What is a Documentary?

What is a documentary?

Documentary Genre

The purpose of a documentary is to document. In other words, to report with evidence something that has actually happened. This can be shown by using actuality footage or reconstructions.

It can use a narrator’s voice over to anchor the meaning or rely on the participants themselves with the occasional interjection by an unseen narrator.

Features of a Documentary

There are five central elements to a documentary according to John Corner of the University of Liverpool.

1) Observation - the camera observes what is going on but is not acknowledged. This places the audience in the role of an eye witness.

2) Interviews - TV documentaries rely on interviews.

3) Dramatisation - a sense of drama through the observational element,

4) Mise-en-scene - this is the careful composition of shots that the documentary makers want the audience to see.

5) Exposition - this is the line of argument in a documentary (what the documentary is saying), this is like developing a story.


Types of Documentary

• Fully narrated - the voice over is used to make sense of the visuals and dominates their meaning. For example, natural history documentaries.


• Fly On The Wall - these are influenced by Cinéma vérité and offers a true picture of events.

(A clip used to promote Being Liverpool, a fly on the wall documentary about the inner workings of Liverpool Football club)

• Mixed - these use a combination of interviews, observations and narration.
• Self-reflexive - participants acknowledge the presence of the camera and often speak directly to the documentary maker.
• Docudrama - a re-enactment of events.

(A clip from House of Saddam which was created by the BBC in 2008)

• Docusoaps - these follow the daily lives of particular individuals.

(Airport is a docusoap that follows the lives of people who work at an airport. It was shown on the BBC)