What is considered a documentary?

A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record. … Social-media platforms (such as YouTube) have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary-film genre.

What is documentary example?

A documentary is defined as a film or television program that is educational and tells a true story. An example of a documentary is the An Inconvenient Truth, a movie about global warming.

What are the 4 types of documentary?

What Are Documentary Modes? In 1991, American film critic and theoretician Bill Nichols proposed that there were six different modes of documentarypoetic, expository, reflexive, observational, performative, and participatoryeach containing its own specific characteristics.

What is a documentary story?

It is a genre of movie making that uses video & film scenes, photographs and/or sound of real people and real events which when edited together creates a particular story, viewpoint, message or experience.

How do you tell if a film is a documentary?

A documentary film purports to present factual information about the world outside the film. A nonfiction film about real events and people, often avoiding traditional narrative structures. Documentary [is] the creative treatment of actuality.

What is the difference between a documentary and a reality show?

Reality is focused more on the individual episode’s arc, even if it’s part of a continued story (as lives tend to continue in a forward manner). Documentary is focused more on the full product. And that product could be an eight-episode season of a series that may be picked up for more episodes/seasons later.

How do you write a documentary?

Ken Burns’s 8 Tips for Writing a Documentary Script

  1. Use the narrative elements at your disposal. …
  2. Use early drafts to determine your film’s narrative arc. …
  3. Find impactful ways to tell your story. …
  4. Build structure around facts. …
  5. Use different narrative points of view. …
  6. Words are not set in stone.

What is a personal documentary?

Personal documentaries are one part story, one part art, and one part therapy. The personal documentary is a relatively new art form that combines a documentary film and memoir wrapped up into one. … Although these films are most often starring the filmmaker themself, we may or may not actually see them on screen.

How do you create a documentary?

Key Steps to Making Documentaries:

  1. Tell a story you care about. Start with a subject that excites you. …
  2. Research. Learn everything you can about your documentary subject. …
  3. Make a Plan. Create an outline. …
  4. Create a Shot List. …
  5. Start Shooting. …
  6. Write a Script. …
  7. Begin Editing. …
  8. Check Legal and Copyright Issues.

What are the 3 types of documentaries?

In this VOD we examine 3 different types of documentaries: Observational, Expository and Participatory. You will see examples of films that have used each of the 3 types of genre successfully.

What are the documentary types?

Documentary genres

What are documentary movies called?

Docufiction Docufiction (or docu-fiction), often confused with docudrama, is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film.

How do you make a photo documentary?

7 tips to taking documentary photographs

  1. Be open to life. A big part of being able to take a good documentary photograph is being open to what unfolds in front of you. …
  2. Step back. …
  3. Watch edges. …
  4. Close Photoshop. …
  5. Always have your camera ready.

Why do we watch documentaries?

New conversation fodder Documentaries give you new things to share and talk about with others. … It’s fun and interesting Documentaries are often fun and entertaining to watch. They are one of the easiest ways to learn new information due to our attraction to visuals, music, and story-telling.

What’s the difference between a documentary?

Documentary makers certainly want to engage and captivate their audience, and some feature films can be very informative, but a key difference between the documentary and feature film is in the filmmaker’s motivation. Feature films are mostly fiction, sometimes total fantasy. … Documentaries are non-fiction films.

Do documentaries use actors?

Documentary filmmakers are also given to hiring actors/actresses to read letters and documents that relate to the subject of the film, in an attempt to bring the impact of a human face or voice to the words.

Is documentary photography art?

Documentary photography is a form of fine-art photography that aims to shed light on a cultural, social, or political issue. Similar to street photography and photojournalism, there are no posed portraits and no glamourized scenes.

How much do documentaries make?

What are Top 5 Best Paying Related Documentary Filmmaker Jobs in the U.S.

Job Title Annual Salary Weekly Pay
Documentary Films $76,725 $1,475
Travel Documentary $69,674 $1,340
Science Documentary $65,164 $1,253
Independent Filmmaker $61,052 $1,174

What does docu reality mean?

A docu-style series is a reality-based series that focuses on a specific real world subject, person, profession, lifestyle, family, business or venue. … It also brings a huge opportunity for people from all walks of life to propose their own unique world, profession, or lifestyle as the subject for a television series.

Are reality shows real or fake?

Reality television is programs in which people are continuously filmed designed to be entertaining rather than informative. Everyone has different opinions on whether reality television is real or fake. … Most reality television shows are scripted and the participants know where the cameras are.

What is a video documentary?

Documentaries are videos or films that present factual or nonfictional information. A documentary normally uses real people, places, and events to tell a true story or to present information that engages the audience.

Do documentaries need a script?

Documentaries are supposed to be the cinematic search for truth. … You don’t need to script your entire documentary project, but ample pre-production does help get your subjects, locations, and even narratives outlined and queued up before you begin filming.

Are documentaries scripted?

Documentary filmmaking is capturing reality in some way with the script often written AFTER the shooting has begun. With narrative, the story and script are crafted in the beginning and with documentary, the story (often) unfolds as it happens.

How do I find documentary ideas?

Another way to find great documentary ideas is to pay attention to the news. Read your local newspaper, follow blogs in your areas of interest, follow thought leaders on Twitter. Keep an eye out for odd bits of information or a nuggets of a story that could lead to something bigger.

What is a first person documentary?

Not necessarily a self-oriented exercise, first-person documentary can describe any nonfiction film in which the director doesn’t assume a silent, omniscient perspective, but leans into their subjective point of view and experience, on matters personal or global.

What is an observational documentary?

Observational documentary is a type of documentary filmmaking that aims to record realistic, everyday life without intrusion. Also called cinma vrit style, direct cinema, or fly-on-the-wall filmmaking, observational documentary mode exists on a spectrum between poetic documentary and expository documentary.

What is a participatory documentary?

Participatory documentary is a subgenre of documentary filmmaking in which the filmmaker is included in the film’s narrative and directly interacts with the film’s subjects.

What is a short documentary?

Documentary Feature motion pictures with a running time of more than 40 minutes, and. B. Documentary Short Subject motion pictures with a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits.

How do I sell my documentary on Netflix?

Netflix only accepts submissions through a licensed literary agent, or from a producer, attorney, manager, or entertainment executive with whom we have a preexisting relationship. Any idea that is submitted by other means is considered an unsolicited submission.

How do you record a documentary?

Documentary work requires not only great video, but great sound too.Here are nine tricks that will help capture the best audio.

  1. Freeze the Room. Before setting up your gear, ask to put the A/C unit on full blast to freeze the room. …
  2. Freeze Your Keys. …
  3. Avoid Recording in the Middle of the Room. …
  4. Use Gaff Tape to Hide Lav Mics.