Documentary Process
The Poetic Mode
'reassembling fragments of the world', a transformation of historical material into a more abstract, lyrical form, usually associated with 1920s and modernist ideas. Using visual elements to impact an audience. Lack of continuity and events and characters left undeveloped is not uncommon. It's main aim is to create a mood or tone.
A good example of this is Koyannisqatsi by Godfrey Reggio (1982), this uses a range of scenic shots and uses some technical techniques such as time lapses and slow motion to show meaning and tone. (right)
Modes of Documentary
The Expository Mode
This mode uses a commetary over the top of images and footage seen onscreen. It is sometimes called the 'voice of god'. This is used to give the audience greater understanding and more information of what is going on onscreen. This mode features heavily in modern age documentary and even on television programs. Still used commonly today.
A good example of this was the documentaries 'Britains Toughest Villages'. (left)
The Observational Mode
This mode allows camera's to be placed and left there to observe allowing viewers to reach their own conclusion on the documentary.
Left the people in the documentary to get on with their lives allowing a better representation of their day to day life.
This is called 'fly on the wall' documenting, where the subjects are unaware of the camera.
A good example of this is 'The Fried Chicken Shop' aired on Channel 4 (2013) (right)
The Participatory Mode
This mode the filmaker engages with their subject, either by interviewing or explicitly interviewing the subject. Shows a relationship between the film maker and their subject. It relies on the truth answers and experience from the interviewee.
An example of this is 'The Life of Michael Jackson' by Bashir made in 2004 (left)
The Reflexive Mode
This mode engages the audience by showing the filming, editing and production porocess of the documentary. This allows the viewer to understand the process behing the making of a film so they can develop a sophisticated and critical attitude.
An example of this would be 'The Man with a Movie Camera' (1929) (right)
The Political Reflexive Mode
Devolops the audeinces awareness of an issue. Urging the audience to take action to make a change for the issue that is being explored. Uses emotion through visual images and real life experiences to create an impact on the audience.
An example of this would be 'Bulgaria's forgotten children' Aired on the BBC in 2007. (left)
The Performative Mode
This mode follows the documentarist's process throughout the documentary. It often works well as an autobiographical piece, or also as for exploring anyone's life that may be worth documenting, or even an event in their life.
An example of this would be the Bob Marley documentary 'Marley' (2012) by Kevin Macdonald.(right)
Techniques
24p frame interlacing
This is where waves appear to be on screen. This is caused by the lighting pulsing at the same rate as the camera is taking frames.
HDR (high Dynamic Range) vs Bracketting
Bracketing has been around for a long time. It is used within film to counter tricky lighting situations to ensure that you get at least one good shot. It takes several images at different exposures to get at least one correct shot. They can be combined into an HDR image using software in postproduction.
However there are now cameras with built in HDR where it combines several images with different exposures into one image straight on the camera. Can be argued that it gives less control over the image but is a much easier process.
Moiré
Moiré is where two patterns in an image are joined together and create a third pattern making an almost fluid or 3D effect. This often happens on TV with certain pieces of weaved clothing such as a hounds tooth jacket. Digital cameras are more likely to create moiré. To correct this anti-aliasing is built into the cameras, which reduces this effect.
Video Sharpening
Digital images, both still and video often need sharpening. The images taken tend to be quite soft without much definition in them. Once uploaded onto video editing software such as premiere there is a filter to sharpen the images, which have to be rendered to create the sharpened finish.
Codex
Codex recorders are high-resolution media recording systems, used to capture pictures and sound from digital cameras. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Digital
Source-path-goal Schema
This is the structuring of the Journey through the documentary (start, middle, end). Generally you have the past, present and future within the documentary. However not all documentaries have to abide by this structure as the topic may not have much of a past or future. This structure allows the basis to be covered and may diverse onto things, which the primaries may find important such as ambitions etc.
