A documentary is typically a real and the events are true and had happened. Although some scenes may be recreated, this gives the documentary its authenticity. Documentaries are understood to be non-fiction and real life and usually a director or filmmaker usually just observes and/or makes opinions or narrates. There are some different types of documentaries where the director is a part of the documentary and interacts with the people or things in the documentary and there are some documentaries that are a series of images and film without narration or interviewees.
Expository Documentaries are the typical documentary. Sometimes the documentary will start with the filmmaker or director introducing the subject of the documentary and the rest of the documentary are usually filled with interviews with significant people, icons or celebrities. The filmmaker usually only asks questions and sometimes talks to the interviewees or explain things. In this documentary, the staff of NaughtyDog talks about how The Last of Us was made and how they wanted to make the game very realistic and "grounded". The documentary covers many aspects of video game making, but it mainly focuses on the process of making The Last of Us. In the sound section, the sound engineers talk about how they made the iconic Clicker noise; they got voice actors to make some weird noises and even the sound engineers would make some noises and then they compiled the sounds together to create the sound.
Observational Documentaries are the type of minimal editing documentaries. Usually the camera is recorded for a long time along with the audio but little to no editing is made so the footage is unedited and abiding truthfully to what actually happened. One example of this is Titicut Follies, from the director of Frederick Wiseman. Frederick Wiseman had his cameraman film these prisoners in the different prison/hospital environments. The footage feels genuine and seems to flow really well since we can see that the footage is pretty much unedited and all the sound was what happened when they were recording.
An Interactive Documentary is a documentary where the filmmaker or director is on camera, interacting with the people or things within the documentary and where the presenter is part of the documentary where they (he/she) shares their experiences with someone or something. One example of Interactive Documentary is Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends - UFOs. Louis Theroux goes to South America to visit some UFO Hunters. Louis explains and talks about his thoughts and feelings and asks questions about what he thinks and wants to know. What makes this documentary interesting is that Louis and the audience don't know about these things BUT we want to learn what these other people think etc. Louis Theroux does try and uncover truths and he is considered to be a Relexive Documentary Filmmaker, but he is also considered to be Interactive.
You can watch the full documentary here:
Reflexive Documentaries are much like Interactive documentaries but the filmmaker/director/writer will go one step further to reveal a truth or uncover something about a subject although the filmmaker doesn't need to be present in the documentary but can still heavily imply something. In this documentary, we can see the devastation to Pripyat, Chernobyl and see how the nuclear disaster had affected this city. The footage shows what was once a city filled with life but now it lacks life. The documentary shows how a city ends up after a disaster as big as the Chernobyl nuclear blast.
A Preformative Documentary is when the documentary focuses on the raw emotions of people or things. This is a much more dramatic outlook for this type of documentary and the documentary can mean different things to different people. These types of documentary are usually perspective and autobiographical. In this documentary, it shows black gay men trying to overcome racism and homophobia.
In conclusion, I feel that showing true information about a person or subject is vital for getting across a possible unbiased view. I also think manipulating the evidence or the facts to suit ones needs is unethical and should not be done for a documentary, especially if it is reflective of real life. Although some documentaries do this for a positive impact some documentaries do this to evoke a negative opinion or bias.
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