Silver Line Productions

BACK Critical Reading

Documentary genres:

Docu-fiction: Refers to documentary that has a cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction. In other words, it is a documentary that contains a large amount of fictional aspects. This genre is often confused with docu-drama; the difference is that docu-fiction is filmed in reality of “real-time”.

Docu-drama: Documentary that features a dramatised re-enactment of historical events. This genre is often shot at a different time than the events portrayed. These documentaries are at times filmed at a location to create a real set. A lot of elements of docu-drama are similar to the production of a fictional film, however everything portrayed in a docu-drama is based on historical facts.

Ethnofiction: this genre blends together documentary and visual anthropology to portray natives playing themselves as character to inform about a particular ethnic or social group.

Mockumentary: This genre mocks a documentary. It presents fictitious events in a documentary format. Often these productions analyse or comment on social or current events taking place. Mockumentaries are considered quite difficult to get right as they often fall under the comedy or satirical genre.

Mondo film: This genre is often considered an exploitation documentary film. It at times resembles pseudo-documentary. Characteristics of this genre include taboo subjects such as death or sex, portrayals of foreign cultures. Films done in this genre have sometimes been accused of racism.

Honest truthes: Documentary filmaker on Ethical challenges in the work.
Article by Patricia Aufderheide, Peter Jaszi, and Mridu Chandra

This article looks into the struggle documentary film makers have when showing truthfulness in documentary and keeping an ethical standard. Concerns for ethics in documentary are not a new thing; however they have intensified over the past years due to alterations in the industry. In the 1990s in the U.S., documentary film was becoming widely popular as entertainment. Film makers were regarded quite highly; therefore there was more pressure from the economy and society was scrutinising them for their ethical standards. This article is very useful as it gives a perceptive look into documentaries such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Mighty times: the children’s march, and Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and Standard Operating Procedure. All of these documentaries are examples of how the audience questions the accuracy of them and judges whether the stories were fabricated or not. The article go on the explain how for film makers its more difficult as they are mostly freelancers selling their work to bigger companies such as PBS, Discovery, and National geographic. Some of the ethical limitations that film makers go to are seen as quite controversial. For example, the article has a quote from a film maker stating that they broke an animal’s leg during a wildlife shoot just so they could get the shot of the animal. Other issues that are expanded on in the article are about when film makers set up scenes. This gives viewers the impression that it is truthful when it had been staged to look truthful. A lot of television and film companies discourage this as it gives a false impression. The article goes on the explain how each film maker has to make their own decision as to how ethically far they want to go such has whether protect the subjects vulnerability and integrity or to just do what they felt the documentary requires.

The media, poverty, and public opinion in the UK
Article by: John H McKendrick, Stephen Sinclair, Anthea Irwin, Hugh O'Donnell, Gill Scott and Louise Dobbie
This article examines the ways in which the media represents poverty across the world. This article has a strong significance on how poverty is featured in the UK media. It states that only a small percentage; only 640 news reports referred directly to poverty. Even though that may appear like a large number, comparing it to the overall amount of news reports it is a significantly small percentage. This article gives an insightful look to how journalists feel about poverty. Although poverty is shown in reality television and on documentaries that focus solely on third world countries, it is stated that poverty does not make enough of a “news-worthy” story and that the media is not simply ignoring poverty they just aren’t “knocking on the door of it”. As an article this is well written and honest. Poverty can often be seen as a “not in my backyard” story, however this article portrays the lack of knowledge brought about in the UK media simply because people cannot be bothered to report about as they don’t see what significance is had in the news.
http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/media-poverty-and-public-opinion-uk

Bew Media Documentary: Explorations in the Changing form, Theory and Practice of documentary
Article by Gunthar Hartwig

This is an insightful paper on how development and growth of new technology has opened a large amount of opportunities for documentary film makers. This paper explores that ways that documentary is being made and how the new media is affecting that. This paper does not only focus on documentary today but it also talks about how documentary began the progress it had made in today’s media. It goes into depth about the different sub-genres of documentary and what an audience is interested in. Bill Nichol’s states how an audience expects what they see in a documentary to be nothing but the truth. The do not expect that what they see has been set up or edited to appear as the truth but that it is truthful. This is where the technology of today has an effect. As we now have the resources to alter images people no longer see a picture or a piece of documented film as 100% truthful as they did back in the 1920s. This paper is very beneficial as it addresses multiple points and issues about documentary. http://www.gunthar.com/gatech/digital_documentary/Database_Documentary.pdf

Hyper and Meta Aesthetics of documentary-Photojournalism image

This guide is very useful in demonstrating various technical examples. It shows how technical skills in photojournalism can create emotions. One example is the section on Exaggerating reality-emotions. For example, photos that shows people in hardships such as poverty. This then causes the viewer to compare their own life to that of the subject’s. Other aspect this guide covers is techniques such as “breaking Edges”. Photographs that experiment such as not including the head of a subject in the image makes the viewer want to know more about it or imagine what is missing. I found this guide to be very helpful as it covered things such as depth of field, shutter speed, clutter VS. minimalism, and other ways of enhancing technical elements to make an image more emotional.

Photojournalism Representation in film
Kyle Ross McFaniel
Dr C. Zoe Smith, thesis supervisor
August 2007
This paper looks at how photojournalists are represented in film. From the mid 1950s photojournalists were often portrayed by Hollywood in a negative manner. They were often used as comic relief characters being portrayed as the scruffy outsider, villains, or on a rare occasion heroes. This article uses the example of Rear Window to demonstrate how the photojournalist character was seen. In the 1930s and 1940s the portrayal a lonely magazine photographer in Hitchcock’s Rear window changed the image of that character. This was the start of the new stereotype for photojournalists. By the 1980s photojournalists were seen as a recurring leading character and heroic but ethically challenged. This paper goes into depth about the study of why the way photojournalists are portrayed in Hollywood is of relevance to the photojournalism industry. He concluded his study with explanation of how Hollywood has such a large impact on society and the way culture is depicted in film mimics the way society then sees their own culture. This then leaves people with the conception that in “real-life” photojournalists are perceived the way they are represented in Hollywood films.
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38222