Documentaries come in many formats and genres. This allows film makers to push traditional boundaries or mix elements from different modes to produce a unique and powerful film. Documentaries can be filmed in various different ways, these ways of filming are called documentary modes. In 1991, American film critic and theoretician Bill Nichols proposed that there were 6 different modes of documentary - poetic, expository, reflexive, observational, preformative, and participatory - each containing its own specific characteristics. While some documentary films may have an overlap in traits, each mode is a category that can be boiled down to a few specific elements.
Not all documentaries are the same, and different types of documentaries will require different documentary techniques from the cinematography. There are six main types of documentary types.
1) Poetic Mode: A poetic documentary eschews linear continuity in favour of mood, tone, or the juxtaposition of imagery. Since poetic documentaries often have little or no narrative content, the director of photography is often asked to capture highly composed, visually striking images that can tell a story without additional verbal context.
2) Expository Mode: Expository documentaries set up a specific point of view or argument about a subject and often feature "voice of God" style voice-over. For expository documentaries, the cinematographer is responsible for collecting footage that supports and strengthens the spoken argument of the film, including stock footage, archival footage, b roll, or re-enactments of historical events.
3) Participatory Mode: Participatory documentaries are defined by the interaction between the documentary filmmakers and their subject. Therefore, a cinematographer is equally responsible for capturing the interviewer as he is the interviewee. Participatory documentaries also known as interactive documentaries often present the filmmakers version of the truth as "the" truth. focusing on direct engagement with subjects and capturing real emotional responses and interactions. Many of the interactions that are captured support the filmmakers point of view or prove the films intent.
4) Observational Mode: A style of documentary embraced by the cinema verite movement, observational documentaries attempt to discover the ultimate truth of their subject by acting as a fly-on-the-world-in other words, observing the subjects real-life without interrupting. Cinematographers on observational documentaries will often be asked to be as unobtrusive as possible in order to capture their subjects in a raw, unguarded state.
5) Reflexive mode: Reflexive documentaries focus on the relationship between the filmmaker and the audience. Since the subject matter is often the process of documentary film making itself , a cinematographer will shoot behind the scenes style footage of the entire film production process, including editing, interviewing, and post production.
6) Preformative Mode: Preformative documentaries focus on the film maker's involvement with their subject, using their personal experience or relationship with the subject as a jumping-off point for exploring larger, subjective truths about history, politics or groups of people. A cinematographer is often asked to capture the documentary production process, as well as intimate footage that illustrates the direct and often personal relationship between film maker and subject.
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