is cheap and profitable. There is a need to fill airtime and reality TV is a cheap way to fill that time.
It can also be licensed and sold around the world for profit. To format globally, structure and content needs to simple, easily understood, direct and adaptable.
There a variety of subgenres to appeal to modern, niche audiences.
What are some of the features fo reality TV?
Use of recognisable faces - ‘ordinary people’
Easily understood by audiences - simple formats and subject matter
Voyeuristic - audiences gain pleasure from looking into other people’s lives.
Spin-offs in other media - gossip magazines and online content
Interactivity - voting systems and online discussions
New media platform friendly
Explain the origins of the fly on the wall documentary.
It originated in the 1960/70s and was used to describe a style of documentary used in the US and UK (sometimes known as Direct Cinema in the US). It is now more of a technique than a style of documentary.
What is the style of the fly on the wall documentary?
Represents the world as truthfully and realistically as possible. This allows the subjects to completely narrate themselves with little interference from the filmmaker. These documentaries are simply observational - like a fly on the wall.
What are the technical codes of the fly on the wall documentary?
Handheld cameras, natural lighting, high shooting ratio, uneven zooms and jump cuts.
What is the subject matter of the fly on the wall documentary?
Often institutions such as prisons, hospitals and schools etc. These subjects attracted the curiosity of audiences.
