A2 - Styles of documentaries

Bill Nichols - The six styles of documentaries

Poetic mode

This abstract approach to documentary filmmaking emphasises visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, description, and form. This short Poetic documentary has calm music playing throughout it over the visual footage. Poetic documentaries are usually used to put across a message and come across in a very powerful way.

Reflexive mode

In a reflexive documentary, the film maker acknowledges their presence in front of the camera  and provides a narrative to the documentary. Louis Theroux has made a number of reflexive documentaries, he sometimes participates in activities he is filming and often takes a casual approach to interviewing people while he is documenting. In this example at the beginning the camera and film crew are established and then shown throughout.

Performative mode

The performative documentary emphasises truth as relative, favouring a personal take over the objective lens. Performative documentaries present ideas as part of a context, having different meanings for different people, often autobiographical in nature. Performative documentary is often seen as very honest and usually involves the film maker them self being the subject of the documentary.

Expository mode

Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of view.
The main conventions of an expository are a narrator, continuous running commentary and a detailed narrative to explain what the footage is showing. David Attenborough is very well known for his expository nature documentaries.

Observational mode

This mode uses the observations of an unobtrusive camera to create direct engagement with the everyday life of subjects. This is sometimes know as the 'Fly on the wall' approach. This mode allows footage to be real and un-biased.

Participatory mode

This mode emphasises the interaction between filmmaker and subjects. These films usually take the form of a series of interviews or other forms of even more direct involvement from conversations to provocations. Archival footage to examine historical issues is also included.