TV Theory 6: Documentary watching- 'Making a Murderer' (Netflix, 2015)

Hereare notes taken from TV Theory session on : 27th October 2016

Making a Murderer (Netflix, 2015)
-10 part US documentary series about a miscarriage of justice.

Documentary:
-Unscripted, but often relies on classic narrative structure.
-Employs real people, but often requires directed performance.
-Typically shot handheld, but also often employs classic fixed camera techniques.
-Does not use formal Hollywood mise en scene (but still relies on classical precepts of framing, composition and lighting).

-Documentary in purest sense is filmed observation. A recording or 'document' of reality. Primary for informing rather than escapist entertainment.
-Term first coined by Scottish filmmaker John Grierson (regarded as 'father of British documentary') in 1926.
-Grierson described documentary as 'he creative treatment of reality'.

Documentary formats:
Formal documentary:
-Observational (Excluded)
-Current affairs/factual (Making a Murderer, content driven)
-Polemic (Adam Curtis) Uses documentary form, techniques and conventions to educate, debate and inform content.
Hybrid documentary:
-Reality (benefits street)
-Scripted reality (TOWIE)
-Drama-documentary (Man On Wire, Touching The Void) Uses documentary form, techniques and conventions of entertainment.

'Documentary film is traditionally perceived to be the hybrid offspring of a perennial struggle between forces of objectivity (represented by the 'documents').

Narrative documentary modes:
-Expository- emphasises rhetoric and information. The classic 'voice of God'/current affairs/BBC documentary.
-Observational- classic 'fly on the wall' Typically no voiceover, music or other interventions (Maysles Brothers).
-Participatory- onscreen relationship between filmmaker and subject, usually via interview (Louis Theroux).
-Reflexive- makes viewer aware of filmmaking process. Seeks to challenge our assumptions (Nick Broomfield).
-Poetic- artistic montage-based. rely on expressive editing of sound montage rather than classical continuity.
-Performative- filmmaker is performing in the documentary itself, does not necessarily represent reality.

Critical approaches to documentary:
-Realism
-Mediation and Representation
-Reception Theory
-Ideology
-Documentary and Propaganda- 'Man with a Movie camera' (Vertov,1929)/ 'Olympia' (Riefenstahl's, 1938).