Adapted from Teaching Documentary

1. Adapted from Teaching Documentary For Higher Media Studies Rick Instrell (Instrell@aol.com) (www.cpdregister.org.uk)

2. Problems of Definition • What is a documentary? • Are reality TV shows documentaries? • If the profilmic event in these would not have occurred without the existence of the camera, then they should be excluded from definition of documentary which deals treating rather than actually constructing the actuality

3. Documentaies Dealing With ‘Reality’ • Ethnographic e.g. Nanook of the North, An American Family • Cinema verité (direct cinema) e.g. High School, Gimme Shelter • Walt Disney movie, Wild Wilderness Lemmings!

4. Newsreel (e.g. The March of Time) Social action Propaganda TV news Current affairs TV documentaries (biography, nature, history, arts, investigative, education, sport, travel, food, …) Formal Documentaries

5. Documentaries with Individual Views • Poetic e.g. Koyaanisqatsi • Personal e.g. Sans Soleil • Polemical e.g. Fahrenheit 9/11 • Reflexive e.g. Man with a Movie Camera

6. Hybrid Documentaries • Docudrama: fiction that uses documentary technique e.g. The War Game • Dramadoc: documentary that uses fictional techniques e.g. Bloody Sunday • Reality TV: various formats (see later) • Mockumentaries: fiction which uses documentary style e.g. This is Spinal Tap, Incident at Loch Ness

7. Docusoap: Airport Professional Cops, Crimewatch Access Video Nation Relationships Blind Date Talent searches. Pop Idol Voyeur Big Brother Celebrity life The Osbournes Talk Shows The Jerry Springer Show Makeovers What Not To Wear, Changing Rooms, Hell’s Kitchen, Pimp My Ride Competitions The Apprentice, Dragons’ Den Looking for… Nancy or Joseph. Extreme situations e.g. I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here Reality Television Formats

8. Why Reality Television? 1 Why do tv stations like reality tv? • Cheap ~$0.2m per episode (cf. ER >$1m) so low-risk • Ratings • More channels = more demand • Can customise audience to fit ads by careful selection of ‘cast’ • Celebrity obsessed culture • Product of media convergence: synergy though tv, WWW, text messaging, free coverage on radio, breakfast tv, newspapers, magazines, cross-promotion through conglomerate divisions

9. Why Reality Television? 2 Why do audiences watch reality tv? • Voyeurism & titillation • Unpredictable • Interactive • Laughter, tears, horror, embarrassment, …. • Learn social mores • Can discuss/watch with family/friends. Water cooler chat Annette Hill (2003): • Audiences ‘see through’ factual tv – critical viewers (‘chic’ to be cynical) • Major enigma: how ‘real’ is it? • Pleasure of ‘moment of truth’ when ‘acting up’ stops and person’s real nature comes through • Audience’s critical media literacy is applied to more factual genres such as news

10. Nichols on Documentary Bill Nichols (2001) suggests 4 aspects to documentary definitions: • Institutions/organisations which define programme/film as documentary • Communities of filmmakers who choose to represent the historical world • Body of texts with its own conventions • Constituency of viewers who want to know about the real world and who recognise the reality/representation duality

11. Categories: Medium • Film (ticket buyers in darkened cinema) • Television (domestic setting with distractions) • Role of media convergence (digital convergence as well as conglomeration) • Multimarketing (DVD with extras, books, audio books, website) • Website. Serious and spoof http://www.allyfarson.com/html/mainpage.html

12. Categories: Form • Fiction: narrative genre defined by syntax (plots, conflicts) and semantics (stock characters, setting, props). • Non-fiction: needs to be defined by different criteria e.g. purpose, subject, style… • Hybrids: mixing conventions of both

13. Categorising Documentary How do we categorise documentaries? • Purpose: propaganda, social activism, education, observation, analysis, insight, aesthetics, drama, reflexivity, entertainment, profit, … • Subject: war, concert, nature, … • Style: compilation, cinema verité (direct or observational cinema), … • Authored: e.g. Nick Broomfield, Michael Moore

