The primary purpose of a documentary is to document history while maintaining aspects of reality, and to inform, educate, and entertain audiences. John Grierson defined documentaries as involving a "creative treatment of activity". Documentaries commonly use observation footage, interviews, and narration to convey their exposition and themes. Different documentary styles include self-reflective, docusoaps, fly-on-the-wall, mixed, docudrama, and fully narrated formats.

2. The primary purpose of a documentary is to document and maintain records of history
whilst maintaining some aspects of reality. It has the secondary purpose to inform,
educate and entertain.
John Grierson was a British film maker in the 1930’s who
was the head of the general post office film unit. He
defined documentaries as “creative treatment of
activity”.

3. Observation
• A method used to suggest that the
camera is not seen or ignored by the
people being documented. Most
documentaries contain this as allows
the audience to view events and
provides evidence for the exposition.
features
Interview
• Interviews are common in
documentaries as it is a way of
extracting certain information from
the interviewee. It can be a way of
getting more specific answers
regarding the event that link to the
clip shown. The interviewee generally
responds to the questions set buy the
interviewer, the questions or
interviewer could be shown on or off
the screen for example audio only
(camera stays on interviewee).
Cutaways are also used to show
other footage in relation or to
support the interview.
Exposition
• The direct or indirect message given by
Dramatisation
• Drama is often used to add
the documentary. It is most common at
the beginning of the documentary as it
introduces the main themes of the film.
This is important as it can influence the
viewers first impression of the content.
more realistic features to the
observational footage as it
allows features to be present
or the portrayal of subjects or
events that cannot be
accessed in real life.
Mise en Scene
• Particular angles, shot sizes and types
are used to suggest different meanings
and effects in displaying the information
to the audience. Shots have been
composed to contain images that the
audience need to see. It includes details
such as in an interview a specific lighting
or setting may be used to create a
better understanding and also to keep
the audiences attention.

4. types
Self Reflective
• This relies on participation and a
host is most common in this
type of documentary. The host is
used to draw attention to his/her
role as host
Docusoaps
•Docusopas are observational. It is
a longitudinal series that follows
an individual or group of people.
Fly on the wall
•When the camera is unseen or the people
ignore it. The cameras record the events
which are unrolled. This riles heavily on
editing.
Mixed
•A combination of observation,
interviews and narration. The
footage used is also a combination
of actuality footage, archive
material, interviews and
observations.
Docudrama
•Show events that have happened at the time. It
is a reconstruction or re-enactment of a real
event. It is based on fact and speculation
through re-enactment.
Fully Narrated
• when the narrator narrates the whole way
through the documentary. It is used to convey
exposition and they use it to make sense of what
they see.