Movie Genre Conventions: Documentary

    A documentary film is often based on real life happenings reenacted by professional actors to tell the story in a more dramatic and interesting way. These films can often be quite educational if portrayed well and not exaggerated too much, as they often contain video footage of the real incident happening if such footage exists.

    

    Documentary films do not have to always be based on real life events though. Some documentaries could be completely fictional action or horror films where the conventional documentary style filming and commentary is used to make the film seem more realistic and personal as the viewer will feel as though they are witnessing these events first hand and more privately than if it was made in a more ordinary style.

    Actuality is the term used to describe said clips of real footage rather than actor recreation. Explanation, commentary and dramatisation are also conventional of documentary films as they are used to make it feel as though the viewer is being directly spoken to and dramatisation makes the story line for intriguing for the reader because if it's quite a boring event, it will seem more normal to the viewer and so they will be less drawn into it.

    Voice-overs are often used in documentaries, which are usually spoken by the protagonist, or the person 'filming' the documentary (when it's usually actually a professional.) There is also some duologue in documentary films, often between the cameraman/woman and the/a person in the shot. This can often be in the form of an interview, which is particularly effective in showing the potential points of views of the people there at the time.

    Archival footage is the word used to describe the footage used in actuality. Archival footage is footage from a real life happening stored in a library or archive, which can later be inserted into a film or other footage.

    Documentary films frequently start with exposition which is used at the very beginning of the film and is there to introduce important themes. Common themes of documentary films are non-fiction, disaster, drama, action, horror, romance or sci-fi. Documentaries can basically be done with any theme/sub-genre as you can document anything really.

    A documentary is not really limited to any particular kinds of shots, however, it is unlikely to find unnatural camera angles such as birds-eye views as this is often unacheivable when using a hand-held camera, unless you're stood above someone. Mid shots and close ups are typical of this genre as well as establishing shots.