14. Nichols’ Documentary Modes Nichols (2001): • Poetic: associational e.g. Koyaanisqatsi • Expository: ‘voice-of-God’ e.g. Horizon • Observational: ‘fly-on-the-wall’ e.g. Gimme Shelter • Interactive/Participative: get truth from ‘horse’s mouth’ e.g. Kurt and Courtney • Reflexive mode: questions its own ‘truth’ e.g. Man with a Movie Camera • Performative: emphasises subjective feelings e.g. The Thin Blue Line

15. Genre: Documentary Conventions Documentary uses a set of conventions which signify ‘realism’ (the documentary ‘look’): • Archive footage and photographs • ‘Talking heads’ • Jiggly camera • Location shooting and sound • Voiceover narration (‘voice-of-God’) • Real people (may use actors in re-enactments) • Documentary editing which makes an argument (cf. continuity editing of fiction) …

16. Categories: Tone • Serious (Nichols: ‘discourse of sobriety’) • Objective • Subjective • Polemical • Comic • Satiric …

17. Language: Technical & Cultural Codes What are the principal elements of documentary discourse? (Corner, 1996) • Image modes: observation (minimal intervention with profilmic event); interaction (coding through mise-en-scène, composition, shot type, framing, editing …); illustration (supporting verbal discourse); association (juxtaposition of images) • Speech modes: overheard exchange; testimony; voiceover; to-camera address. plus • Sound modes: expressive/commentative/illustrative use of sound/music

18. Language: Anchorage How do images and sound interact? • Expressive: is the sound and/or mise-en-scene expressive of the action? e.g. reflecting the inner states of the characters • Commentative: does the sound and/or mise-en-scene comment on the action? e.g. ironic comments/music, distanciation • Illustrative: images may be used to illustrate the argument in the voiceover

19. Narrative: Formal Structure 1 Question: what are the recurring motifs? • Themes (what are the recurring elements of the argument about the subject?) • Styles (what methods recur in the handling of sound, words and images?)

20. Narrative: Formal Structure 2 Question: what is the formal structure of the text? Bordwell & Thompson (2001) suggest these formal structures for documentary: • Narrative form: cause-effect event chain e.g. Touching the Void • Categorical form: sorts its referent into sub-/super- categories (cumulative/ contrastive/ developmental) e.g. Life of Birds • Rhetorical form: presents argument – look for repetition of organisational refrain (e.g. ‘why did this happen?’) e.g. Panorama • Associative form: juxtapose sound & image so that audience makes connections e.g. Koyaanisqatsi

21. Rhetorical Form 1 How does it present its argument? • Uses direct address • Subject is a matter of opinion rather than fact • Suppression of other opinions • Often appeals to emotions • Tries to make audience act

22. Rhetorical Form 2 What types of arguments are used? • Source-centred: presenting the film as a reliable source of information e.g. reliable narrator, authoritative sources • Subject-centred: appeals to shared beliefs about subject matter; uses examples; uses argumentation schemes • Viewer-centred: appeal to emotions, logic

23. Argumentation Schemes Question: What are the structures of its arguments? • Problem-solving: “If X is a problem, do Y to solve it” • Authority: “As professor X says …” • History: “History teaches us that …” • Illustration: “As X shows …” • Numbers: “If numbers prove argument, then do X” • Comparison: of ‘us’ and ‘them’ • Similarity: “We are all in the same boat”

24. Rhetorical Form Structure What is the typical structure of the argument a text with a rhetorical form? • Introduction to situation • Discussion of facts • Solutions • Summary epilogue

25. Representation: Selection, Portrayal, Ideological Discourses • Documentary ultimately seeks some form of ‘truth’ - but whose and what kind of truth? • Who and what is selected and how are they portrayed? • Who and what is not selected? • Is what is portrayed accurate? • Whose ‘truth’ is portrayed? • How does the film reflect the hegemonic struggle between ideological discourses?

26. Competing Discourses in Bowling for Columbine Complex mix of: • Right-wing pro-gun, racist, corporate, political elite discourses (=BAD) • Liberal/left anti-gun, anti-racist, anti-corporate, populist discourses (=GOOD) • Individualist demagoguery of the director/player • ‘Gonzo’ journalism (in the style of Hunter S Thompson: subjective reportage using sarcasm, humour, exaggeration, distortion)

27. Audience: Target Audience • Where is this film most likely to be screened? (multiplex, art house, both?) • What channel is this film most likely to be shown on and what time was it screened? (network, cable/satellite, niche channel?) • What are the demographics of the target audience?

28. Audience: Mode of Address 1 How relationship with audience is established e.g. • How does it address ‘structure of feeling’ of audience? • Direct/indirect mode of address • General/specific address mode of address • Unified/fragmented mode of address

29. Audience: Mode of Address 2 How relationship with audience is established e.g. • Poetic mode: aesthetic response; polysemy • Expository mode: didactic, direct address • Observational mode: ‘fly-on-the-wall’ • Interactive mode: get truth from ‘horse’s mouth’ • Reflexive mode: makes audience question doc’s ‘truth’ • Performative mode: emphasises subjective feelings about actuality portrayed

30. Audience: Preferred Reading What is the intentional meaning of the film as encoded by its producers? • Bowling for Columbine poses the question (enigma): Why so many gun killings in USA? • Moore’s answer: “The media, the corporations, the politicians have all done such a good job of scaring the American public …”

31. Audience: Differential Decoding How do different audiences interpret the text? • Right sees Bowling for Columbine as left-wing propaganda full of falsehoods and deception (see www.freedomfiles.org/movies/bowling fiction.htm and www.bowlingfortruth.com) • Liberal/left agree with some of analysis but see Moore as a self-promoting narcissicist who is deluded in thinking that his approach can change US politics

32. Institution: Internal Context How does the internal context shape the text? • Can conceptualise the internal context of film production as a struggle between the allocative and operational (productive/creative) levels of control • In film, this often comes down to who has right of final cut • In ‘authored’ documentaries authorial control and ‘authorial stamp’ must be considered

33. Michael Moore as ‘Auteur’ 1 • Michael Moore an ensemble of signs which connotes ‘ordinary guy’ • Narcissist and entrepreneur • Inserts himself into public debates • Staged encounters with authority (‘big shots’ do what they want and don’t care about ‘ordinary folks’) • Speculations give enough information to cause suspicion but not enough to make a case • Accused of distorting facts

34. Michael Moore as ‘Auteur’ 2 • First-person polemic with punchlines • Excludes articulate opponents of his arguments • Mixes comedy and tragedy • Comic/ironic use of music • Funny, opinionated, sometimes eloquent • Expert editing and structuring of material with bravura montages of archive material

35. Institution: External Context 1 How does external context shape text? • Documentary features very popular in cinemas in recent years Bowling for Columbine (budget $4m, US gross $21m) Fahrenheit 9/11 ($6m/ $119m) Super Size Me ($0.3m, $12m) • These documetaries often feature alternative viewpoints which receive little coverage in mainstream news • Should lead to more being made and gaining distribution • Successes in cinemas may affect reality tv e.g. Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) has signed deal with US cable channel FX to make 30 Days in which someone will spend a month in an unfamiliar environment e.g. prosecutor spends month in jail, Christian lives as a Muslim

36. Institution – External Context 2 • Execs believe reality TV has made audiences more accepting of documentary • HBO, Discovery, BBC (Storyville), C4 are allowing filmmakers to experiment in styles, formats, topics • TV wants topics that appeal globally • Want a point-of-view and narrative style that borrows from reality formats • Budgets $0.25m..$1m per hour

37. Institution – External Context 3 • US film ratings governed by Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) • NC-17 would exclude the keenest moviegoers

38. Institution – External Context 4 USA: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ratings • TV-Y (All Children) • TV-7 (Directed to Older Children 7 and up) • TV-G (General Audience) • TV-PG (Parental Guidance) • TV-14 (Parents Strongly Cautioned) • TV-MA (Mature Audience Only) • May add V violence, S sex, L language, D suggestive dialogue

39. Technological Context How does technology shape text? • Light-weight cameras and sound equipment, digital editing have revolutionised documentaries • Costs reduced because smaller crews • Faster editing (Bowling for Columbine 200h2h) lowers costs • Filmmakers spend more time making films rather than finding co-production monies